MacBook Air cited as likely cause

A surge in MacBook demand is responsible for an overall increase in notebook interest, a new ChangeWave Research survey proposes. Of a group of 2,812 Americans, 10 percent said they were planning to buy a notebook in the next 90 days. The figure is two points higher than last month, and said to match the highest level in a ChangeWave survey in three years.

More significantly, within the people planning on buying a notebook, 36 percent say they are getting a MacBook. ChangeWave comments that this is a "huge" 11-point jump since October, and likely attributable to a specific Apple system, the new MacBook Air. Revealed on October 20th, the computer now depends exclusively on SSD storage, and can be bought in a smaller, cheaper 11-inch edition.

Apple's growth is said to have come at the expense of Dell notebooks, which slipped four points to the company's lowest level ever, 19 percent. HP also fell four points, but still sat higher at 22 percent. Overall netbook sales, meanwhile, have slipped 10 points during the last 18 months.

ChangeWave lastly notes that amongst electronics other than computers, its findings show 9 percent of people buying an iPad for themselves or someone else in the next 90 days. The tablet is tied with LCD TVs as the second-most popular gadget, dwarfed only by digital cameras at 12 percent. iPods are tied for third with non-3D Blu-ray players, and down three points year-over-year.

by MacNN Staff