Management consultant Rags Srinivasan has reported on gigaom that the new Retina powered MacBook Pro computers could generate another $1 billion in pure profit for Apple.

He explains that Apple made a gross margin of $18.5 billion in the last quarter, it says $1.65 billion of this is due to the Macbook range of computers.

He says “What can we say from distribution of sales between the different MacBook versions from the $1,245 ASP numbers? For simplicity, let us treat the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro as one category with an ASP of $1099, and the 15-inch MacBook Pro as another category with an ASP of $1799. Solving for these numbers tells us that the 15-inch MacBook Pro accounted for less than 23 percent of MacBook units sold. In other words, three in four MacBooks sold are either MacBook Airs or the 13-inch version.

Shifting more of the sales to the higher priced MacBook Pro is one clear way to increase profits. Enter the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with its $2,199 price tag and two compelling value propositions — 256GB SSD (solid-state drive) and Retina Display.

By design, the Retina Display is not available in the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. This way, those who want the insanely-high screen resolution will have to pay up at least $2,199 to get it.”

He concludes “If Apple sees no change in total number of units sold from the current quarter, this ASP bump will still result in a minimum additional profit of $200 million. If you include net new purchases and higher percentage up-sells, this number could easily become $1 billion in additional profit.”

Kitguru says : We aren't sure his figures are 100% spot on, but we can be sure that Apple will be raising a few hundred million in profit, at least from the new Retina machines.

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