According to a new note by Rodman & Renshaw Equity Research, Apple could sell up to 15 million iPhones in the quarter ending in September, easily the company’s strongest quarter for iPhone sales.
Sales will be boosted by the upcoming iPhone “4G” or “HD,” the smartphone leaked last month by Gizmodo after it was left in a bar by an Apple developer.
Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar said the company will manufacture 12 million of the new iPhone HD for the September quarter, which combined with iPhone 3GS sales could lead to 15 million for the period.
For the fiscal year, Apple could sell 40 million iPhones, up from 18 million for the fiscal 2009.
Adds Kumar (via SFGate): “Apple is close to achieving peak market share with its existing lineup of wireless carriers. The only way to keep growing its iPhone business is to expand its relationships with other carriers and to become more carrier-agnostic.”
The new iPhone will have a front-facing camera for video conferencing, a better standard camera (including larger lens and flash), a Micro-SIM slot (just like the iPad), large 960×640 resolution, a second mic, metallic exterior (not plastic) and split side buttons for volume.
Result for: wireless carriers
Microsoft Corp. has reportedly informed wireless carriers by letter that they can no longer use the Musiwave mobile tunes service once their contracts expire, a source told The Register. Musiwave drives more than 50 million downloads a year for the likes of T-Mobile, Vodafone, and Orange. It has licensing deals with the major record labels covering 3.3 million tracks and 250,000 artists.
The service underpins music, video and ringtone services operated by wireless carriers around the world (but not in the U.S.). The report seems to indicate that Microsoft is incorporating Musiwave into the Zune Marketplace and Xbox 360 games console - making it a Microsoft-exclusive technology that compares somewhat to Apple’s iTunes exclusivity.
Musiwave’s withdrawal from wireless carriers opens up the market for rivals such as RealNetworks and Livewire Mobile. “We’re building a team in Redmond to help power Zune Marketplace,” reads another Musiwave listing. “This job would work towards the overall strategy and collaborate closely with the Zune Redmond team and the Musiwave Paris team.”
Result for: wireless carriers
After being unveiled a couple of weeks ago at the very consumer attractive price of $199 USD, the iPhone 3G is set to go on sale next month through Apple and AT&T.
According to new reports, it appears however that AT&T is subsidizing the phone, over $400 USD in some cases, just to be able to reap in the benefits of a 2 year contract including data plans.
Oppenheimer financial analyst Yair Reimer writes that as a general rule of thumb, wireless carriers subsidize the price of smartphones by about $200 USD and make it back from expensive data plans. AT&T it appears though, is losing $325-425 for each unit sold and could be buying each phone from Apple for as much $724 USD for the 16GB model.
Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster also wrote a report estimating that Apple will make about $466 USD per iPhone. Bernstein Research’s Toni Sacconaghi, in a separate report says he anticipates Apple is selling each phone at $700 USD.
