Before the end of Summer, most students will go back-to-school shopping to get essential products to help them out through the year, and one of those essentials is electronics. With so many choices in the market, analysts have now stated that a lot of students often opt for Google’s Chromebooks, rather than an Apple Mac. This is due to the fact that Chromebooks are priced more aggressively compared to Macs, thus students are able to afford the cheaper alternative.
According to two analyst companies, Gartner and International Data Corporation, Mac sales declined quite drastically in the third quarter of the year, compared to the same quarter last year. Gartner reported that Mac sales dropped 13 percent in the third quarter compared to last year. International Data Corporation on the other hand, reported a 13.4 percent decline in sales of Macs. Chromebook sales did better overall, and can be seen in the difference between the reports by the two analytical companies. Gartner which did not include Chromebook sales in its studies, have stated that PC sales declined 5.7 percent, year over year. International Data Corporation which included Chromebook sales in its studies, reported that PC sales declined only 3.9 percent year over year. This means that Chromebook sales have been strong over the past year.
Google themselves have stated that over 20 million Chromebook units are being used for education, by teachers and students alike. Chromebooks are pretty much a more basic version of a PC that runs on Google’s own Chrome OS which is known to offer very fluid and smooth navigation overall. These Chromebooks have become very popular in recent years especially in the education system as they offer internet browsing and word processing at an affordable price. Now that web apps now offer many of the same functions as sophisticated PC software, it’s not hard to see why these Chromebooks are becoming more and more popular. Macs do offer the same thing, except that they are priced at a much higher price. At the moment, Chromebooks are manufactured by many electronic manufacturers around the world, such as Lenovo, Acer, Hewlett-Packard, Samsung, Dell and ASUS. However, Apple does not produce any Chromebooks, and only produces their own Macs. It is expected that the Chromebook market will continue to grow rapidly, and will sell 17 million units over the year 2023.