More and more in the future of ultraportable notebook, with a space also for Chromebooks

Last updated Jul 13, 2017 479

The ABIResearch estimates for sales of portable PCs clearly indicate that this market is going to last, but at the same time will undergo a transformation into it with more weight given by ultraportable systems.

During 2015 with sales of around 163 million notebook solutions, according to data made available by ABIResearch. About 80% of these products consists of laptop models, models that have registered in the course of 2015 a decline in sales of 1%, and for 2016 are expected to further decline by 2.8%.

The ultraportable solutions and Chromebook are the two other types of products that make up the notebook PC segment. The first showed a drop in sales by 3.2% during 2015 but are expected to a positive rebound, just under 11% overall, in the course of 2016. For the Chromebook sales are always positive: +27.1% in 2015 over the previous year and an expected +21.2% in the current year.

These data show that consumers tend to move away slowly from traditional laptop solutions preferring models characterized by high portability, or from the ones Chromebook that depend heavily on the web link because of the particular operating system (Chrome OS).

Laptops, as mentioned, account for about 80% of total portable PC with a total of just under 130 million pieces. The ultraportable systems follow with 27.1 million pieces while Chromebooks have sold an estimated total of about 6.2 million units.

And interesting to note that the ultraportable solutions are expected to steady growth in the coming years, which will give total sales of 41.2 million units estimated for 2021. That year will see overall sales of portable PC for a total of 169 million units, as estimated by ABIResearch, with a good percentage of the Chromebook also arriving at an altitude of 11.6 million pieces.

Overall, the market for portable PC is expected a slight increase over the coming years, with a shift of emphasis from the users from traditional laptop proposals to those ultraportables.

In this particular area, we will see more and more high incidence of the proposed 2-in-1, able to combine the best ways to use typical of tablet solutions with those of a traditional laptop.