14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is known to prefer high-profit margins in favor of flooding a market with cheap solutions, and one analyst believes this credo will lead to a more expensive iPhone next year, mainly because of the bigger screen.
Rumors abound that Apple’s next-generation iPhone will boast an all-new design, complete with a larger (5-inch) display.
One of the most expensive components in any smartphone (after the processor and the memory), the display is probably going to be the key driver in Apple’s inflated iPhone 6 price, according to Chris Caso’s thinking.
An analyst with Susquehanna, Caso says, “We think Apple could get away with a $50 to $100 premium for a larger screen size iPhone 6. We think such a move could avoid the margin erosion that occurred when the iPhone 5 was launched.”
Evidence of a potential move like this already exists in the form of a more expensive iPad mini released this year.
Equipped with a Retina display, the iPad mini 2 also has an upgraded processor, but apart from these two enhancements, the tablet is virtually identical to the one before it.
And while it should have taken the place of the original iPad with an unchanged price, as Apple usually does with all iDevices, the iPad mini 2 is actually $70 (€52.21) more expensive. Granted, Apple has also slashed the price of the first-generation model.
Apple’s screen upgrade in the iPhone 6 is imperative, as all competing smartphone vendors have long abandoned 4-inch screens (or anything smaller than that).
The Cupertino giant has been reluctant to increase screen size before ensuring that such a move doesn’t impact battery life to the point where the user has to charge his or her iPhone every day.