What you need to know
- Strategy Analytics has a new report on how notebook PCs fared in Q3 2021.
- Dell and Lenovo continued to have strong performance, as did Apple, though Chromebooks didn't quite replicate the success of prior quarters' figures.
- Overall, the notebook PC market was able to achieve 8% year-over-year (YoY) growth.
Global chip shortages haven't stopped the PC sector from seeing record-breaking figures over the past few years. That trend continues as of Q3 2021, with the notebook PC market managing 8% YoY growth despite staggered supply chains and other obstacles.
The 8% figure comes courtesy of Strategy Analytics, which had many Q3 numbers and talking points to report on. It highlighted the performance of Dell, Lenovo, and Apple, while also giving insight on the Chromebook situation.
Strategy Analytics CCD Director Eric Smith had this to say about Chromebook shipments' failure to grow at the rate of previous quarters: "Chromebook shipment year-over-year growth was down to single digits after many quarters of strong sales. The education demand slowed down in the US as most schools reopened for in-person learning and other spending took priority over computer purchases. A few vendors already had orders cancelled or delayed until new budget becomes available for computing devices again."
In other big-picture takeaways from Q3, Lenovo managed to remain market leader for its fourth quarter in a row with a "record in Notebook PC shipments (sell-in) of 15.3 million units." That's a 5% YoY jump from the 14.5 million this same time last year.
Meanwhile, HP saw a 5% YoY dip with 14.3 million unit shipments. This is the first quarter HP suffered a decline since the pandemic kicked off.
And coming in third, Dell pulled off 12.2 million unit shipments in Q3, gaining 5.1% market share compared to last year.
On the non-Windows side of computing, Apple MacOS operations saw a 10% jump in growth compared to Q3 2020 thanks to over 6.5 million MacBook shipments — a new quarterly record.
