The tech community was stunned when Apple released the MacBook Air – it was thin, it was light, and it was powerful enough to really use! Since that January 2008 day, the Air has only risen in popularity, and may be on the fast-track for becoming mainstream!
J.P. Morgan’s Mark Moskowitz put out a new research note recently revealing that the MacBook Air has seen significant sales growth since it was refreshed in October. In the last sales quarter, the MacBook Air’s sales numbers were over 300% higher year over year, with projections of revenue nearing 2.2 billion dollars. The new MacBook Air adopted a blade-style SSD, introduced a smaller model, and dropped significantly in price.
From the research note:
“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.”
The Air was originally released as a 13″ model only with a starting price of $1799. While Apple has offered slight improvements and price drops since then, October’s refresh was the most dramatic overhaul of the ultra-portable ever with the introduction of an 11.6″ model that starts at $999.
It’s not difficult to fathom that this is where computing may be headed in the future – When rumors circulating around the 2011 MacBook Pros was circulating, many of the rumors, wishlists, and so forth, reflected that people wanted to be able to do away with the optical drive, they wanted a Blade SSD, they wanted thinner and lighter laptops that were more powerful than the MacBook Air, but reflected many of the same ideas.
And you can rest assured that Apple is taking careful notes regarding the MacBook Air. I don’t know what 2012 will bring to the Apple’s line of popular notebooks… but if I were a betting man, I’d consider it a fairly safe wager that thinner, lighter and faster (and probably the standard inclusion of SSD technology) are definately in.
What are your thoughts? Sound off in the comments!
Via MacRumors
