Chromebook sales likely to reach 7.3 million units in 2015 worldwide

The sales for Chomebooks, small laptops powered with Google's Chrome OS, will reach 7.3 million units this year.

According to well-known information technology research firm, Gartner, such sales boost accounts for a 27% increase than the sales made in 2014, wherein the Education segment represented 72% of global Chromebook market.

"Since the first model launched in mid-2011, Google's Chromebook has seen success mainly in the education segment across all regions. In 2014, the education sector purchased 72% of Chromebooks in EMEA, 69% in Asia/Pacific, and 60% in the U.S," asserts Isabelle Durand, principal analyst at Gartner.

As for the sales in a particular region, 84% Chromebook were sold in North America last year, whereas EMEA represented 11% of the sales and less than 3% sales in Asia Pacific region.

Acer sold more than 2 million Chromebook units in 2014, occupying the first position as the primary Chromebook vendor worldwide, whereas Samsung sold 1.7 million units, while being in the second place, followed by HP which sold one million units, with due credits to the storng connection with education partners.

The purchase of Chromebook remains low in the business segment when compared to the education, despite the firm interest expressed by the small and medium businesses (SMBs) as well as vertical industries. Whereas, Google seem to be targeting the business segment with Chromebooks for Work suite of office application and also improving access and functions while making more apps and services available offline.

"Chromebook is a device that can be considered by SMBs or new start-up companies that do not have the resources to invest too much in IT infrastructure. Chromebooks will become a valid device choice for employees as enterprises seek to provide simple, secure, low-cost and easy-to-manage access to new web applications and legacy systems, unless a specific application forces a Windows decision," adds Isabelle Durand.

The Chromebook is grabbing more attention in the consumer retail segment, but Google needs improve brand awareness especially in regions outside the US.

"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," notes Durand.

[Source: Gartner]