New Delhi, May 6 (IANS): The market share of Chromebooks has hit its lowest point in five years, as the demand fell by 67 per cent (year-on-year) in the January-March quarter (Q1), a new report has shown.

The flipside of fewer Covid restrictions around the world means that education budgets have turned away from IT expenditures, which created an unfavorable year-to-year comparison with total shipments declining 7 per cent in the March quarter, according to Strategy Analytics.

"ChromeOS shipments suffered as education demand continued to slow down and consumer upgrades for Chromebook were at the lowest point, even compared to pre-pandemic levels," said Chirag Upadhyay, industry analyst.

"Chromebook is still making an impact in new markets albeit slowly as the public sector look to spend towards cheaper devices for education," he added.

Despite a 12 per cent growth decline, Lenovo kept the number one rank at 23 per cent market share.

HP took the biggest hit during the first quarter as notebook PC shipments were down 20 per cent (on-year) in Q1 to 12.5 million units.

Dell was the only top vendor to have registered over 5 per cent growth year-over-year, as 10.5 million units shipped during the first quarter.

Apple MacOS carried the momentum from last two quarters as shipments reached 6.1 million MacBooks during the first quarter, a 4 per cent growth from Q1 2021.

"The demand for commercial business stayed strong for Windows 11 PCs and MacBooks powered by M1 chipset, as most enterprise and SMB clients are still choosing hybrid work options and spending extra for quality products," said Eric Smith, Director-Connected Computing.