Although the chatter regarding the purported iPad Mini has been pretty relentless over the past couple of months, few people – if any – have really suggested how Apple plans to release two products at around the same time. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has built up a reputation of accurately predicting the Cupertino company’s movements, has given his estimations on when Apple plans to release these new devices.
Kuo is of the impression Apple will launch its next-gen iPhone first, in September, and also believes the release could be earlier in the month as opposed to later on. He was cautious with that particular forecast though, adding how due to component shortages, and the fact the next iPhone will only spend a short segment of Q3 on sale, the number of iPhones shifted will only be incrementally higher than the numbers in Q2.
With regards to the iPad, Kuo suggests the so-called iPad Mini will also arrive in September, although he only expects it to sell 1.8 million units in Q3 thanks again to the overlapping of the release frame. That said, he does believe sales will skyrocket thereafter, overtaking the 9.7-inch iPad with sales of 13 million units during the forth quarter of this year.
The third-gen iPad, which released in March, is also expected to be tweaked according to Kuo, although the modifications will not leave current owners of the Retina iPad feeling too shortchanged. The internals will be altered somewhat, amending lingering thermal issues and reducing costs in the process. Although there has been scattered talk of altogether more significant iPad 3 changes, Kuo is of the knowledge that the changes will not be noticeable to the consumer.
To summarize, Kuo foresees huge sales of both the iPhone and iPad in Q4 of this year, and with the fruit company having experienced record-busting Q4 revenue in 2011, 2012 could – and probably will – surpass those figures.
Whatever the case may be in terms of how much Apple looks to be making, Kuo’s predictions mean the next iPhone could begin shipping in less than six weeks, which is certainly an exciting prospect. With the iPad Mini now seeming more and more like a certainty, the next two months promise much, and we’ll be covering it all here at Redmond Pie, so stay tuned.
(via MacRumors)
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