Report: $99 iPhone Expected This Summer

Ed Sutherland ()

iphone3g-home.jpgSpeculation that Apple will unveil an inexpensive iPhone was revived Tuesday. RBC analyst Mark Abramsky expects Cupertino will unveil a $99 iPhone sometime this summer.

Abramsky, citing “checks”, told clients the handset is likely to eschew 3G, GPS and include a $15 data plan. A low-end iPhone could hike Apple’s share of the smartphone market to nearly 20 percent, according to one report.

While a $99 iPhone could mean handset sales for Apple, it could also cannibalize iPhone and iPod sales. The downshift might force Apple to sell triple the number of iPhones to take up the slack, according to Abramsky.

Long noted for its high-margin products, a less expensive iPhone could shrink margins for the touch-screen handset to around 37 percent from over 50 percent next year, according to the analyst.

The June or July release date expectation appears to dovetail with a report earlier this month. A new Apple handset “is due out in June,” United Arab Emirates’ carrier Etisalat told a local business publication.

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About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • firesign

    while i could see apple possibly price cutting the iphone 3g, i say hooey about this rumor. apple has no need to put out a cheap, feature crippled iphone. for good or bad, apple doesn’t do cheap.

  • http://www.noamdesign.com rick

    I would get one but I am worried that the features I am looking for in an iphone may not be available in this economic version.

  • http://nutritionproteinsupplements.net Nutrition Protein Supplements

    A iphone without gps is no a iphone, and will not buy it!

  • Patrick

    Should try to clarify what is meant by “no GPS”.

    By US law, all phones have to support GPS at least for E911.

    HOWEVER, that doesn’t mean they support GPS for applications such as turn by turn navigation. However, there’s no TBT navi on the iphone anyway (out of the box).

  • mansoor

    what would be the differance in ipone and blackberry, if iphone e mail is same or better then blackberry ill switch

  • http://411macjunkie.com 411macjunkie

    This would definitely be a good move. $99 would be a good entry price for people who want to have an iPhone but not with all the bells and whistles!