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Chromebooks now outselling Macbooks

Michelle Avenant
By Michelle Avenant, portals journalist.
Johannesburg, 24 May 2016

Google's Chromebook computers are outselling Apple's Macbooks for the first time in the US, according to research released by the IDC last week.

Yet while Chromebooks may be outstripping Macbooks in terms of unit sales, Macbooks fetch a much higher profit per unit, with retail prices of more than ten times that of a Chromebook in some cases.

The IDC pegs Google's Chrome OS as the second-most popular operating system for desktops and notebooks in the first quarter of 2016, behind Microsoft's Windows and ahead of Apple's OS X.

Chromebook computers are hailed as unique for their low price and plug-and-play simplicity. Their minimal on-board memory and limited software capabilities mean the computers are designed almost exclusively for browsing the Internet and using browser-based cloud software, such as Google Docs. Streamlining the devices' functionality allows them to come with a price tag as low as $149 - about R2 350.

The low-cost, straightforward devices have reportedly gained significant traction in the US's education market. "Schools in the US are now buying more Chromebooks than all other devices combined," said Google on its Chrome blog.

As the sales news broke, Google announced that its Google Play app store will soon be available on certain Chromebook models, and "over time, this will roll out to the other Chromebooks in the market too".

This development will mean Chromebook users can download Android mobile apps onto their notebook computers, not only adding extra functionality to the notebooks, but in some cases rendering mobile-only apps, such as Instagram and Snapchat, available on a different kind of device.

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