My Cult of Mac colleague Buster Hein recently wrote that the new impossibly-thin, gorgeously Retina displayed MacBook “isn’t for you, it’s for the future” — meaning that it’s there to show us where the MacBook will go in the next few years, rather than being 2015’s “must own” notebook.
That may well be true, but according to supply chain sources, it’s still likely to make up a pretty sizeable slice of Apple’s overall Mac sales in the year to come.
Citing panel supply chains, the 12-inch beauty is expected to represent between 15-20 percent of Apple’s overall MacBook shipments this year: making it the single largest source of growth in the MacBook series throughout 2015 in the process.
In terms of numbers, it’s expected that around 450,000 12-inch MacBook shipments will take place in the first quarter of the year, thanks to limited production of Retina displays. In the second quarter, numbers will increase as LG Display takes over from Samsung (which provides the displays for the first batch of new MacBooks) as the leading maker of displays for the device.
Overall, Apple’s notebook shipments are expected to drop by one quarter sequentially in Q1, but then grow by 30 percent in Q2, representing the highest on-quarter growth in the notebook market.
The new MacBook may be one for the future, but it seems that for a large number of customers, the future is now!
