Apple will sell 700,000 MacBook Airs in Q4 — analysts

Those new MacBook Air models are being torn apart, poked and prodded, but just how many will Apple sell? A fair few it seems, with analysts at Concord Securities claiming we’ll see 700,000 of them flying off the shelves in the current quarter alone.

Analyst Mingchi Kuo believes Apple’s new MacBook Air will grab 17 percent of the company’s 4.1 million Mac shipments, with 60 percent of these sales accounted for by the cheaper 11.6-inch model.

The analysts also think the Macs will sell in even higher quantities next year once Mac OS X 10.7 Lion ships. Third party manufacturers within Apple’s supply chain should see strong benefits from the sales, the analysts said. Quanta Computer, Catcher Technology, AU Optronics and Auras Technology were all named in the report.

Meanwhile in related news, numerous reports cite AllThingsD which claims Apple is considering doubling the size of its 500,000 square foot data center, underlining the company’s extensive plans to implement cloud-based technologies in current and future products.