Note that in the second quarter of 2021, 12.3 million Chromebooks were shipped, the company registering a massive 68.6% YoY sales increase. All this is about to change, sadly for Google, as components shortage the likes of which we’ve seen in the manufacturing of consoles such as Xbox Series X/S and Playstation 5.

OEMs can only power up a limited amount of laptops

Other big competitors in this market, such as Lenovo, said that due to component shortages which include memory and notebook panel driver IC have limited sales, they’ve shipped 30-40% fewer devices. As you can see, these supply chain restrictions are taking quite a toll on big enterprises, which translates into billions of dollars. So, as a result, PC manufacturers are now starting to prioritize production lines in favor of the more profitable Windows PCs, at the expense of Chromebooks. This is a massive hit for HP, for, as you may know, Chromebooks make up 20% of HP’s portfolio. Experts at IDC have noticed this decline and predicted the shift in the market, as senior research analyst Anuroopa Nataraj mentioned. And, of course, the competition is gotten even more intense with the coming launch of Windows 11, which is likely to create a replacement cycle for older Windows laptops unable to run the OS. Furthermore, Google is expected to bet big on the commercial segment this year. Analysts expect to see a strong focus on attracting small businesses with updated services. They are talking about the new individual subscription tier for Google Workspace and promotions on CloudReady licenses to repurpose old PCs for deployment alongside existing Chromebook fleets However, with Apple constantly looking to expand its M1 success into the commercial space and Microsoft launching Windows 11 later this year, the PC OS race is set to be the most hotly contested it has been in a long time. What’s your opinion on this whole situation? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

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