The 7 Best-Selling Chromebook Brands Of The First Quarter

Chromebooks Are Up

Chromebooks are booming in the education space as the affordable devices continue to sell like hotcakes. As the market grows, the channel is becoming an increasingly attractive avenue. Dell and Asus, for example, ranked among the top-selling brands for the first quarter of 2015, according to data from researcher NPD Group, even though those two vendors were absent from the rankings for the same quarter a year ago.

NPD notes that average selling prices for Chromebooks in the first quarter rose to $246.03, up from $242.62 a year ago.

Here are the top seven Chromebook brands of the first quarter in North America, according to NPD Group's DistributorTrack sales database, from leading distributors in the U.S. Global Technology Distribution Council.

7. Dell

Dell plunged into the Chromebook market in January 2014, when it released the Dell Chromebook 11, which it sold direct in the United States and the United Kingdom from its website. Since then Dell has had a growing presence in the channel, and in February it launched a new Chromebook of the same name.

Dell's share of the Chromebook market was 4.7 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to data compiled by NPD.

The 2015 Dell Chromebook 11 is ruggedized and features a Corning Gorilla Glass display. It sports an Intel Celeron processor, and a touch screen. The education-focused laptop comes with an activity light on the back of the monitor that indicates if a student is finished or has a question.

6. Toshiba

Toshiba's share of the Chromebook market has seen a significant uptick from the 0.5 percent share it had in the first quarter of 2014. The Tokyo-based company had a 4.9 percent share of the North American Chromebook market in Q1 2015, beating out Dell by a hair.

In October, Toshiba updated its portfolio with the release of the Chromebook 2, the next generation of the line that launched in February of last year. The new model features up to 9 hours of battery life and a 13-inch HD display.

5. Lenovo

Lenovo's market share grew to 5.2 percent in the first quarter of this year, up from 0.7 percent in the year-ago quarter.

Lenovo launched its ThinkPad 11e Chromebook in January of last year and its consumer focused N20p Chromebook last summer.

The 11e continues to be Lenovo's best-selling Chromebook, according to NPD, featuring an 11.6-inch display and 8 hours of battery life. Lenovo, the top laptop vendor in the country, designed this laptop for students, giving it a powerful Intel Celeron processor inside its durable casing.

4. Asus

Asus entered the Chromebook market last year and saw its market share hit 6.6 percent in the first quarter.

Asus simultaneously launched C200 and C300 Chromebooks in May 2014. This past quarter, the C200 was among the 10 top-selling Chromebook models in the industry, according to NPD.

The affordable notebooks feature 10 hours of battery life; the C200 has an 11.6-inch LED display and the C300 has a 13.3-inch LED display. Both have 2 GB of memory and 16 GB of storage.

3. Hewlett-Packard

HP saw its Chromebook business reach new heights in the first quarter of this year, grabbing 18.2 percent of the North American market, up from 6.4 percent in the year-ago quarter, according to NPD.

HP entered the Chromebook market in 2013 when it released its 11-inch and 14-inch Chrome notebooks. Last fall, HP launched the Chromebook 11 G3, which features up to 9.5 hours of battery life. The newest HP Chromebook runs on an Intel Celeron processor and 4 GB of memory with 16 GB of storage.

2. Samsung

Despite selling three of the top five Chromebook models in the North American market in the first quarter, Samsung saw its overall first-quarter market share drop sharply, from 56.7 percent to 29.3 percent, according to NPD.

Samsung released its Chromebook 2 models in May of last year and the 11.6-inch version of the device was the top-selling Chromebook in North America during the first quarter.

Samsung's latest Chromebook features Samsung's Exynos 5 Octa processor, 4 GB of memory and 16 GB of storage. The laptop also has a unique leather-like casing covering its exterior.

1. Acer

Acer remains the top Chromebook vendor in North America, but its market share dipped in the first quarter, falling from 35.7 percent to 30.9 percent.

Last summer, Acer launched the Chromebook 13, which features an impressive 13 hours of battery life. It also has a Nvidia Tegra K1 Quad-core processor.

Late last year, Acer released an upgrade to its C720 line, and two of the models in the line were the second and third best-selling Chromebook models in North America during the first quarter. The new devices have an Intel dual-core processor with up to 4 GB of memory and 32 GB of storage to go with its 11-inch display.