Apple appears to have made the most of the work from home demand for laptops, with new figures claiming it clocked a year-on-year quarterly growth of 94% for its MacOS-powered devices such as the MacBook Pro.
With an unprecedented increase in remote-first work environments around the world, laptop shipments recorded a year-on-year growth of 81% in Q1 2021, according to Strategy Analytics.
“The emerging hybrid work pattern as well as the continuing need for learn-from-home devices added to consumer upgrade sales, making Q1 2021 the strongest first quarter after many years. The favorable comparison to the dire situation last year also helped with the strong growth figures,” said Strategy Analytics’ Director of Connected Computing Devices, Eric Smith.
Smith added that the numbers are even more encouraging when seen in the context of the ongoing semiconductor shortage that’s impacting the output of several large vendors.
Remote learning
Although the sales figures are a result of an increase in the consumption of laptops for areas such as remote working and gaming, Strategy Analytics points to e-learning as the chief driver for the surge.
“Chromebooks continued to dominate the education sector as primary education sector demand is still high in developed markets,” notes report author Chirag Upadhyay.
He added that the small and medium businesses (SMB) market is also taking advantage of the cost competitiveness and manageability offered by Chromebooks.
Interestingly, in terms of growth, the cheap ChromeOS-powered devices, which rose 174%, were followed by the MacOS-powered laptops, which managed to almost double their sales figures in Q1 2021 with a 94% increase.