Apple could be readying a launch of an iPhone Mini next year, according to Strategy Analytics analyst Neil Mawston. This claim was spurred from the belief that Apple feels pressure to overtake Samsung as the top manufacturer, and Mawston believes the best way to do that is to offer customers more different types of iPhones. Samsung captured 33 percent of the market in 2012, while Apple stood a distant second at 21 percent.
Mawston feels Apple should bring to market a much cheaper variant of the iPhone such as a ‘mini’ version. It could help garner more sales to go with its already dominate flagship iPhone 5 (or 5s if we’re talking about next year).
“We believe Apple will have to launch an ‘iPhone Mini’ at some point over the next three years to address the hundreds of millions of prepaid users worldwide that cannot afford the current iPhone. The iPhone 5 is growing fast and profitably right now, so there is limited incentive for Apple to launch a profit-squeezing ‘iPhone Mini’ this year. We expect the ‘iPhone Mini’ to be more likely next year, in 2014, when Apple’s penetration of the global postpaid smartphone market will be nearing saturation and Apple will be forced to discover fresh growth streams elsewhere.”
That being said, Mawston isn’t exactly saying anything attention-grabbing here, as many analyst is suggesting Apple could launch different versions of the iPhone in trying to grab more market share. No one really knows what Apple is going to do, but we wouldn’t put in past Tim Cook and company when it comes to changing the way the iPhone is distributed.
[via cnet]