Beginning tomorrow, the Apple iPhone will finally launch in Israel, with carrier Cellcom being the first carrier to offer the device. Within the next week, Orange and Pelephone will offer the smartphone as well.
Notably, each carrier is only being required to buy 80,000 iPhones for resale, however, Bank of America Merrill Lynch analyst Haim Israel says the carriers will be purchasing much more.
Israel has one of the highest mobile phone penetration rates in the world at 125 percent, and it is estimated that 80,000 Israelis currently use unlocked iPhones bought online or abroad.
The analyst also believes that “the iPhone will boost average revenue per user by 30 percent…thus, the average payback period would be only 13 months.”
Result for: bank of america
If Bank of America is to be believed, then the upcoming 3G Apple iPhone will hit retailers by June and that up to 11 million iPhones will be produced by the Q3 2008.
The new report, from Bank of America analyst Scott Craig, has not been confirmed by Apple or AT&T. “Our latest Channel checks point to a significant production build of a 3G iPhone beginning in the month of June after an initial small build in May,” he said.
Craig estimates that 3 million 3G iPhones will be produced by June and then 8 million more in the Q3. Craig previously estimated that there would only be 8 million units produced for the whole year.
Recently other analysts reported that Apple had ordered 10 million 3G iPhones from manufacturers so Craig’s estimates don’t seem to far out of reach.
