Apple's large Apple silicon MacBook orders suggest expectations are high

Apple will hold a special event next week and is widely expected to announce new notebooks with Apple silicon inside. Expectations are already sky-high among those of us watching on from the outside but it would seem expectations are just as high inside Apple, too.

According to a new NIkkei report, Apple has ordered a ton of new machines which would suggest that the company expects them to be hugely popular among buyers.

In fact, Apple is said to have placed initial orders that match around 20% of the normal annual order total.

Apple is asking suppliers to produce 2.5 million MacBook laptops powered by its in-house designed CPU by early 2021 as the California tech giant looks to rapidly cut its reliance on Intel chips, sources have told Nikkei Asia.

These initial production orders for the first MacBooks to use the Apple Silicon central processing unit are equivalent to nearly 20% of total MacBook shipments for 2019, which came in at 12.6 million units, sources briefed on the matter said.

It's hoped that Apple silicon will mean the new machines are not only super quick but also excellent in terms of power and thermal management. If that's the case and pricing is on point, Apple could be on to a big winner here.

It looks like someone inside Apple thinks the same thing.