IDC: Tablet and Chromebook shipments to reach 168.8 million units in 2021, up 3.2% year-on-year

IDC has just shared its 2021 statistics for the tablet and Chromebook markets, and it is known that shipments are growing but slowing down as the COVID-19 pandemic has eased. However, 2021 is still a fairly positive year for manufacturers - total shipments for the year increased by 3.2% to 168.8 million units.

IDC pointed out that as the peak of shipments since 2016, the performance in Q4 of 2021 also clearly showed that demand in the tablet/Chromebook market has slowed down.

First, tablet shipments fell to 46 million units in the fourth quarter of 2021, the first decline since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Secondly, almost all of the top five manufacturers experienced negative year-on-year growth (Amazon is an exception). Samsung, Lenovo, and Huawei suffered relatively heavy blows, but Apple is still the largest player in the field.

It’s important to note that while tablet shipments did not begin to decline until the last quarter of 2021, Chromebooks experienced a more precipitous decline (a 63.6% drop in Q4).

Fortunately, its strong performance at the beginning of the year allowed it to achieve a 13.5% growth in 2021 - total market sales reached 37 million units, higher than 32.6 million units in 2020/about 15 million units in 2019.

As for the reason for the slowdown in growth, it can be partly attributed to the saturation of the US and European markets. Even if there is still demand in emerging markets, it is obviously not enough to reverse the decline.

What's more, Chromebooks suffered a double blow from chip supply shortages last year, causing many manufacturers to switch to Windows PCs with higher profit margins.

From cnbeta