You would think that with its ability to fit inside a manila envelope, the MacBook Air should be selling like hotcakes. Unfortunately for Apple, this does not appear to be the case.

As you recall, there was a lot of hullabaloo leading up to MacWorld regarding the possible release of an Apple subnotebook. This eventually manifested itself as the MacBook Air and as with every other new Apple product, pundits expected that it’d fly off shelves. Based on initial numbers, the MBA has not been selling as well as the first Intel-based Macbooks that were launched in May 2006.

Over half of retailers are saying that there is less demand for the new MacBook Air than there was for the Intel MacBooks almost two years ago. The problem, it seems, is that the MBA is “too steeply priced for Apple’s mainstream consumer base.”