Apple to Have 3 Million CDMA iPhones Ready in December, Suppliers Say

Analyst Jeffrey Fidacaro with Susquehanna Financial Group ha issued a note to investors saying that checks with overseas suppliers indicated Apple is planning build 3 million CDMA-capable iPhones in December.

A report by AppleInsider citing the analyst says that, according to this forecast, Apple’s new device remains on track for an early 2011 launch, putting total GSM and CDMA iPhone production at between 21 million and 22 million units for the quarter.

Suppliers reportedly indicated that Apple is set to build between 18.2 million and 18.4 million iPhones that only do GSM.

Those numbers are "well above investor expectations," as display panel constraints with LG Display have been resolved, Fidacaro noted.

He expects Apple to sell 11.6 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2010, “a 39 percent increase from the 8.4 million handsets the company sold in the third quarter of fiscal 2010,” according to the AppleInsider report.

"We expect the September 25 launch of iPhone in China and Apple's target of making the iPhone available in 88 countries by month end to aid results in 4QFY10," Fidacaro wrote.

"Our checks show that Apple is still struggling with yields on the mass production of the white iPhone 4," he added.

AppleInsider makes a note of its own saying that, before the iPad’s unveiling earlier this year, Fidacaro conducted an assumed component breakdown on the unconfirmed device, foreseeing the inclusion of a 4200RPM spinning hard drive, and an Intel Atom mobile processor.

None of these projections materialized with the launch of Apple’s highly anticipated tablet computer.

Softpedia reported earlier today that Ashok Kumar, managing director and analyst at Rodman & Renshaw, issued his own statement on Apple’s plans with the iPhone, saying that Qualcomm is the likely the chip supplier for both a future CDMA iPhone using Verizon’s network, and the next-generation iPhone 5.

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