At the beginning of March 2026, Apple introduced new Macs: The company presented the MacBook Air with M5 chip as well as the MacBook Pro 14″ and 16″ with M5 Pro and M5 Max processors. The entry-level model of the MacBook Pro with M5 without an additional name appeared at the end of 2025. But these announcements did not end the new introductions, because Apple presented a completely new laptop: the MacBook Neo. This is a particularly affordable entry-level laptop that uses the A18 known from the iPhone Pro instead of an M chip. With a starting price of just 699 euros (sometimes even cheaper on Amazon), this is undoubtedly a very good offer. The competition in the PC warehouse also sees it that way, because Apple’s announcement caused panic – and led to the announcement of similar offers.
IDC publishes sales figures
The market research company IDC has now published sales figures for the new laptop to TechCrunch. According to the data, Apple is said to have sold 1.1 million devices in the first calendar quarter – and 44 percent of them in the USA. It should be noted here that the MacBook Neo only went on sale on March 11th (can be pre-ordered from March 4th), so the number reflects sales for almost three weeks.
For comparison, IDC also published the sales figures for the MacBook Air with M5 and the MacBook Pro, also with M5. According to the report, Apple is said to have sold 900,000 and 550,000 units respectively. The report is unfortunately imprecise at this point, as it clearly states that the MacBook Neo was only available for about three weeks – but this is exactly the case for the MacBook Air M5 and MacBook Pro M5 Pro/Max. All new MacBooks were available for purchase from March 11, 2026 (pre-orders from March 4). However, it can be assumed that this actually only means the new models, since Apple delivers between 5 and 7 million Macs per quarter.
Further increases in April – worse figures due to delivery difficulties?
IDC also reports that MacBook Neo shipments continued to increase in April 2026. But although the MacBook Neo is the best-selling Mac among the new models introduced in March, the numbers raise questions: The MacBook Air M5 and MacBook Pro with M5 Pro and M5 Max were purely product updates and therefore probably only had a minor impact on sales. The MacBook Neo was also increasingly reported outside of the tech world – and test reports were very positive.
For this reason, the IDC data for the MacBook Neo appears to be quite low compared to the other models. However, since Apple had severe delivery problems with the MacBook Neo, it is conceivable that many of the deliveries were delayed until April and May – and are therefore not included in the IDC statistics. Unfortunately, TechCrunch’s report does not go into detail about the figures and the impact of the delivery difficulties.
