Apple is making major strides in the business laptop market

Man using laptop with a cup of coffee
(Image credit: Shutterstock / SFIO CRACHO)

Although its devices are extremely popular with content creators, over the past few years Apple has managed to capture an even larger portion of the business laptop market.

According to a survey of 500 people on the polling platform OnePulse, conducted on behalf of TechRadar Pro, 15.2 percent of people now use a Mac as their main computing device for work.

As organizations have implemented bring your own device (BYOD) policies and adopted hybrid working, it makes sense that more Mac users would prefer to use their MacBook Pro or MacBook Air in the office just as they do at home. At the same time, the introduction of Apple's M1 chips has given its laptops a significant performance boost that has made it easier to run more demanding graphic design software and other applications.

While the percentage of people using Apple laptops at work has increased, Windows laptops still took the top spot in the survey with 61 percent of respondents saying they use Windows 10 in the office. Surprisingly, Chromebooks have also found a place in the office with 16.6 percent of those surveyed saying they use Chrome OS at their jobs. Not only are Linux laptops generally harder to find but only 2.4 percent of people said they use them throughout their workday.

BYOD continues to gain steam

One of the reasons Apple is making major strides in the business market is likely due to the fact that the BYOD movement continues to gain steam.

Even before employees transitioned to working from home during the pandemic, many preferred using their own devices over ones provided by their company. Of those surveyed, 68.6 percent said they own their work laptops while just over a quarter (26.2%) said their laptops are owned by their organizations.

When it came to the brand of respondents' work laptops, HP took the top spot with 25.2 percent followed by Dell (20.4%), Lenovo (15.2%) and Apple (16.2%). Google, Asus, Acer, MSI, Gigabyte and Microsoft also made the list but HP, Dell, Lenovo and Apple made up the majority of work laptops used by those surveyed.

Now that Apple has released the 2021 version of the MacBook Pro complete with three Thunderbolt 4 ports, an HDMI port and a SDXC card slot, expect its devices to show up in more conference rooms now that employees won't have to search for the right dongle to connect their laptops to a projector when giving presentations.

Looking to upgrade your work laptop? Check out our list of the best business laptops

Anthony Spadafora

After working with the TechRadar Pro team for the last several years, Anthony is now the security and networking editor at Tom’s Guide where he covers everything from data breaches and ransomware gangs to the best way to cover your whole home or business with Wi-Fi. When not writing, you can find him tinkering with PCs and game consoles, managing cables and upgrading his smart home. 

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