Apple has ordered a new batch of A18 Pro chips from TSMC to double production of the MacBook Neo, which has sold much more than expected
The MacBook Neo has far exceeded Apple’s sales expectations. The entry-level laptop introduced on March 11, 2026 has generated such a level of demand that the company has been forced to double its initial production plan to 10 million unitsand to achieve this it has had to turn to TSMC to manufacture an additional batch of A18 Pro chips. The problem is that this decision has a structural cost that could affect the product’s margins, because the first MacBook Neo used chips that Apple had obtained at a bargain price.
The story behind this has a certain irony. Apple launched the MacBook Neo at an unusually low starting price by its standards, in part because it was able to use A18 Pro chips that were, technically, production discards (“downbinned”) from the iPhone 16 Pro.
They were functional units, with the same features as the standard chip, but they had failed some quality control criteria for the smartphone segment and, instead of being discarded, they were used for the cheapest laptop in the Mac line. It is a common practice in the semiconductor industry, which allows manufacturers to make the most of each silicon wafer produced.
Without more recycled chips, you have to pay the full price
The problem comes when that reserve of chips from the production of the iPhone 16 Pro runs out, which is exactly what has happened. This iPhone has been out of active production for some time, so there are no more “leftover” A18 Pro units available. To continue manufacturing MacBook Neo at the scale that demand demands, Apple needs TSMC to produce A18 Pro chips specifically for this laptopwithout the economic benefit of taking advantage of the discarded iPhone.
Apple reportedly instructed its suppliers to prepare production capacity for 10 million units of first-generation MacBook Neo, double the 5 or 6 million that the original plan managed. That also implies that the new A18 Pro chips coming out of TSMC will mostly be fully functional variants with six-core GPUs, without the compromises of rebinded chips.
The demand for the MacBook Neo, beyond all expectations
Since it went on sale, it has been difficult to find in many color combinations and configurations. Delivery times have been extended for weeks in several marketswhich is a clear sign that the supply chain was not sized to absorb the volume of orders that the product has generated.
It is not the first time that Apple has found itself in this situation with an affordable Mac. The phenomenon is reminiscent of the impact that the Mac mini M1 or the MacBook Air M2 had at the time, but the MacBook Neo has taken it to another scale thanks to its price, the lowest in the history of Mac laptops.
The dilemma of the margins
The decision to turn to newly manufactured A18 Pro chips is not trivial from a financial point of view. The “hot lot” chips that Apple is now ordering from TSMC have a higher cost per unit than the remixed chips that were used in the first wave of production. That It means that Apple has to bear a higher manufacturing cost for each additional MacBook Neo that it wants to bring to the market, which puts pressure on the margins of a product that was already, by the company’s standards, exceptionally affordable.
For now, Apple has not announced any price changes for the MacBook Neo. The bet is to assume this additional cost so as not to lose market share in a segment where demand is clearly justifying the investment. Tim Cook even mentioned in the latest quarterly results that the MacBook Neo had had the best launch week for new Mac customers in the company’s entire history, which gives an idea of the scale of the phenomenon.
TSMC, for its part, has sufficient capacity in its N3E process to absorb Apple’s additional order without posing a relevant bottleneck for the rest of the 3nm node clients.
