Ars Technica
For centuries, every annual report on market share on desktop operating systems has the same leading candidates: Microsoft’s Windows takes first place and Apple’s MacOS second. But in 2020, Chrome OS became the second most popular operating system, and Apple fell to third.
This is according to the numbers of the IDC market firm and a report on the IDC data by the publication GeekWire. Chrome OS has previously passed macOS briefly in individual quarters, but 2020 was the first full year when Apple’s OS took third place.
Despite the fact that macOS ended up in the third country, it may not be accurate to see it as an example of Google’s result from Apple. On the contrary, it’s likely that Chrome OS has largely removed the sales and market share of Windows on the lower end of the market. Mac market share has actually grown from 6.7 percent in 2019 to 7.5 percent in 2020.
Meanwhile, Chrome OS shot up from 6.4 percent in 2019 to 10.8 percent in 2020. Windows dropped from 85.4 percent to 80.5 percent.
The trend seems to be in Google’s favor here, but 2020 was far from a normal year. Last month, IDC’s report on computer sales showed the first year of steady growth of traditional computer sales (computers, laptops, workstations) in years. Even then, IDC indicated that the increase in sales was mainly driven by the expansion of Chromebooks inside and outside the education market.
As students in many communities had to attend virtually from home and their parents also had to work remotely, sales of computers increased during the year. Chrome OS was a big part of it. But the whole market has grown in general, not just Chrome OS. IDC also noted that gaming PCs have been a major driver of growth, and a particularly strong year for the Mac for various use cases.
As some of the world may find a new kind of post- or late-pandemic normality later this year or next year, new sales figures will give a clearer indication of where things will go in the future, not just how things went in 2020. . But at least in the education space, the future of Chrome OS looks pretty bright.