What you need to know
- Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is out with a new investor note.
- The analyst believes that the components for Apple's custom chips will cost more than Intel.
- It is unclear if this cost will be passed on to its customers.
Supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is out with a new investor note the morning after Apple's WWDC keynote, and the analyst has some predictions about the company's shift from Intel to its own custom Apple Silicon.
Reported by AppleInsider, Kuo believes that Apple's transition from Intel to its own Apple Silicon will bring with it a price increase per unit for the company.
"In a research note seen by AppleInsider, Kuo says that the shift to Apple Silicon has some additional costs. "Due to design changes, the unit price will increase," Kuo claims. It appears that Kuo is specifically talking about both the cost to Apple for the design effort for the shift and costs borne by suppliers."
It is unclear if this price increase will be absorbed by Apple, or if it will shift the cost to consumers in the form of a price bump for Apple Silicon-based Macs.
Kuo also stated that it is seeing better than expected demand for Apple's MacBooks due to the release of the new MacBook Air and the fact that many workers are still working from home.
"Benefiting from the need to work from home, we have increased the MacBook shipment forecast in 3Q20 by about 30%. Due to increased demand for work from home and demand for MacBook Air, 2H20 shipments are better than expected, so we expect MacBook shipments to grow by about 15% in 2020 to YoY to 16-16.5 million units."
The analyst also mentioned that Apple's new Magic Keyboard for the iPad Pro is beating expectations as well, causing the firm to increase its predicted shipments by 10-20%.
"Our latest survey indicates that Magic Keyboard demand is expected to increase by 10-20% due to better than expected 2H20 shipments."
Apple is expected to ship its first Apple Silicon Mac by the end of the year, so we will all find out soon enough if this components cost increase impacts the price of the Mac for consumers.
