Lenovo led the pack as tablet and Chromebooks sales blow out tail end of 2020

It would seem that the shifting state of the world through the course of events that was 2020 made a big impact on sales of Chromebooks and tablets at the tail end of the year. Canalys records of device shipments showed Q4 as the third consecutive quarter of annual growth for the global PC market. The global PC market saw 143.7 million units shipped in Q4, a whopping 35% growth VS the same period the year before.

Both tablets and Chromebooks saw their largest number of shipments worldwide in Q4 2020. Their largest number of shipments... ever. Both categories of device had the most recorded shipments either had since the start of tracking shipments for either sort of device.

In Q4 of 2020, Canalys showed 52.8 million tablets shipped worldwide. Approximately 160.6 million tablets were shipped throughout the entirety of the year.

In the Chromebook category, unit shipments hit 11.2 million for the fourth quarter of the year 2020. Approximately 30.7 million Chromebooks were shipped globally throughout the year 2020.

"With many countries being forced to accelerate their digital education plans in the wake of additional lockdowns, schools and universities are clamoring for easy to deploy solutions and Google's digital offerings for education are proving quite popular over rival platforms, especially in the US and Western Europe," said Canalys Research Director Rushabh Doshi. "With governments in many countries racing towards a much needed 1:1 device to student ratio, Chromebook demand for education is expected to remain strong through 2021."

Doshi also suggested that there's been "mounting interest" from consumers "seeking out Chromebooks to ensure affordable continuity of business or personal computing."

Canalys also showed Lenovo at the top of the pack for Q4 2020 shipments in the global PC market. Lenovo racked up 28.8 million in shipments for the quarter, accounting for 20% of the market. Apple came in second with a close 26.4 million in global PC shipments for the quarter, or 18% of the market. After that it was HP, Dell, and Samsung with 19.3-, 15.9-, and 11.5-million in global PC shipments respectively.