The rumour of new iPhones and new iPhone pricing is nothing new. Now only 2 weeks away from the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8th the talk is getting louder from analysts about possible releases and pricing models.
Could this be the year that Apple does reduce their pricing? RBC analyst Mike Abramsky is sticking by his previous forecasts and saying a sting yes! He started to comment on the $99 iPhone back in February and March of last year, and the new iPhone “Pro” in the same month.
Abramsky says their will be two tiers of iPhones to choose from and 3 tiers of available pricing. The 8-gigabyte iPhone will be priced at $99, this will be the low-end model and will capture the “less affluent customers”. He states this price will lift iPhone sales by 30-40% and help Apple sell 5 million $99 iPhones this year, and a whopping 22 million next year.
Then comes the higher-end iPhone, or what Abramsky calls the “iPhone Pro”. The additions will be a smaller iPhone by one-tenth of an inch than the current model, a 3.2 megapixel camera, better battery life for video playback, “a faster 3G chipset (HSUPA vs current HSDPA), improved graphics processor, video recording, more memory (16GB/32GB)”. Pricing is rumoured to be $199 for the $16GB and $299 for the 32GB iPhone Pro.
In Canada, Rogers will be the only carrier to offer the iPhone and is expected to come out during the same time as the United States launch. Fido will no longer have this available to their customers.
