MacBook Neo: Huge success, but can Apple meet demand?
Apple may have a supply and demand problem on its hands. The recently introduced MacBook Neo (reviewed here) is selling in huge quantities – so much so that Apple may literally run out of the chips it uses inside these devices.
What the story is
That’s the news according to Culpium, which claims Apple is in talks to resolve the problem. The challenge is that the product was, allegedly, built to use leftover A18 Pro processors the company possessed, but it didn’t place an order for additional units of the chip.
The report also observes that Apple intended to build a new model of the Mac next year, this time with A19 Pro chips inside. Perhaps more interesting, it suggests Apple was initially going to build around 5-6 million units of the device.
If the company now finds itself running out of chips to put inside these Macs, that rather implies it has already sold millions of these things. If that is the case, then that’s going to be a big market share boost, one that was visible when Amazon showed us the MacBook Neo became its number one selling notebook within hours of release.
Millions sold
On the negative side, the report posits that as a direct result of the war no one wanted in the Middle East, Apple will face more expensive processors from TSMC, more expensive memory and more expensive aluminium if it attempts to increase manufacturing capacity for the Neo.
It wouldn’t be the first time Apple had a runway hit on its hands and found it hard to keep up with demand – I feel like the original iPhone was one such instance of this. At the same time, I also believe the company to have been in the game long enough to put contingency plans in place, so perhaps elements of the above reporting may prove misplaced.
An iPhone moment for the Mac
But what the report does do, at least for me, is convince me that I’m right to believe the MacBook Neo is acting like an iPhone Moment for the Mac and will drive incredible market share and adoption gains.
“Mac just had its best launch week ever for first-time Mac customers,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote on X as the product hit stores. “We love seeing the enthusiasm!”
We’ll find out the extent to which Apple can meet this demand in the next few weeks, as Apple heads toward its April 30 2Q FY26 fiscal call.
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