Google’s effort to add features and push Chromebooks into more hands is working, with shipments of the low-cost laptops expected to jump 27 percent this year.

Chromebook shipments worldwide will touch 7.29 million this year, research firm Gartner said Thursday. Growth will slow down in 2016, though, with Chromebook shipments reaching 7.95 million units, Gartner said.

First introduced in 2011, most computer users are still just getting used to the Chromebook concept. The low-cost laptops, which run on Google’s Chrome OS, are designed for those who do most of their computing on the Internet. They are used in much the same way that tablets and smartphones are, with most applications requiring an Internet connection.

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