Aaron Lee, Taipei; Joseph Tsai

 

Shipments of Apple's just released third-generation MacBook Air from the supply chain already reached 400,000-500,000 units in June and the volume is expected to remain strong throughout July and August, according to sources from Apple's upstream supply chain.

The sources estimated that Apple's MacBook series sales will reach 13-14 million units in 2011 and may even reach 15 million units, while adding that Apple is the only vendor that has provided a full shipments forecast to the first quarter of 2012 as the IT industry is being rather conservative about the overall demand in the second half of 2011.

Apple also announced its results for the fiscal third quarter with a profit of US$7.31 billion, a growth of 124.9% on year, while sales of iPad in the quarter reached 9.25 million units, a growth of 183% on year, iPhone sales were 20.34 million units, up 142% on year, Mac PC sales were 3.95 million units, up 14% on year, and iPod sales were 7.54 million units, down 20% on year.