Overview
- Market tracker IDC says Apple shipped 1.1 million MacBook Neo units in the quarter ended March despite the model being on sale for only about three weeks.
- Apple launched the Neo in March as a $599 13‑inch aluminum laptop that uses an A18 Pro chip and ships with 8GB of base memory to reach a lower price point.
- Reports say Apple has ordered a dedicated A18 Pro run from TSMC and asked assemblers Quanta and Foxconn to raise output as it moves to scale production toward a much larger build plan.
- Rising LPDDR5X/DRAM prices and the exhaustion of down‑binned A18 Pro inventory are increasing per‑unit parts costs and are raising internal pressure on margins and possible lineup or price choices.
- Analysts say the Neo is pulling new buyers into the Mac ecosystem and could boost Apple’s share of the $400–$699 laptop tier while rivals such as Dell have already introduced competing $699 models.