2020 was a bumper year for the PC and laptop market with 13.6 percent growth. One type of laptop that has grown significantly is Chromebooks, many of which are built on Arm technology. According to IDC 2020 figures, in Q1 of 2020 Google’s Chrome OS held a 5.3 percent share of the market. At the end of Q4, this had grown to 14.4 percent – a rise of nearly 10 percent over the year. As Google marks the ten-year birthday of Chromebooks, they are now in their strongest position since the launch of the first devices back in 2011.
Forecasts indicate this trend of strong Chromebook sales continue in the year ahead. In 2021, the PC and laptop market is expected to grow by 18 percent, according to data from IDC. Chromebooks, which were previously forecasted at 31.7 million units, are now expected to sell 43.6 million units in 2021. These impressive figures show that demand for Chromebooks is outpacing growth in the overall laptop market
The recent demand for affordable computers, especially in education and work, has helped to fuel Chromebook growth. While this could be seen as a unique trend for these extraordinary times, the tech analyst community predicts that the strong uplift in Chromebooks is here to stay in the long term. The education sector, in particular, is a substantial market for laptop devices. Looking at IDC figures from Q4 of 2020, the number of laptops shipped to this sector was over 14.6 million units. The core features and benefits of Chromebooks make the devices a perfect match for the education sector.
There are two key benefits to Arm-based Chromebooks that make them stand out in the laptop market – 1) app compatibility and 2) battery life. Most Android apps run natively on Arm-based Chromebooks. Using Arm-based Chromebooks not only gives access to Android apps on the Play Store (as with every Chromebook), but also delivers big app performance benefits. In addition, these Arm-based Chromebooks also consume significantly less energy running Android apps, resulting in great battery life benefits.
From research commissioned by Arm’s Education division into around 1,000 UK secondary schools, 73 percent of education leads said battery life was an important laptop feature. Schools want laptop devices that last for a full school day, completely untethered and without the need to charge. If you think about the logistics of the average classroom, the need for long battery life is not surprising. Schools often do not have enough power sources for all the students and too many wires tethered to laptop devices is a potential safety risk.
MediaTek provides chipsets for Chromebooks on the market. Recently, the company announced its Kompanio 820 (MT8192) and Kompanio 1200 (MT8195) chipsets for the next generation of Chromebooks. These chipsets not only deliver longer battery life, but also look to enhance and enable a range of computing experiences and capabilities that are applicable in Enterprise and Consumer settings. These include video conferencing (with a wide range of new camera configurations) and streaming (with 4K HDR video) to cloud gaming and AI-powered applications, including a wide range of voice and vision-based applications.
PC Tseng, General Manager of Intelligent Multimedia Business Unit at MediaTek, says:
“MediaTek powers some of the most popular Chromebooks on the market and this will continue in the future with our new chipsets. Not only will they empower form factor innovation and great battery life, but the new chipsets will drive user experiences, adding even greater value to future Chromebooks. We value our partnership with Arm in bringing these fantastic Chromebook experiences to life.”
Qualcomm Technologies is also supporting the Chromebook market with its own Snapdragon 7c compute platform. As part of the chipset’s launch, Qualcomm stated that Snapdragon 7c will be targeted for Chromebooks designed for the education, enterprise, and consumer segments. These Chromebooks are optimized for productivity. For students and workers, this means reliable and stable connectivity even when they are learning or working remotely, as well as long-lasting battery life for a truly mobile experience. Snapdragon 7c also enables thinner, fan-less form factors for more lightweight and thermally efficient Chromebook designs. Finally, Snapdragon 7c reports great performance, with impressive results across multiple benchmarks.
Arm technology is at the heart of the new chipsets from MediaTek and Qualcomm Technologies. The adoption of cutting-edge Arm IP and solutions empower significant performance improvements over the previous generation of Arm-based Chromebooks.
MediaTek’s Kompanio 1200 integrates an octa-core CPU with four Arm Cortex-A78 CPU cores for compute-intensive applications and four Arm Cortex-A55 CPU cores to handle background tasks and maximize battery life. It also adopts the powerful five-core Arm Mali-G57 GPU to deliver great visuals. Likewise, the Kompanio 820 integrates an octa-core CPU, but with four Arm Cortex-A76 CPU cores and four Cortex-A55 cores. The chipset also packs the five-core Mali-G57 to deliver high-quality visuals on Chromebooks. MediaTek has stated that devices powered by the Kompanio 820 are hitting the market in Q2 of 2021, with the Kompanio 1200 powered devices following later.
Meanwhile, Snapdragon’s 7c compute platform integrates an Arm-based octa-core CPU configuration with a Qualcomm® Snapdragon X15 LTE modem to support incredible performance, battery life, and connectivity. The CPU configuration features two Cortex-A76-based cores clocked at 2.4GHz, paired up with six power-efficient Cortex-A55 cores.
At Arm, we are excited to see these chipsets in action in future Chromebooks.
The Chromebook market is growing at a rapid rate, with no sign of slowing down. These extraordinary times have accelerated sales, but the strong growth is likely to continue in the future as more people, institutions and businesses recognize the value of Chromebooks. Alongside the battery life benefits often associated with Arm-based Chromebooks, the app compatibility benefits also stand out. With more powerful and feature-rich chipsets in the pipeline, expect the benefits to continue to grow and evolve in the future, making Chromebooks enticing devices for enterprise, education, and consumers.
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