The Korean manufacturer is known globally not only for its smartphone sales but also as a leading name in the Notebooks line as well. Samsung has had its hands full with manufacturing notebooks for the Windows platform and has also been successful in its nascent foray into the Chromebook space. However, if news coming in from Digitimes is to be believed, then Samsung may be planning to give up on Microsoft’s Windows platform completely.
Digitimes reports that Samsung had failed to meet its own target of Windows-based notebook sales last year. The Korean manufacturer had targeted to sell 17 million units for 2013; however it ended up selling only 12 million windows-based notebook computers in the previous year. Samsung missed its own sales target by 29.4%, which is why it has drastically cut down the target for windows-based notebook sales for 2014. Digitimes quotes Taiwanese component manufacturers working for Samsung and states that Samsung has reduced sales target for 2014 to just 7 million units.
These drastically reduced targets and the “Taiwanese sources” evidence the rumor that Samsung plans on shuttering its efforts on the Microsoft Windows platform. It seems that Samsung now wants to focus its energies on Google’s ChromeOS platform and produce more models for the Chromebook line. To an extent, it is very plausible and logical that Samsung wants to increase profits from products which performed well in 2013, rather than those which saw little to no sales momentum. The figures released by the NPD Group for 2013 state that Chromebooks enjoyed a 21% slice of notebook sales, whereas Windows-based notebooks sales exhibited no growth between 2012 and 2013.
The slump in Windows notebook sales could be attributed to the bland response received by Microsoft’s Windows 8 iteration. Chromebooks have also caught on in the market as the device doesn’t require a beefy spec to perform well – after all ChromeOS is a web-based OS and most of the users’ data is stored in the Google cloud. This helps manufacturers like Samsung to cut costs (ChromeOS is a free offering from Google) and undercut Windows notebooks on the price factor. Chromebooks have already made the jump from Geeks-only to 2.5 million units sold in a single year.
From Samsung’s viewpoint, this is a strategically viable move – the wisdom of which will be tested over time. As stated earlier, it’s likely that Samsung will also revamp its ARM based Chromebooks this year.