14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like sales of Apple's MacBook portables have been much bigger than initially anticipated.
According to a recent DigiTimes report monthly shipments of the portables from Taiwan-based Asustek Computer jumped from about 100,000 units when the company started shipping the new computers in April, to 120,000 units in June.
Shipments are expected to keep increasing in the second half of the year, as Apple's advertising and competitive pricing. All in all, Apple may very well deliver two million iBook and MacBook laptops in addition to one million MacBook Pro notebooks, in 2006. If they manage to pull it off, it would represent a 39% increase from the 2.16 million units shipped in 2005 as estimated by IDC (International Data Corporation).
Also, according to a July 3 Chinese-language Commercial Times report, Asustek's shipments of MacBooks already reached 300,000 units in June, up from 200,000 in May and 100,000 in April. These figures seem very unrealistic considering that the figures are higher than the industry projections for Apple's total MacBooks shipments for 2006.
As expected, Apple did not comment, and Asustek declined to comment on the reports, citing client confidentiality. However, if the recent expanding of the MacBook line by two additional retail configurations is an indication, Apple is doing very, very well with the MacBooks.