Demand for Google Chromebooks more than doubled over the last year due to the rise in home working and homeschooling.

Google Chromebooks have been enormously popular in some sectors, such as education due to their simplicity and the versatility of Chrome OS now that many of us spend a lot of our PC-time buried in a browser.

Analyst Canalys estimated that Chromebook shipments more than doubled in 2020 from 14.7 million laptops to 30.7 million. In the last quarter, HP shipped 3.5 million units and Lenovo 2.8 million. Dell and Acer both shipped around 1.5 million each.

The last 11.2 million-strong quarter for Chromebooks is four times better than the same period in 2019.  

But despite its numerous successes, Chromebooks have been something of a slow burner - the percentage of so-called 'desktop' computers running Chrome OS ranged between 5.5 and 6.5 percent in the US towards the end of last year compared to around 28 percent for macOS and 63 percent for Windows (slightly down due to the Chrome OS and macOS rise, the latter of which could be down to the excellent sales of the new Apple M1-based Macs).

Globally the percentage of Chrome OS devices is still under 2 percent. 

The new figures follow up analyst IDC reporting a 90 percent growth in Chromebook shipments year-on-year last October.