In the total PC market (including desktops, notebooks and tablets), Lenovo maintained its dominance, shipping 26.5 million units in Q4 2021
2021 was a bumper year for worldwide PCs and tablets, as total shipments for the year grew 9 percent to just under half a billion, even though shipments fell 7 percent year-on-year to 133.7 million units in Q4 2021, as per a report by Canalys.
Tablet shipments fell 21 percent YoY to 41.9 million units, while Chromebook shipments dropped 66.3 percent to 4.0 million units. For full-year 2021, Chromebook shipments grew 10 percent while tablet shipments were almost flat, down by 1.6 percent.
Although witnessing high demand since the pandemic began, Chromebooks and tablets saw shipments suffer steep yet expected annual declines in Q4 2021, primarily due to high saturation in the consumer and education segments.
In the total PC market (including desktops, notebooks and tablets), Lenovo maintained its dominance, shipping 26.5 million units in Q4 2021. Apple stayed in second place with 24.3 million devices shipped. HP held onto third place with a modest 3 percent year-on-year decrease. Dell, in fourth position, saw a 9 percent rise in shipments to 17.3 million devices, and just under a 2 percent increase in market share over the previous year. Samsung shipped 7.9 million devices to complete the top five.
Apple maintained its lead in the tablet market in the rankings with 16.4 million iPads shipped with a 14 percent annual decline. Samsung held second place with 6.8 million units shipped in Q4 2021. Lenovo saw tablet shipments decline year on year for the first time in 2021, with 4.7 million units shipped. Amazon and Huawei rounded out the top five, with 4.0 million and 2.2 million devices shipped respectively.
Canalys Analyst Himani Mukka said, “The slowdown in Q4 was understandable given the supply constraints stifling growth… Tablets are expected to see subdued growth in coming quarters as the market reverts to its normal seasonality and users who bought tablets in the last 18 months hold onto their current devices.”
Chromebooks experienced a second successive quarter of falling shipments, with a 66 percent drop as education and consumer demand fell from highs in Q4 2020. All major Chromebook vendors struggled in Q4.
