Why the spotlight is on Apple's notebooks

To Apple customers, especially those who are missing a few keys from their iBook keyboards, it simply feels like it's about time for the company to spice up the MacBook line. If we look at some recent statistics and reports, however, we can get a glimpse of just how important the MacBook has become to Apple's business.

For starters, notebook sales are up in the US and the rest of the world. Way up. In addition to taking the sixth spot worldwide, and fourth in the US, among PC manufacturers during Q1 2008, Apple nearly doubled its US share of the notebook market in Q2 2008 from 6.6 percent to 10.4 percent. It's growth like this that prompted Apple 2.0's Philip Elmer-DeWitt to take a closer look at where the MacBook stands among Apple's core products.

As it turns out, the iPod's share of Apple's revenue pie actually shrunk a little between 2006 and 2008, from 42 percent to 29 percent. While the iPhone picked up an estimated 5 percent of that pie, the Mac grew from 40 to 47 percent during that same time. The majority of that growth, however, is coming from Apple's portables, not desktops. While MacBooks account for 55 percent (of the Mac's 40 percent slice of the pie) in 2006, they now account for an estimated 61 percent of the Mac's 47 percent slice in Apple's overall pie.

Apple still has around 8.4 percent of the overall PC market in the US, but less than 4 percent worldwide. With so much of the industry focus turning towards notebooks, Apple could see a lot more success and growth with an innovative new MacBook design that finally breaks through the $1,000 barrier.