Apple's MacBook Neo Tipped For 2X Shipments And More RAM In 2027

Apple is anticipating even higher demand for its MacBook Neo next year and has told its suppliers to prepare for 16 million shipments, Digitimes reports. To put it into context, it's estimated that Apple shipped just shy of 8 million MacBook Neo laptops, which debuted in March starting at $599 before a round of price hikes pushed the baseline price to $699. Combined with a likely MacBook Neo 2 release with some key upgrades in 2027, Apple is evidently confident demand will not only remain high, but go up.

Even with the $100 adjustment, the MacBook Neo is still the most affordable MacBook to date. The caveat is that Apple had to make several design concessions to hit a more accessible price point, such as tapping into its iPhone silicon (A18 Pro, same as found in the iPhone 16 Pro), limiting memory to just 8GB of RAM, ditching a backlight on the keyboard, and a few other less premium bits.

Nevertheless, the MacBook Neo is a capable laptop. For our MacBook Neo review, we spent some quality time with the system—27 days on the road to ensure we were getting a full picture of its capabilities and real-world utility. And spoiler alert, it earned our coveted Editor's Choice award.

So what about a MacBook Neo refresh and its impact on shipments? Despite some cavalier reporting we've seen, the full article (only viewable if you register an account) makes no outright distinction between the MacBook Neo and MacBook Neo 2.

That being the case, the 16 million figure being floated around is almost definitely for combined current-gen and next-gen MacBook Neo models. Also notable is that suppliers are being "more conservative" with their own forecasts compared to Apple, and reportedly expect "at least 12 million units."

The other thing to keep in mind is that the MacBook Neo will not have a full year of sales/shipments under its belt when 2026 comes to an end, which is important context for the double shipments claim. Still, it would be an impressive uptick, especially now that PC players within the Windows ecosystem have come out firing with more affordable silicon and systems in response to the MacBook Neo (hello, Intel Wildcat Lake).

As to what upgrades to expect, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously said Apple was testing a refreshed MacBook Neo with a faster A19 Pro chip and more memory. The latter claim is interesting because the consumer market is being ravaged by a shortage of memory chips, which is also driving up prices. Still, if Apple can pull it off, it's more than conceivable that MacBook Neo sales will indeed double.