There has been a lot of speculation over the previous spring among reporters regarding the name of the new iPhone that Apple plans to release some time this September. While the speculation has been tilting towards it being named the “iPhone 5” to match with the iOS 5 operating system that Apple revealed to developers in its WWDC conference held in the first week of June this year.
Some have been suggesting that the new iPhone might just be a faster version of Apple’s earlier iPhone 4, hence making it the iPhone 4S to repeat the nomenclature system that iPhone used two years ago in naming its new device the iPhone 3GS after having released the iPhone 3G previously.
However, in a note released early on Monday by Deutsche Bank executive Chris Whitmore, Deutsche Bank’s clients have been told to expect the release of both an iPhone 5 and an iPhone 4S. This has been suggested as an option for Apple because both Nokia and Research in Motion, the makers of Blackberry, have been struggling recently in the mid-range priced smartphone market ($300-$500) and if Apple were to release a phone in that range they could make a major dent into a market that increasingly sees more and more competitors falling behind.
Whitmore expects that if Apple release an iPhone 4S which is priced around or specifically at $349 and comes unlocked with a prepaid voice plan then it would help the company to seriously penetrate the mid-range smartphone market and hence carve out a much greater share of a market that has now grown to include close to 1.5 billion customers in nearly 100 countries with close to a billion of these customers preferring prepaid plans over contracts.
Most cellphones in the U.S. are subsidized by the carriers through contracts that enable them to recoup the cost of the phone in payments that are made monthly, but there are many parts of the world where this is not the case. In many areas of Africa, Latin America and Asia, customers like to pay the entire cost of the phone when they buy it, and consequently iPhone penetration in these areas of the world is lower than in the U.S.
The two iPhone theory has long been a favorite with analysts who have been calling for Apple to launch a low cost pre-paid phone for a long time. However, Whitmore hasn’t cited any sources to back up his claim, so at this point it is only being seen as a theory and nothing concrete.
