Sorry for being so slow to respond.
I think that demand is a self-fulfilling prophecy...that those Macs are selling because they're all Apple is offering!
Maybe, but within Apple Mac sales have remained relatively stable in dollar volume increasing only a small amount since the first quarter of 2009 and that is in an overall computer market that has been falling at a rate of as much as 10% a year in both dollars and unit sales. This means Mac market share is steadily increasing over this same time frame. So Apple must be doing something right just to stay even much less improve.
That doesn't factor in price increases, both those that have resulted from decreased functionality and those at the retail level (particularly with respect to the pricey Retina MacBook), so Apple's stable revenue could very well be artificial...the effect of falling unit sales, but of higher priced units.
To put things in the Apple corporate perspective, in 2009 Mac sales were about â…“ of total sales, the iPhone â…“, and the remaining â…“ iPod, services, and Other. Today Mac net sales account for 10% of Apple sales, iPad 9%, Services 12%, Other 4%, and iPhone 65%. Apple is investing a LOT of money keeping Mac sales where they are instead of decreasing with the rest of the computer market. They are unlikely to be investing that kind of money in laptops if they didn't have to. But that is just my opinion.
If I were Apple I'd find that disproportionate reliance on iPhone sales to be scary enough to justify a considerable investment in maintaining my "core" business.
Apple seems to be positioning themselves as a luxury brand (if they haven't already done so) in a market with an increasing number of consumers of luxury items, and maintaining a
complete product line is, I think, essential to that end. They ABSOLUTELY DO NOT want you to walk around with an iPhone and go home to a Dell.
