The platform that refuses to go away
Chromebooks received a lukewarm reception when Google introduced them several years ago, though in more recent times, they've grown in popularity. Education remains the primary market for Chromebooks, followed by home consumers looking for a second system. Businesses aren't all that big on Chrome OS, but even with limited contribution from the enterprise market, Chromebook sales in 2015 are expected to rise 27 percent year-over-year, Gartner says.
Around the world, Gartner reckons Chromebook sales will reach 7.3 million units. That's not a very big number in the grand scheme of things, but what's interesting to note is the growing interest -- these cloud based systems are slowly capturing more market share rather than fading away in the wake of lower priced Windows laptops.
In the U.S., the education segment accounted for 60 percent of Chromebook sales last year, while home consumers approached 40 percent. Other businesses made up just over 1 percent of Chromebook sales.
"The majority of Chromebook users are tech-savvy individuals who purchase one as a companion device to their primary notebook or desktop PC. Others are buying a Chromebook for the household to use as a second low-cost PC alternative," said Isabelle Durand, principal analyst at Gartner.
"The major factors that affect the adoption of Chromebooks by consumers remain the connectivity issue in emerging markets, but also the ability for users to understand and get used to cloud-based applications, and keep content in the cloud and ecosystem," Durand added.
North America is where the bulk of Chromebooks end up -- 84 percent of them, Gartner says. Part of the reason for that could be that Samsung exited the European Chromebook market so that it could focus on tablets.
From maximumpc
from http://bit.ly/1dnglKv
