Following the poor iPhone 15 sales in China, Apple is facing up to MacBook shipments falling short of predictions. And there’s no obvious answer to turn this around until the middle of next year.
Respected Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has predicted that MacBook shipments are set to fall to 17 million units in 2023. That’s a thirty per cent drop year on year. Several factors feed into the lack of interest—Kuo calls out the retail performance of the 15-inch MacBook Air and a lack of new products for the holiday season.
Launched at Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference 2023, the 15-inch MacBook Air was the first consumer-focused macOS laptop with a display larger than 13 inches. It was expected to be a popular laptop, with consumers waiting for that larger display finally able to buy the MacBook Air they wanted.
Shortly after this Air went on sale, Apple was forced to cut orders for the laptop due to a lack of demand. Predictions of the 15-inch’s success were out of step with the market.
Yet the lack of new MacBooks for the fourth calendar quarter will be the biggest drag on sales. For much of 2023, the geekerati have been expecting Apple to launch a new MacBook Air with the next generation of Apple Silicon (the M3 chipset) in October, debuting the M3 chipset built on a 3nm fabrication process.
The October MacBook refresh has not happened, which means the sales boost will not happen either.
Apple will be hoping that numbers will bounce back again in 2024 when it launches the new Apple Silicon and new MacBooks. But as the fallout from the 15-inch MacBook Air shows, Apple’s MacBook plans are not meshing perfectly with consumers.
Now read more about the delay to Apple’s M3 technology…
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