Uptake of personal computers in the global K-12 education market is growing apace, with competition between different form factors intensifying, according to the latest edition of Futuresource Consulting’s K-12 Education Technology Market Track study. During Q2 2014, shipments of personal computers into the global K-12 education market grew by more than 40% year-on-year, with 7.9 million devices shipped.
Tablet shipments into the market provided the majority of this growth, and although Futuresource identified a stalling of tablet shipments within the US education market in Q2 in favour of notebooks, this was not the case throughout the rest of the world. Several large-scale tablet deployments are causing extensive growth in the tablet category, such as Fatih in Turkey, rollouts of tablets by the Mexican government, the computers for schools program in Colombia, and shipments for the One-Tablet-Per-Child scheme in Thailand. These have all contributed to tablets accounting for more than 50% of shipments into the global K-12 education market. Global growth in the category more than doubled year-on-year for Q2 2014, which makes it the fastest growing device category when compared with notebooks and netbooks.
Android tablet vendors have been the main beneficiary of these larger scale projects where hardware costs are a key consideration.
“The uptake of Android tablets in education has so far been limited to emerging countries and significantly-sized national education deals, where the price point of the device is the key decision factor,” says Phil Maddocks, Market Analyst at Futuresource. “Android tablets have struggled to gain adoption in regions such as North America and Europe, where more consideration is given to platform-specific content and the manageability of devices, as opposed to a focus on price point.
“While Chromebooks have enjoyed significant uptake in the US education market – accounting for more than 50% of notebooks in Q2 2014 – beyond US borders the uptake has been limited. Within the European market, Chromebooks have struggled for a foothold due to concerns about cloud computing and privacy of student/teacher data, that’s in addition to the lack of availability of the platform in some countries. Within the Asia-Pacific region, Malaysia deployed more than 100,000 Chromebooks to schools alongside local telecommunications company YTL in 2013. Outside of this project, uptake in the Asia-Pacific region has been limited.”
Chromebook’s biggest competitors in the notebook space are Windows-based devices. Several OEMs will be launching Windows 8.1 based machines later in the year, priced competitively with Chromebooks, increasing competition in this area of the market.
“Shipments of non-Windows devices have risen to more than 50% of the global K-12 education market, primarily due to the uptake of Apple’s iPad, Android tablets, and Chromebooks. The launch of cheaper Windows notebooks designed to do battle at the low end of the notebook market will increase competition with both Chromebooks and cheaper android tablets, providing additional choice for educators.”
With new devices, as well as new form factors such as detachable tablets and convertible notebooks coming to the market, competition is going to continue to increase as well as providing more choice for governments and educators. As a result, innovation for student and teacher devices, both from a hardware and software stand point will also increase, providing new opportunities and learning experiences for children.