Limitations and All, Chromebooks Appear To Be Selling 126
puddingebola writes "A number of different websites are commenting on NPD's consumer research numbers that claim Chromebooks are getting 20-25% of the sub-$300 PC market. From the article: 'The NPD says that Google's Chromebook has now gained 20 to 25 percent of the sub-$300 laptop market in the U.S. That's a huge gain for a computer that's only been on the market for two years. It's even more impressive when you consider that Chromebooks were seen as nothing but a self-serving experiment on the part of Google for the first year of their existence.' Stephen Vaughan-Nichols is also blogging about this over at ZDnet. While the PC market shrank again in the second quarter of 2013, Chromebooks seem to have grown."
Re:How big is the market? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, if you look at the article's source [bloomberg.com], you get this gem:
Chromebooks still remain a small portion of the total U.S. market for laptops and netbooks. The devices had about 4 percent to 5 percent share in the first quarter, though that was up from 1 percent to 2 percent in 2012, according to Mikako Kitagawa, an analyst at Gartner Inc.
So, if the laptop market was ~33m units in Q1, that puts Chromebooks at ~1.5m for the quarter, which is the first thing approaching an actual number I've seen on Chromebook sales. Not sure how that spreads out between Samsung, Acer, and HP.
Re:But it IS self-serving (Score:4, Informative)
Will you be bombarded with ads? Sure?
nope?
if you never visit a google site, you'll never see a google ad on your chromebook. they don't insert ads at the OS level.
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)