The new M1 Macs haven’t been around for long, as Apple didn’t start selling the devices until November. Current data from TrendForce according to the prevalence is therefore still relatively low. If you look at the largest notebook manufacturers in 2020, the M1 variants of MacBook Air and MacBook Pro still show up with a market share of 0.8 percent. For the coming year, however, TrendForce anticipates significantly higher values and assumes around 7 percent. Without mentioning the values of the previous year, this is referred to as an increase. For comparison: All notebooks equipped with AMD processors are forecast to reach an estimated 20 percent in the course of 2021. Conversely, you can see how much Intel has had to give up in recent years. The “Zen +” architecture meant solid growth for AMD, because in 2019 Intel’s direct competitor was still 11.4 percent.
Growth also in 2021
TrendForce adds that concrete forecasts are not easy due to the difficult to predict situation. Nevertheless, the market expert is largely certain that significant growth in the notebook market is still possible in 2021. The increase of 22 percent between 2019 and 2020 can no longer be achieved, but +8.6 percent also represent significant increases. Around 217 million notebooks will therefore be available to customers by the end of 2021. In the education sector, Chromebooks in particular benefit, with a total market share of 14.8 percent, which is expected to increase to 18.5 percent in 2021.
For Windows it goes down
Windows’s market share fell for the first time to less than 80 percent – and TrendForce believes it is unlikely to see a trend reversal in the foreseeable future. In the longer term, the values are likely to level off at 70 to 75 percent for Windows, 15 to 20 percent for ChromeOS and a maximum of 10 percent for macOS. According to TrendForce, the requirements for notebooks have changed significantly: In view of the great importance of video conferencing, customers are increasingly looking for devices with good cameras, loudspeakers and microphones. HP, Dell and Lenovo are examples of manufacturers who are adjusting to this with a changed product range.