Early tomorrow, our time, Apple will break with recent tradition and reveal its new iPhone and several other upgrades.
Normally Apple has released its new iPhones in September to boost the final quarter of the year (which is the first quarter of Apple’s financial year) and then the March quarter of the next year (which is when the big selling Lunary New holiday occurs in China.
Both announcements are used to drive sales and and profits in the respective quarters, providing much of Apple’s growth over a full year’s trading.
Apple is expected to reveal a 4-inch iPhone SE, the same size as the 5 series introduced in 2012 but with updated technology, including Apple Pay, an upgraded camera and a faster processor.
New iPads with the same keyboard and Pencil accessories that arrived with last year’s Pro version and extra bands for the Apple Watch are also expected by US analysts.
Apple is hosting Monday’s event at the theatre in its Cupertino headquarters in California, a smaller venue than the auditoriums used for the recent iPhone launches, implying a more modest product launch.
Analysts point out that this is a different timing for a iPhone launch. The first was released in January 2007, and then updated every June until 2011’s 4S, which began the now-familiar autumn refresh (September). A fuller update to its regular smartphone is still expected in September – this is expected to be the new 7 model.
Analysts look to the last guidance from Apple with its December quarter results in January of this year when the company suggested that iPhone sales lower than market estimates and would dip this quarter compared to the same quarter of 2015.
The new phone will have a smaller screen than the model 6 – around four inches, which would be the same as the 5 phone – some analysts say that around 15% of iPhone owners want a smaller model.
But in the search for new sales growth ideas, Apple is clearly looking at infill strategies with its existing products.
Apple shares are down more than 15% in the past year (they closed on Friday night at $US109.92). That’s a considerable underperformance compared with the 2.8% fall in the S&P 500 in the same time.
But so far in 2016, they are up half a per cent which is slightly better than the 0.3% rise in the S&P 500. That improvement came last week when the shares rose 3.9% ahead of tonight’s announcements.
Can Apple recharge the US market? For many investors that is the big question, not the iPhone and how good it looks or works.
