14 DAY TRIAL // The rapid growth of Chromebooks is not worrying for Apple’s CEO Tim Cook, who has said in a recent interview that his company is not interested in building such “test machines,” but only in looking into premium devices that can help students and teachers learn and work “on a different level.”
Chromebooks are becoming increasingly more appealing to schools and organizations across the world looking for an affordable device that can provide them with the basics, such as document editing, browsing, and email, but Cook doesn’t think that the domination of low-cost devices is a thing that the company should be afraid of.
“We are interested in helping students learn and teachers teach, but tests, no,” Cook has pointed out when speaking with BuzzFeed. “We create products that are whole solutions for people - that allow kids to learn how to create and engage on a different level.”
Chromebook sales
Statistics provided by research group NPD have revealed that sales of Chromebooks are on the rise and are very close to overtaking Windows laptop and tablet shipments very soon.
According to their stats, in 2015 H1 alone, Google Chrome OS devices totaled 30.3 percent of the tablet and laptop sales in the United States, while Windows retained the leading spot with 59.3 percent (note that Windows 10 wasn’t yet available at the time of the study, so Windows might actually have a bigger score these days). Apple is only third with 10.3 percent of the sales.
But Chromebook’s growing trend is most obvious when looking at 2014 figures. Last year, 23.5 percent of the laptops and tablets sold in the US were running Chrome OS, while 64.8 percent of them were powered by Windows. Apple again got the third place with 11.7 percent.
Apple doesn’t seem to be interested in the budget market for the time being, but with an iPhone 6c just around the corner, the company is at least trying to see how people react to a more affordable device wearing the fruity logo. So Cook could easily reconsider his statement by this time next year.