The new MacBook Air is set to come a reliable $2.2 billion revenue stream for Apple as strong demand for the lightweight laptop continues. The Cupertino, Calif. company shipped 420,000 of the laptops in the fourth quarter of 2010, amounting to a 333 percent year-over-year growth – three times the MacBook Air’s previous quarter high-mark.
After borrowing many features from the iPad – such as its light weight and instant-on capability – one analyst Monday termed the MacBook Air a “quasi-tablet.”
“Assuming that Apple can sustain or increase the recent quarterly run rate of 420,000 units and pricing stats stable, annual MacBook Air revenues could track to $2.2 billion or better,” J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz told investors.
“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,” the analyst writes. The MacBook Air “accounted for greater than 10 percent of total Mac units” in the fourth quarter of calendar 2010, he adds.
However, most striking was the MacBook Air now comprises 15 percent of all notebook sales during the quarter, a steep increase over the five percent reported for calendar 2009.
Earlier this year one indication of the device’s popularity surfaced on reports Apple doubled orders for the MacBook Air. The Cupertino, Calif. company is also expected to announce the laptop will include Intel’s next-generation Sandy Bridge processors.
