Since launching in Australia back in 2013, Chromebooks have been slowly inching their way into broader use. Now Google has released information saying that Chromebooks now have over 20% market share in Australia.
At launch in Australia, Chromebooks were highly available at both Harvey Norman and JB HiFi. Since then, both retailers, and others who jumped on board, have scaled back their availability to the point that it’s hard to find them in Australia.
Chromebooks have since found a more stable home within the education sector where large purchases, such as the recent ACT schools purchase have put Chromebooks into the hands of students, letting them work with the low-cost, low-maintenance devices.
This adoption has seen Chromebooks reach between 20%-30% market share in Australia, a statistic shared by Google in a blog entry penned by Cyrus Mistry, Group Product Manager, Chromebooks for Education. The statistic was in the form of an animated GIF which shows Chromebook adoption globally from 2012 to the present.
Google’s largest market is the North American market where the infographic shows they have between 50%-60% market share. Google doesn’t traditionally share numbers, so exact figures are hard to come by. The recent launch of Amazon in Australia has brought an easier way to source Chromebooks, so this statistic could be updated over the next couple of years rather significantly.
It seems that Chrome OS and Chrome devices aren’t going anywhere in the short term, with Google constantly iterating on the OS improving it at every turn. Whether we’ll see something along the lines of the now cancelled ‘Andromeda’ mix of Chrome OS and Android, or whether it’s replaced eventually by something like Fuchsia or whether Chrome OS becomes the dominant OS in Google’s stable is something we’ll just have to wait and see.
