research analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has up to now offered correct information on Apple’s Mac product roadmap, lately took on a brand new place with KGI Securities and has published a new document lately indicating that Apple may be getting ready to drop the 17-inch MacBook pro from its lineup because of vulnerable sales.
Kuo’s prediction comes as Apple is predicted to introduce new notebooks that function a hybrid between the present MacBook Air and MacBook professional fashions, offering better energy than the Air however greater portability than the professional. Kuo believes that Apple will choose to drop the 17-inch size as a part of this revamp with a purpose to streamline the corporate’s product choices.
Apple’s Mac industry in 2Q12 will likely be boosted by a few elements. Three of which might be: (1) Mountain Lion, which integrates iOS features with Mac OS, Apple television’s interaction function, will be launched in June; (2) upgrading to Ivy Bridge; and (3) back-to-school demand. We forecast Apple will promote 5.32mn devices of the Mac sequence (up 28.5% QoQ and 35.2% YoY) in 2Q12, making it the primary increase driver.
We also predict Apple will roll out a fully new MacBook adaptation in early 3Q12, boasting sturdy performance and easy carryability through combining some great benefits of MacBook Air and MacBook professional.
whereas adding new merchandise, Apple is prone to cease making the 17” MacBook pro this 12 months as a result of falling shipments, with a purpose to care for a lean product line technique.
in step with Kuo’s estimates for the first calendar quarter of 2012, Apple offered roughly 3.1 million notebooks, with just about 1/2 of them being the 13-inch MacBook professional, some distance and away the company’s perfect-selling Mac product. however whereas Kuo predicts gross sales of just about 1.5 million units of the thirteen-inch MacBook pro, he sees a lot decrease sales of roughly 500,000 15-inch models and handiest 50,000 17-inch models.
Kuo estimates Apple’s first quarter MacBook Air gross sales at roughly 1.1 million, split nearly equally between 11-inch and thirteen-inch models. He believes that the MacBook Air is most effective assembly Apple’s expectations and now not exceeding them, in large part as a result of strong-state drives usually are not but available in sufficiently big capacities to satisfy shoppers. but the trend of abandoning optical and conventional onerous disk drives from notebooks will continue, and strong-state drives will proceed to turn out to be extra price competitive over time.
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