Lenovo, Apple Lead PC Segment in Q3, Chromebooks Were Bestsellers: Canalys

Chromebooks and tablets have seen stellar growth in the third quarter of 2020, whereas the desktop market saw an overall decline of 32 percent, according to a market analysis report from research firm Canalys. Its quarterly report on the PC market ecosystem reveals that Chromebooks were the best performing product in the PC landscape in Q3 as shipments grew 122 percent to a total of 9.4 million. Detachables like tablets and notebooks also grew 88 percent, and were reportedly the second-best performing products in the personal computing segment.

Canalys reports that Lenovo shipped the most number of tablets, notebooks, and desktops at 23.5 million in Q3 2020. They were closely followed by Apple with 22.1 million Mac and iPad shipments. Other big players in the top five global PC category include HP, Dell, and Samsung. The overall global PC market saw total shipments of 124.5 million with 23 percent year-on-year growth.

The report suggests that Chromebooks saw an impressive growth with HP more than doubling volumes from a year ago to hit 3.2 million units. Most of the shipments from HP were directed to the US. In the Chromebooks category, Lenovo stands second with 1.8 million units shipped. It saw a year-on-year growth of 300 percent. This is largely attributed to the COVID-19 crisis forcing students to study online and adults to work from home. Dell, Acer, and Asus are also reported to have posted strong Chromebook shipment volumes, making it to the list of top five in the global Chromebooks shipment category for the third quarter of 2020.

As mentioned, tablets also saw impressive growth with Apple leading the shipments with 15.2 million units and a growth of 47 percent. Samsung managed to come in second with over 9 million shipments and a growth of 80 percent from last year. Canalys says that Samsung has achieved such strong sales for the first time since Q4 2015. In the tablet category, Huawei comes in third with 5.1 million shipments and a growth of 38 percent. Amazon saw an annual growth of 7.9 percent, whereas Lenovo grew 58.9 percent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, the desktop segment saw an overall market decline of 32 percent. In this category, desktop workstations saw a decline of 27 percent whereas tower and small desktops saw a decline of 33 percent year-on-year. All-in-ones saw a modest annual growth of 7 percent in Q3 2020.

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