The trend looks to be in Google’s favor here, but 2020 was far from a normal year. Last month, IDC’s report on PC sales showed the first year of consistent growth of traditional PC (desktop, laptop, workstation) sales in years. Even then, IDC indicated that the increase in sales was driven in large part by the expansion of Chromebooks both within and outside of the education market.
As students in many communities have had to attend class virtually from home and their parents have had to do work remotely, too, PC sales jumped during the year. Chrome OS was a big part of that. But the entire market grew overall, not just Chrome OS. IDC also noted that gaming PCs were a big driver of growth, and it was a particularly strong year for the Mac.
As some of the world may find a new kind of post- or late-pandemic normalcy 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 they went in 2020. But at least in the education space, the future of Chrome OS looks fairly bright.