According to supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple's Mac shipments hit a speed bump during 2023, despite the launch of a larger MacBook Air earlier this year. The 15-inch MacBook Air was seen as a much-needed entry into the popular 15-inch class of notebooks. However, shipments reportedly sputtered after a sales burst during the back-to-school period (shipment estimates have been revised downward by 20 percent for the year).
According to Kuo in a post on Medium, total MacBook sales for 2023 are expected to drop by 30 percent compared to 2022 to 17 million units. Even though we are fast approaching the holiday shopping season, Kuo doesn't expect a significant uptick in shipments for the remainder of 2023 since Apple won't deliver any MacBook hardware refreshes until early 2024, in a best-case scenario.
So, what's causing the shipment decline for MacBooks? Kuo says several factors are coming into play, including a steady decline in work-from-home (WFH) demand. PC demand was artificially inflated due to WFH during the COVID-19 crisis, and now shipments are settling back into a more normalized pattern. It's also surmised that Mini-LED, as seen in the MacBook Pro family, is no longer a big draw for customers. In addition, the luster of Apple Silicon has worn off for customers who've already upgraded from Intel-based MacBooks, as we've seen minor speed bumps going from the initial M1 to M2 generation of CPUs.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that the new MacBook Pros will launch "early next year" but hasn't described what new features Apple plans to add other than faster RAM. We could also imagine brighter Mini-LED displays and perhaps we could see faster SSDs, though Gen5 models aren't like to appear in laptops any time soon given their current power requirements.
