Apple's new MacBook Airs predicted to sell 700K during holidays

Apple's new 11.6- and 13.3-inch MacBook Air models are expected to be a major boon for Mac sales this holiday season, with one firm forecasting sales of 700,000 in the quarter, and a Wall Street analyst anticipating gross margins of about 32 percent.

The research department of Concord Securities has reportedly predicted that the MacBook Air will account for 17 percent of an estimated 4.1 million Mac shipments this fall. In addition, Mingchi Kuo, vice president of the firm's research department, believes the new, smaller model with an 11.6-inch screen will account for 60 percent of MacBook Air sales.

Sales of 4.1 million Macs in the quarter would be yet another record for Apple. Just this week, the company revealed it sold 3.89 million Macs in the previous quarter, the best three-month frame for the company yet.

Apple's Mac business was on display this week at the "Back to the Mac" event, where the new MacBook Airs with instant-on capabilities were unveiled. The notebooks start at $999 for the 11.6-inch model.

Analyst Brian Marshall of Gleacher & Company said in a note to investors this week that he believes Apple's new MacBook Air models carry a gross margin profile of greater than 30 percent. If true, that would be greater than his estimated blended margins of more than 20 percent for the rest of Apple's notebook line.

Marshall estimated that the blended gross margins for the new MacBook Air models will be 32.1 percent. He sees the low-end $999 model with a total cost to Apple of $718, while the high-end 13.3-inch model with 256GB of storage retailing for $1,599 likely costs Apple $1,007.40.

Marshall said he has not yet changed his forecast for just over 4 million Macs in the December quarter, though he added the new, lower priced MacBook Air models could add a "kicker" in the future. Gleacher & Company has maintained its price target of $355 for AAPL stock.

43 Comments

blastdoor 3568 comments · 15 Years

About 14 years ago

I wonder what the profit margin is on the Air compared to the MacBook Pros that they'll be cannibalizing... Presumably we're talking about people switching from the 13" MBP to the new Air (and of course some old Air people switching to the new Air).

solipsism 25701 comments · 18 Years

That seems like a high percentage of Macs based on a 5M Mac forecast for the quarter.

macshark 223 comments · 21 Years

Are we done with the "few more surprises" before the end of the year or are there more to come?

frugality 408 comments · 17 Years

While the new Macbook Air is pretty slick, I think when most compare the spec's and prices to a hard-drive Macbook Pro (or even a SSD-drive MBP), they'll see you get more for your money with a standard Macbook Pro, including 10-hour battery life.

The Air will appeal to the gadget freaks who have to have the latest new toy, but it's pretty under-powered for the price. Most folks can't live with 64 or 128GB of hard drive space these days. Heck, my music collection alone is 90GB, and I want room to grow. The new MB Air is slower, with less storage space, than my 3-year-old pre-unibody MBP. And with the same battery life.

I have been waiting for this refresh for a while, but am mostly unimpressed. I'm going to upgrade my 3-year-old 15" MBP from its mostly-full 160GB hard drive to a 500GB drive, and hope for something better down the road.