J.P. Morgan: MacBook Air could become $3 billion business for Apple

“Online services such as Apple’s iCloud offering could help turn Apple‘s ultra-thin MacBook Air into a $3 billion-a-year business, even as sales of fatter notebooks and desktop computers stagnate, J.P. Morgan analyst Mark Moskowitz wrote in a note to investors Thursday,” Brian Caulfield reports for Forbes.

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“First quarter unit sales were five times those of the year-ago period, thanks to the introduction of new MacBook Air models in October — with Moscowitz arguing the new MacBooks represent a “breakout” product for Apple,” Caulfield reports. “Over the next 12 to 18 months, Moskowitz estimates Apple will sell roughly 700,000 of the notebooks each quarter — up from just 432,000 units in the first quarter of 2011.”

Read more in the full article here.

33 Comments

  1. I have a feeling the next version of MacBook Pro will not have a built-in optical drive. And the 13-inch MacBook Pro will be cancelled. And the “white” MacBook will also be canceled.

    So Apple’s portable Mac lineup will be:

    11-inch MacBook Air
    13-inch MacBook Air
    15-inch MacBook Pro
    17-inch MacBook Pro

    (and maybe “MacBook Air” will just be called “MacBook.”)

  2. I would buy a 17in Pro-Air in a heartbeat as long as Apple didn’t get stingy with the RAM or Processor.
    Thiner lighter, replace the optical drive with more battery OR a mech HD/SSD hybrid. Drool…..

    I would buy a USB/Thunderbolt optical drive for the rare times I need one.

    1. Dude that would be gnarly. I had a 17 inch g4 PB a while back. THe screen was cool but it was a beast to carry around. Can you imagine a MBA with a 17 inch screen? – light but large. Would cost a bundle though. $3k with SSD.

    1. Just keep using it (as is). There’s no need for it to “catch up” if it’s already “running very nicely.”

      Besides, the MacBook Air is not meant to be a performance machine. It’s standard RAM is currently only 2GB (not upgradable unless you order it with 4GB), and its processing is designed to be power efficient, not ultra fast.

    2. His question was more along the lines of whether if he upgraded his MacBook by installing an SSD drive would that give him a performance boost such that it will enable him to catch up to the performance of the latest edition of the Air.

      My answer would be that yes, definitely installing an SSD drive would give your MacBook a boost performance wise but it depends on what apps you’re running on the machine. If you’re doing normal stuff like email, listening to music on iTunes, writing documents on Pages, the SSD will not give you a noticeable boost in performance except in boot up time.

      The downside of an SSD is the limited capacity and expense. If you can live with that constraint, fine. If you would rather have a bigger drive to store all your apps and files then getting a large capacity faster spinning HDD (7200 RPM) might be a better approach.

      It all depends on what you expect out of your system.

        1. Windows 8 is going to turn a lot of the techie XP guys off …. More sales for Mac …..

          Lion and the Cloud will be a killer system …. Along with my 11″ Air and iPad – I’m set …..

          Of course have a 24″ 2008 iMac at work and it is for work ….

  3. You all sound like a bunch of wanna-be fan bois.
    That said… I tried a MB air the other day at the Apple Store, an was really impressed with the speed. It opened Pages pretty much instantly. Safari… Instantly.

    I really want one. (hint hint… Fathers day!!!!)

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