Apple’s $599 MacBook Neo Is Defying a Crashing PC Market
Toggle Dark Mode
As PC manufacturers face a global memory shortage that isn’t expected to ease up until late 2027, they also face pressure from a surprising new contender: Apple’s remarkably affordable new MacBook Neo.
Market research firm IDC expects to see conditions worsen through the rest of 2026, with PC shipments projected to plunge 20% year-over-year in the fourth quarter. Ever-increasing RAM costs are making it more difficult for PC manufacturers to maintain their formerly broad product lineups, resulting in limited product availability. IDC is forecasting an overall 11.3% decline in global shipments for 2026.
According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Personal Computing Device Tracker, conditions are expected to become even more volatile throughout the fourth quarter, with rising average selling prices and PC manufacturers struggling to maintain a full lineup of computers. There’s no true relief in sight before the end of 2027.
The first quarter of 2026 offered what turned out to be false hope, as shipments grew during the quarter by 3% when compared to the same year ago quarter. However, that sales bump turned out to be from consumers and commercial buyers making purchases earlier than expected to try to get ahead of expected price hikes and supply shortages.
While some of the first quarter’s momentum appears to be carrying forward to the second quarter, the remaining two quarters are expected to show a downhill slide. Pricing is one of the factors contributing to this, as IDC forecasts average selling price growth of 17% in 2026, while warning that PC pricing is unlikely to return to 2025 levels. As noted by Mactrast, some analysts warn that we could see mainstream laptop prices surge by close to 40% this year, fueled by the rising costs of memory, CPUs, and other components.
Apple is not completely immune from the global chip shortage, which affects not only memory but also manufacturing capacity for Apple’s M-series chips — a bottleneck currently restricting supply of the Mac mini and Mac Studio. However, its recently-introduced MacBook Neo has proven to be quite popular, taking the budget laptop category by storm and driving stronger-than-expected demand. This has prompted IDC to revise its notebook forecast upward.
Launched in March at $599, the MacBook Neo is powered by the A18 Pro chip (previously used in the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max) paired with 8 GB of memory. Apple is targeting the sub-$700 notebook market, which accounts for the sale of approximately 75 million units annually, a 40% chunk of total notebook volume. That lower-end tier has traditionally been ruled by cheap, plastic, low-powered Windows and ChromeOS devices.
IDC says the MacBook Neo is “putting real pressure on the entire PC ecosystem,” and expects rivals to respond in three ways, with new silicon, a more efficient operating system from Microsoft, and aggressive promotional pricing. The Neo has forced some PC makers to keep some of their low-priced notebook options available, even as rising costs and availability issues work to move retail prices ever upward.
Those same rising costs are driving many PC makers to push higher-priced systems in an effort to maintain market share, while also lowering the specs on lower-priced models. Meanwhile, Apple has taken the road heading in the opposite direction, offering a well-performing and reliable MacBook model targeted solidly at the low-end market it had previously mostly ignored.
