Apple’s Mac business will have a terrific 2017, a new report says. Apple is expected to ship some 15 million laptops this year, or 10% more than last year. Apple’s 2016 MacBook Pro is to “blame” for the increased interest in MacBooks. Additionally, Apple’s upcoming 2017 MacBook and MacBook Pro updates should also convince even more users to upgrade.
Citing Chinese-language site Economic Daily News, Digitimes says that demand is still rather high for the 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. The laptop is set to get even better later this year, thanks to processor upgrades to Intel Kaby Lake and support of up to 32GB of RAM.
Kaby Lake’s low power consumption is expected “to trigger a replacement trend among existing MacBook users,” according to market watchers.
The 2016 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar will be even cheaper, as Apple looks to increase overall shipments. The device will replace the 13-inch MacBook Air, the same market watchers claimed.
Finally, the 12-inch MacBook is also set to receive an update early in the second quarter of the year. Apple will sell a version of the laptop that packs 16GB of RAM.
The Kaby Lake-based 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Pros are expected to hit production early in the third quarter, while the 32GB 15-inch MacBook Pro will hit production a quarter later.
These details, yet to be confirmed by Apple, are in line with the predictions of KGI Securities’ Ming-Chi Kuo.
