Consumers will have to wait for new redesigned iPhone

Los Angeles: Consumers, who’re looking for all-new and redesigned iPhone in September 2016 will have to wait a little longer.
Apple will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the iPhone in 2017. The company historically uses milestones for new redesigns of its products, says Apple analyst Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies.

A 2017 release would disrupt the every-two-years cycle of major design upgrades for the iPhone. Apple’s last major update to was in 2014 with the iPhone 6, which became its best-selling iPhone ever. In off years, it offers new features in a similar design, as with 2015’s iPhone 6S.

A penchant for anniversaries could mix up that schedule. According to a report published on a German Apple news site, Chinese manufacturers are indicating Apple will delay the big re-design to 2017 and instead reveal an iPhone 6SE in September. This follows a similar report in May from the Nikkei Asian Review that Apple was pushing out its product upgrade cycle to three years.

The new phone will still have many new features including an improved camera, more memory (starter edition with 32 GB of storage, instead of now standard 16 GB) more power and a thinner body.

The new phone will still have many new features, says Bajarin, including an improved camera, more memory (starter edition with 32 GB of storage, instead of now standard 16 GB) more power and a thinner body.

Apple announces earnings after the market closes Tuesday, and is expected to report falling iPhone sales for the second quarter in a row.

Brokerage Piper Jaffray predicts sales of 41 million iPhones in the quarter. That’s down from 51.2 million in the previous quarter, which was 16 percent lower than the year ago quarter.

Analysts opine that it makes sense for Apple to wait a year, to lose a little on the short term, but make it for it in the long term in the wake of saturating smartphone sales. Manufacturers are struggling to find a good reason to get consumers to buy a new one. But making the major upgrade cycle longer at three years, Apple is waiting a year to get a bigger pop.

Bajarin doesn’t think that iPhone sales are peaked and says they can reach highs again, “if they create a brand new design and introduce something unique and highly innovative. It could cause another super cycle.”

But investors just might have to wait a little longer for this than expected.

Julie Ask, an analyst with Forrester Research, says it makes sense for Apple to wait a year, to lose a little on the short term, but make it for it in the long term. “Smartphone sales are saturated,” she says. Manufacturers are “struggling to find a good reason to get consumers to buy a new one.”
But making the major upgrade cycle longer at three years, Apple is waiting a year to get a bigger pop.