iPhone 5: New Design Could Mean More Huge Sales for Apple
Since Apple didn’t redesign its iPhone and iPad at least on the outside in 2011, look for significant changes to Apple’s iconic devices next year.
The Silicon Valley giant didn’t release a full-blown iPhone 5 this year, but still managed to break sales records with its iPhone 4S, an upgrade to its fourth-generation smartphone. The launch of an iPhone 5 in mid-2012 could help Apple sell between 142 million and 162 million units in 2013, said Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster in an investor note, as quoted by Apple Insider. The first number would result in an 18 percent increase in revenue; the second would be a whopping 35 percent increase. And what’s even more remarkable is that those percentages would be low compared to 2011, in which Apple will see a 56 percent revenue growth, Munster said.
The analyst expects Apple will release just one third-generation iPad in 2012, but could obviously sell even more if the company offers different styles of iPads at different prices. Munster thinks Apple will sell 66 million iPads in 2013, which would mean 11 percent more in revenue than his prediction for 2012; yet 77.5 million in sales is the top-end prediction, which would be a 30 percent spike.
The question many Apple fans will be asking is if these new products will be LTE-compatible. While the analyst doesn’t address that, it would seem hard to believe that the company would go another year without releasing an LTE iPhone when you consider the number of LTE Android handsets available from AT&T and Verizon Wireless now numbers 11.
