Application usage on HP devices increased to over 30% by the end of August 2021 while Lenovo dropped to 21%, according to a new report by Aternity.

During the past 18 months, Aternity tracked the pandemic’s impact on the workplace and saw office reopening plans remain murky. Given the significant changes in the decision-making factors for ongoing technology investment – including the halting return-to-office planning and globe chip shortage – Aternity examined employee device purchases and measured application usage across 3 million corporate endpoints on its platform to understand deployment trends that are impacting digital employee experience.

Aternity’s data shows that enterprises that might have delayed device upgrades due to budget constraints during the early stages of the pandemic appear to be finally replacing them with the latest generation devices, especially laptops. Since April 2020, businesses added an average of 20 new device models per month (15 of those being laptops). This trend accelerated in April 2021 to 25 new devices per month (21 laptops).

What is clear, however, is the permanent way in which various industries have changed. In healthcare, telehealth is here to stay and online commerce and curbside delivery is permanently shifting retailers’ business operation. In fact, retail is the only industry in which the share of remote work increased since October 2020 – from 64% to 71%

The report also shows global remote work trends as well. In North America, the share of employees working remotely dropped below 80% in late-June for the first time since the pandemic began. Despite some recent lockdowns, Europe leads the return-to-office movement, with the share of employees working in the office jumping from 24% to 45% since the start of 2021.

Read the full report by Aternity.