On Monday, Deutsche Bank’s Chris Whitmore told clients to expect Apple to announce both the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4S this year. Whitmore believes Apple needs to release a cheaper unlocked iPhone to penetrate the pre-paid market.
“With Nokia and RIMM struggling,” Whitmore said, “the time is right for Apple to aggressively penetrate the mid range smart-phone market to dramatically expand its [total addressable market] and market share.”
Out of 1.5 billion mobile customers, two-thirds are pre-paid users, and Whitmore thinks Apple will price the iPhone 4S around $349, and offer a pre-paid voice plan to attract the pay as you go crowd.
“Apple shipped (about 87 million) units over the past 2 years which suggests it has reached only 6% penetration of its current addressable subscribers,” Whitmore wrote. “Looking forward, we believe Apple has room to run both in terms of greater market penetration as well as incremental carrier additions going forward.”
It makes sense, all of the recent tips, leaks, and rumors have been pointing to either an iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 being released in 2011, so why not both? Plus this isn’t the first time a lower-priced iPhone has been mentioned, back in April, Avian Securities also suggested Apple was
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