Chromebook and tablet shipments see another rapid decline for the year

According to research from Canalys PC Analysis, Chromebook and tablet shipments have fallen for the fourth quarter in a row for Q2 of 2022.

Shipments fell 14% to 105 million units, signifying a significant change in the buying climate.

Analysts at Canalys stated in their newsroom post that they believe the change has come as a result of rising inflation, COVID-related lockdowns in China, and falls in consumer and education spending.

Individually, tablets fell for the fourth quarter in a row, down 11% year on year this time with 34.8 million units shipped worldwide. Chromebooks also fell for a fourth consecutive quarter, with shipments down 57% to 5.1 million units in Q2 2022. The Canalys post attributes this to the decline in demand from the education sector.

When looking at shipments by company, Apple fell 15%, shipping 12.1 million iPads worldwide. Samsung maintained a consistent market share despite a 13% annual decline and came second in the rankings with 7.0 million units shipped.

Lenovo saw a 25% year-on-year decline in shipments at 3.5 million, placing them in third, and Amazon kept fourth place with a growth of 6% shipping 3.3 million units. Huawei came in fifth with a 26% year-on-year drop and 1.7 million tablets shipped.

The report goes on to say that analysts found the global Chromebook market stumbled after the surge in education demand in key markets a year ago. Acer was the leading Chromebook vendor in Q2 2022, taking over a quarter of the market as its shipments fell 28%.

Lenovo fell 56% from a year ago, and HP suffered the most significant decline of the top vendors, with a 79% decline in shipments. The analysts say that this is due to the company's reliance on the US education sector.

Canalys analyst Himani Mukka says that as new post-COVID developments arise, industries are changing the way they conduct themselves, leading to a significant change in consumer trends.

"The rapid fall in consumer and education demand has accelerated the decline in tablet shipments as we move further from the peak of the pandemic," she states in the newsroom release.

"Inflation and fears of a recession are at the forefront of consumers' minds, and spending on tablets has taken a backseat as the need for pandemic-era levels of use has fallen.

Canalys research analyst Brian Lynch adds that the move was expected and will change how companies think about their hardware distribution in the future.

"Chromebooks have now been hit by year-on-year shipment declines every quarter since Q3 2021," he says in the release.

"This period of negative growth has been an expected transition following the saturation of the category's two largest education markets, the US and Japan. Now, the global Chromebook market is set for a period of more consistent performance, with lower shipment numbers and more traditional seasonality than was seen during the pandemic.