If Apple dropped the costly iPhone data plan, the move could earn Cupertino $7 billion and create a bridge between the iPod and iPhone market, an analyst suggested Wednesday.
“Apple’s more than 100 million iPod users give the company a huge opportunity to capture significant market share in the mobile device market,” Sanford Berstein’s Toni Sacconaghi told clients.
By dropping the required $70 per month data plan, Apple would break out of the limited smartphone segment and open the doors to an iPod touch userbase worth $7 billion in income and $4 billion in profit each year.
The key is transitioning hundreds of millions of iPod users during a time when the digital music player concept is aging. The analyst proposed two alternatives: an iPhone “Nano” with a focus on music or an “iPhone Touch.” Both would jettison cell phone capabilities, as well as GPS support.
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.
