Dan Ness, Principal Analyst, MetaFacts, October 25, 2020
Chromebooks have been offered as a low-cost alternative to full-featured Windows and Apple notebooks. One often-cited segment includes students and their parents. This MetaFAQs looks into the active installed base of Chromebooks among parents in the US, the UK, Germany, Japan, and China.
The COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on consumers around the world have helped Google Chromebooks to start to make a small dent in the active installed base after years of experimentation and effort. Parents are one bright spot for the slowly-adopted products, as they have sought support for remote work and to help with schooling at home.
Google Chromebooks have been on the market since 2013 and have only recently started to make much headway into the Windows and Apple-dominated PC market. Despite Chromebook’s generally lower prices, consumers have continued to choose other products. With recent Chromebook models having more horsepower and features than the earliest models, and after aggressive marketing by Google especially into educational markets, the products have eased into the consideration set. Many buyers distrustful of Google’s market dominance, advertising, and its handling of data privacy have stayed away from Google-linked products. Broad use of Android smartphones has moved some buyers into the ecosystem, at least in part.
Mid-2020 high demand and some supply disruptions of Windows and Apple notebooks drove some buyers – parents and work-at-home adults – to consider Google Chromebooks. It remains to be seen if this recent uptick is a blip in the product’s long road to market acceptance.
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