MacBook Air now 28% of Apple's notebook shipments
Apple's MacBook Air models now make up 28 percent of the company's notebook shipments, up from just 8 percent in the first half of the year.
Research by Morgan Stanley involving NPD figures reported by analyst Katy Huberty indicate Apple's thin new MacBook Air models lacking an optical drive now account for more than a quarter of the company's notebooks.
The MacBook Air's rapidly growing share of Apple's notebook mix grew dramatically following the summer enhancements that brought Thunderbolt, making the new models potentially more expandable than ever, even though relatively few Thunderbolt devices have yet appeared.
Apple's own Thunderbolt Display enables the MacBook Air to connect to Firewire and Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt, two features that have never previously been possible from the company's light, thin Air notebooks.
The popularity of Apple's MacBook Air, which incorporates design elements and features of the iPad (such as instant wake and solid state storage) has sparked speculation that MacBook Pro models would similarly slim down, while slowing sales of the Mac Pro have suggested Apple might eventually abandon large desktop form factors to focus on highly mobile products.
Apple's growth continues to outpace industry
NPD's figures also indicate 11 percent year over year growth in overall PC shipments in October, although retail growth was just 3 percent. Commercial shipments were up 27 percent.
Apple experienced 20 percent growth in PC shipments, nearly double the industry at large, while its retail shipments grew by 18 percent, six times the overall retail growth of PC makers. Among commercial shipments tracked by NPD, Apple grew by 34 percent year over year.
Apple's share of PC unit shipments for the month was 17.3 percent, with a 23.9 percent share of retail sales and a 5.7 percent share of commercial shipments.
Research by Morgan Stanley involving NPD figures reported by analyst Katy Huberty indicate Apple's thin new MacBook Air models lacking an optical drive now account for more than a quarter of the company's notebooks.
The MacBook Air's rapidly growing share of Apple's notebook mix grew dramatically following the summer enhancements that brought Thunderbolt, making the new models potentially more expandable than ever, even though relatively few Thunderbolt devices have yet appeared.
Apple's own Thunderbolt Display enables the MacBook Air to connect to Firewire and Gigabit Ethernet via Thunderbolt, two features that have never previously been possible from the company's light, thin Air notebooks.
The popularity of Apple's MacBook Air, which incorporates design elements and features of the iPad (such as instant wake and solid state storage) has sparked speculation that MacBook Pro models would similarly slim down, while slowing sales of the Mac Pro have suggested Apple might eventually abandon large desktop form factors to focus on highly mobile products.
Apple's growth continues to outpace industry
NPD's figures also indicate 11 percent year over year growth in overall PC shipments in October, although retail growth was just 3 percent. Commercial shipments were up 27 percent.
Apple experienced 20 percent growth in PC shipments, nearly double the industry at large, while its retail shipments grew by 18 percent, six times the overall retail growth of PC makers. Among commercial shipments tracked by NPD, Apple grew by 34 percent year over year.
Apple's share of PC unit shipments for the month was 17.3 percent, with a 23.9 percent share of retail sales and a 5.7 percent share of commercial shipments.
Comments
The 11" is good, but the battery life is poor (could be the 1.8GHz processor and 256GB HD) -- can't wait to hand that down.
The Macbook Air is so good that It will take an amazing Macbook Pro update in 2012 to sway many people IMO.
And this is the most powerful evidence yet, in my opinion, that we'll see the removal of the optical drive on the 15" MacBook Pro (at least) and perhaps even the death of the 13" (because if you're removing the ODD on the 15", you'd have to do it on the 13"? but we already have a 13" ODD-less laptop?).
"The MacBook Air's rapidly growing share of Apple's notebook mix grew dramatically following the summer enhancements that brought Thunderbolt, making the new models potentially more expandable than ever, even though relatively few Thunderbolt devices have yet appeared."
... weeelll it might be right to consider the fact that the "usual" MacBook was discontinued in july as well so the 20% gain might also have come from that segment.
I hardly think people are buying more of it because of Thunderbolt. I would think its the upgraded processors that put it in line with the MacBook Pro.
I think the basic consumer doesn't understand what Thunderbolt is but feels like it's "future proofing" the biggest selling point to me was the performance. The SSD makes it just fly for basic UI navigation and launching apps.
I figure in a couple of years when things need a boost I'll toss in a 3rd party SSD
http://www.anandtech.com/show/5076/o...ir-ssd-upgrade
I figure in a couple of years when things need a boost I'll toss in a 3rd party SSD
When things need a boost and when the PRICE of those goes down (in conjunction with capacity increases, of course).
What we really need is a breakthrough in NAND compression rates (or a departure from that kind of memory altogether).
If everybody wanted a featureless laptop?
- Discontinued the $999 white MacBook.
Gee, I wonder why MacBook Air sales went up?
Edit: I thought they also introduced the $999 11-incher, but that was the year before. I withdraw some of my snark.
And just yesterday I bought the usb/ethernet adapter to use with my job's router.
The Macbook Air is so good that It will take an amazing Macbook Pro update in 2012 to sway many people IMO.
It really just depends on what you want to do. IMO the macbook pro would work as a desktop replacement for even more users if it could run at maximum load without getting so hot. Seeing a powerful, dramatically cooler (in terms of temperature) laptop may not have the wow appeal in the retail stores, but it could encourage a lot of upgrade purchases on the prosumer end. That it runs too hot has to be one of the most frequent complaints with the macbook pro and powerful laptops in general.
In the update this summer, Apple:
- Discontinued the $999 white MacBook.
Gee, I wonder why MacBook Air sales went up?
Edit: I thought they also introduced the $999 11-incher, but that was the year before. I withdraw some of my snark.
They could use a better sub $999 model. It's the low end for Apple but it isn't definitively low end in its price point. I'd like to see something more like the starting 13" with the cpu of the 11" closer to $1000 even (perhaps next year as ssds dip in price). That would give you something truly desirable at the $1000 threshold. I think we'll eventually see them offer 13" and 15" rather than 11" and 13".
Granted, most users have no clue what Thunderbolt does, but at least my colleagues at work now know as they all want to move to Apple machines and thunderbolt monitors. The deal with the typical problems with their Windows PC's, and mine just hums along with not any problems.
I know several people that would love a 15" MBA. I am going to tell them to hold off and wait and see.
Not everyone needs that 27" on their desk....some of us live in 'normal' sized houses
With the MacBook Air 11-inch outselling the 13-inch model 10 to 1.
You know this how?