Happy 2012 Apple! MacBook Air Sales Jump by 3 Times

MacBook Air sales have jumped by 3 times. This jump has seen Apple sell over a million MacBook Air laptops. What’s fuelled this massive jump?

MacBook Air Sales Figures

Here’s some important Mac sales statistics:

• Worldwide from October to December 2011, Apple will have sold around 5.2 million Macs.
• Laptops make up 74% of all Apple Mac computer sales.
• In October 2011, 28% of Apple’s laptop sales were MacBook Air notebooks.

Apple does not release sales figures for individual Mac products. We can, however, combine the information above to estimate MacBook Air’s shipped in Q4 2011.

This an estimate that Apple will have sold 1.1 million MacBook Air laptops globally in the last quarter.

This estimate correlates with two other estimates by Ultrabook News, which put MacBook Air sales at approximately 300,000 units a month.

Dramatic Rise in MacBook Air Sales

In June 2011, MacBook Air sales accounted for 8% of all Mac laptop sales. The following month, the MacBook Air accounted for 22% in Mac laptop sales. By October, the Mac Air was 28% of laptop sales.

This dramatic rise in MacBook Air sales is mostly due to introduction of new MacBook Air models on the 21st of July, 2011. These new models use ultra low voltage Intel Core i5 & i7 Sandybridge processors, giving performance gains of 2 to 3½ times the previous models’ Core 2 Duo processors.

The new MacBook Air models have bought the MacBook Air’s processor performance up to the level of a entry level MacBook Pro (the 13 inch model). The MacBook Air retains advantages over the MacBook Pro of being considerably smaller & lighter, and coming standard with a fast solid state flash disc.

The new MacBook Air models also added a Thunderbolt port, a new connection developed by Intel. Thunderbolt enables connecting multiple external displays, high speed networks, disk arrays and other demanding peripherals, at speeds of up to one gigabyte per second. A “daisy chain” of displays & peripherals can be connected to the MacBook Air by simply plugging in a tiny connector to the laptop’s side.

The massive performance boost and high-speed connectivity has made the new MacBook Air more attractive to potential buyers than the last MBA model – enough to give a 3½ fold increase in sales over the previous models. The previous MacBook Air models, using Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors, accounted for only 8% of Apple’s laptop sales.

More MacBook Air Information

Mac Crazy has in depth, original, independent analysis of the the latest MacBook Air models, including:

• A comparison of the MacBook Air i7 vs i5 processors
• A back-to-back Macbook Air 11 vs 13 inch with some non-obvious differences
• MacBook Air battery life estimates for different usage patterns, with actual times from extensive sources, and fixes for common causes of poor battery life,
• Tips for MacBook Air external display selection, and videos demonstrating using a super high resolution Apple Cinema Display as a MacBook Air external display.
• There’s no main MacBook Air review, but these articles work well together to give a great overview of the MacAir.

MacBook Air Future

The proportion of Apple notebook sales from the MacBook Air 2011 model continues to rise. There’s conjecture that the MacBook Pro models will follow the MacBook Air, losing their DVD burners and hard disks to become more svelte. There’s also evidence in Apple’s supply chain that a MacBook Air 15 inch model will be introduced in 2012.

What do you think the future of the MacBook Air and Pro be? Will the two products merge? Let us know in a comment below.