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MacBook Air Evolving Into Mainstream Product?

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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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172005-mba3.jpg


Graph from Fortune
A new research note by J.P. Morgan's Mark Moskowitz reveals that Apple's MacBook Air has seen significant sales growth since its most recent refresh in October (via AppleInsider and Fortune). MacBook Air sales in the last quarter were 333% higher year over year with projections of annual revenue of near $2.2 billion. The new MacBook Air adopted an SSD-only design, introduced an 11.6" model, and saw a considerable price drop from the previous models.
"We believe that the growth rate of the MacBook Air stands to moderate, but we expect the product to exhibit increasing contribution to the overall Mac business," Moskowitz wrote. "(The fourth quarter of calendar 2010) was the first quarter in which the MacBook Air accounted for greater than 10% of total Apple Mac units. More importantly, the MacBook Air accounted for 15% of total notebook sales during the quarter, versus 5% in the prior year."
Click to expand...
The MacBook Air was originally released in January 2008 as a 13" model only with a starting price of $1799. While Apple has offered slight improvements and price drops in the interim, October's refresh was the most dramatic overhaul of the ultra-portable with the introduction of an 11.6" model that starts at $999.

Article Link: MacBook Air Evolving Into Mainstream Product?
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/04/04/macbook-air-evolving-into-mainstream-product/
Last edited by a moderator:
quagmire

quagmire

macrumors 604
Apr 19, 2004
6,908
2,330
My parents love their 11.6" MBA. My mom was considering an iPad and when my dad saw the MBA, he thought I scammed her into paying more money. Now that he is using it more and more, he finally came around. :)
 
Cinematographer

Cinematographer

macrumors 6502a
Sep 12, 2005
900
4
far away
Isn't the graph misleading? Is it 400 thousand units or 400 million units?

Edit: They've changed the legend of the graph. It's correct now. Nevermind.
 
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Full of Win

Full of Win

macrumors 68030
Nov 22, 2007
2,615
1
Ask Apple
Just wait until they add Thunderbolt to the design. I know more than one person who never even looked at the MBA for its lack of a high speed port.
 
A

alhasa

macrumors member
Jul 12, 2008
67
0
its apple's best product

i used to own a white macbook 13" and 3g iPad for on the road. Sold the two and bought the MBA - best thing i ever did. The screen on this thing is amazing and its far more functional than an iPad. I have a full mac with me all the time now :)
 
Lesser Evets

Lesser Evets

macrumors 68040
Jan 7, 2006
3,527
1,294
Wish they'd take the plunge already and make it the iPad Air. Yeah, heavier, no keyboard, but would be what a lot of people want.

Cinematographer said:
Isn't the graph misleading? Is it 400 thousand units or 400 million units?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I expect Apple makes more than a buck thirty on each Air sold.
 
B

briantoronto

macrumors newbie
Oct 9, 2007
9
0
YTO
theheadguy said:
Exactly. Not exactly a shocker considering the considerable price drop to some reasonable figures.
Click to expand...

Not just the price drop, but performance improvements as well. I had an orig. MBA, and it was a piece of s***. My new MBA is a pretty nice machine. Nice enough I sold my iPad to finance it.
 
ten-oak-druid

ten-oak-druid

macrumors 68000
Jan 11, 2010
1,980
0
I think once an internal SSD drive of 500GB capacity can be had for $150, the air will be the top mac laptop.
 
LagunaSol

LagunaSol

macrumors 601
Apr 3, 2003
4,798
0
The MacBook Air and the iPad are the future of portable computing. Thin, light, fast (SSD). Enough power to get the job done, not so much power you need 3 cooling fans and 3 lbs. of battery to do it.

It's not that the MacBook Air is evolving into a mainstream product. It's the mainstream that's evolving into MacBook Air-like products.
 
Slix

Slix

macrumors 65816
Mar 24, 2010
1,441
1,989
MacBook Air is awesome because they're so small. People want that in a product.
 
JodyK

JodyK

macrumors 6502a
Jan 29, 2010
717
22
Northern Atlanta suburbs
Renewed design, improved specs @ a significant lower price point from a company gaining attention and market share in several other tech fields (ios) ... Duh Charlie Sheen says WINNER!
 
NY Guitarist

NY Guitarist

macrumors 68000
Mar 21, 2011
1,585
1,581
I will buy the MBA when it gets a backlit keyboard. I really like the small, light form but need to be able to see the keys in a dark room (or stage). The sales guy at the Apple store just told me to "crank the screen brightness and tilt the display down to light the keys". :D Yeah, uh no, the last thing I need in the dark is a brighter screen.

Also, it would be nice to get Thunderbolt I/O and (really dreaming now) higher capacity/cost effective SSD storage.

I think when you get a decent amount of SSD capacity without a huge price jack MBA sales will jump even more.
 
A

a1kim

macrumors member
Dec 6, 2007
67
11
I love it

I just got the 13" Air from my new job, and I love this thing. There is no going back for me. I had a two year old MacBook Pro 15" before this and a string of Powerbooks before that. The size/weight is perfect, and the speed bump from the SDD is just awesome. Definitely faster than my last MacBook Pro at almost all tasks, despite it having a slower processor.
 
W

weing

macrumors regular
Apr 20, 2007
164
0
Paging Captain Obvious!

Laptops will soon go the way of desktops for most people unless they depend on a computer directly for their living such as serious editors or designers.
I would lay money the current 13" MBP will be the last 13" MBP manufactured. The 13" MBA fills that need for 99% of anyone needing a 13" machine.
 
J

joel6653

macrumors newbie
Nov 9, 2008
19
0
Original source is wrong

The original graph on Fortune (link is in article) also had a graph that didn't look right. But the accompanying spreadsheets made it clear that it's supposed to be thousands of units, millions of dollars.
 
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