The MacBook Neo is too popular, and Apple is running out of the A18 Pro
The RM2,499 MacBook Neo might be too popular for its own good. Sales have apparently surpassed Apple’s expectations so much that they’re now running out of the A18 Pro chipset powering it. As such, Cupertino is currently in discussion with their suppliers with the Neo posing a dilemma for them: either ramp up production or let themselves run out of MacBook Neo laptops to sell.
This comes courtesy of a new report by industry analyst Tim Culpan. The MacBook Neo of course doesn’t use brand new chips, but rather are leftover A18 Pro chipsets from its original fabrication run for the last generation iPhone 16 Pro. These A18 Pro chips were are lower binned ones—hence the 5 GPU cores instead of the full 6 cores on the iPhone 16 Pro—making them essentially free for Apple.
However, the runaway success of the MacBook Neo means that they might end up running out of these binned A18 Pro chipsets faster than expected. Apple and their suppliers, Quanta and Foxxconn, reportedly only planned for an initial build of around 5 to 6 million MacBook Neo units. Cupertino is now looking at options between sticking with its original plan, or building more than planned.
Going the latter route will however mean needing to fab more A18 Pro chipsets. TSMC however has reportedly already sold out their production capabilities on the 3nm process the A18 Pro is built on, and having to pay them to fab more along with the rising costs of memory and storage means Apple’s low cost laptop may no longer make financial sense for them.
Culpan offers a few solutions for Apple. He doesn’t expect Apple to go back to TSMC for more A18 Pro wafers, as this will lead require them to either disable the 6th GPU core or introduce another MacBook Neo with the extra core. He does see Apple however potentially killing the 256GB model, keeping the 512GB MacBook Neo only to balance demand and margins.
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