Both Chromebook and tablet shipments declined in 2022

Recently, market research firm IDC released the latest global quarterly personal computing device tracking report, including data for the fourth quarter of 2022 and the full year of 2022 for the global tablet market.

The report shows that the global tablet PC market stabilized in the fourth quarter of 2022, with a growth of 0.3%, but the annual shipments fell by 3.3%, ending two consecutive years of growth. Chromebook shipments continued to contract in the fourth quarter of 2022, down 24.3% year-over-year to 3.6 million units, and for the full year, shipments were down 48%.

As ever, Apple and Samsung are still the main players in the tablet market. Apple is the undisputed leader, accounting for nearly half of the market at 49.2% in the fourth quarter of 2022 and 38% for the full year of 2022. Samsung’s market share in the fourth quarter and the whole year of 2022 will be 16.8% and 18.6% respectively, showing a relatively stable performance.

Apple is the only manufacturer to achieve growth in 2022, an increase of 7%, of which the year-on-year growth in the fourth quarter of 2022 reached an astonishing 28.8%, which shows the strength of the iPad product line. Samsung is another manufacturer with positive growth in the fourth quarter of 2022, with a year-on-year increase of 7.1%. Except for Apple and Samsung, the rest of the manufacturers all experienced declines to varying degrees.

Compared with 2021, the performance of the Chromebook market in 2022 is not good, with shipments falling by 48%, while shipments in the fourth quarter of 2022 decreased by 24.3% year-on-year. The main market for Chromebooks is education, but with the increasingly severe economic situation and the reduction of COVID-19 epidemic control measures, there is not enough momentum.

Chromebooks have had a very tough time in the past few quarters, but excess channel inventory has begun to recede, and IDC believes that the next few quarters may gradually return to normal conditions.