Apple Still Trying to Keep Up With M2 MacBook Air Demand Almost a Month After Launch

Demand for the new M2 MacBook Air is high almost a month after it was launched. Customers are facing up to a three-week wait for just the baseline configuration.

The baseline model of the MacBook Air in the US is shipping out in two to three weeks. There are other configurations that have different storage and memory options.

As Apple is currently running a Back to School promotion, the delay is timely. The battery life and performance of the M2 chip may make the MacBook Air an attractive purchase for students.

The situation with Apple's supply chain seems to be getting better. Most other Macs in Apple's lineup are readily available for shipping, even though the new MacBook Air won't be available until later in the year.

The iMac with the M1 chip is the exception. Customers looking for an iMac will face a three to four week delay according to Apple's store at the time of writing.

The Mac business was limited in the third quarter. Tim Cook said that it was difficult to gauge demand for Apple's latest computers because of the low Mac supply. Tim spoke during the last earnings call.

In terms of testing the demand, you can't really test demand unless you have the supply. We were so far from that last quarter that we have an estimate of what we believe demand was, but it is an estimate. We recognize how the industry is doing, we think that we've got a great story with the Mac, getting M1 out and now M2 out, we have a very strong offering for the back to school season and we'll see how we do this quarter. We'll report back in October.

Mac revenue in the third quarter was $7.3 billion, down from $8.2 billion a year ago.