With the announcement of the iPhone 5 and a potential second model on the horizon, analysts are predicting a strong holiday season for Apple. In fact, Apple could make up to 22 million iPhone units in Q4 of 2011 alone, with the iPhone 4 oddly enough still accounting for the majority of sales.
Analyst Ashok Kumar of Rodman & Renshaw says that Apple will continue to produce the iPhone 4 at a steady pace into this year’s holiday season, assuming that Apple will lower the price point on the iPhone 4 alongside the introduction of the next gen model(s).
Kumar cites supply chain estimates and notes that Apple should make 17 million iPhone 4s in Q4, while iPhone 5 production will only account for 5 million units.
“Total iPhone volumes could be up high single digits sequentially to around 22 million units with the upgraded iPhone representing almost quarter of the volume. The “new” iPhone is expected to be a spec upgrade and not a complete redesign. It is likely that the existing iPhone 4 could be repositioned as a “lower” cost device and will continue to ship until the rollout of the completely redesigned iPhone sometime next year.”
These supply chain estimates definitely point towards the rumor that Apple will introduce a second, cheaper iPhone model alongside a new flagship device this Fall. There’s a possibility that the cheaper device rumored to be the iCloud-based iPhone ‘Nano’ is actually a retooled iPhone 4 with less storage.
Apple sold 20.3 million iPhones in this last business quarter, so these numbers for Q4 seem to be right on track. As The Next Web notes, Kumar’s estimates could actually be considered as rather conservative, with rumors suggesting that Apple will launch its next gen device(s) on all four of the major US carriers this Fall.
Right now, it looks like we’ll see an iPhone 5 with a sleeker design and faster internals this Fall alongside a cheaper iPhone model for the lower tier market. The announcement is expected to take place between late September and early October.
Alex Heath is a journalist who works for Tech Insider. He’s the former co-host of The CultCast. He has been quoted by the likes of the BBC, KRON 4 News, and books like “ICONIC: A Photographic Tribute to Apple Innovation.” He lives in Lexington, Kentucky. If you want to pitch a story, share a tip, or just get in touch, additional contact information is available on his personal site. Follow him on Twitter.
15 responses to “Apple to Make More iPhone 4s than iPhone 5s this Holiday Season [Report]”
This is speculation on top of speculation and therefore quite worthless.
It’s ridiculous to talk about “iPhone 5 vs. iPhone 4s” when both are just fictional monikers for devices that may or may not even exist. To then talk about the potential sales volume for each is just insane.
You might as well have a discussion about whether they will sell more Unicorns than Gnomes.
they are just missing an apostrophe. They are talking about sales of a base model iPhone 4 (i.e. the current 8gig 3GS) to the new iPhone 5
Well clearly they’d sell more gnomes than unicorns, duh! This is the post-Unicorn Era. LOL
Sign me up for iPhone 5! :D Wish there are official info about the next phone so we can plan accordingly (budget, etc)
But again, it’s always about the excitement to find what’s new and how cool the new phone is :)
Wow I’m so tired
Yeah I’m pretty sure they were going for iPhone 4’s vs iPhone 5’s
What’s the difference between lowering the ‘price point’ and lowering the ‘price’?
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