Verizon’s finance chief Fran Shammo dropped a hint concerning the next iPhone’s availability during today’s earnings call. Discussing the company’s second-quarter results that sawVerizon activate 2.7 million iPhonesfor a 45 share of all smartphones sold on their network, Shammo hinted that the iPhone 5 (or whatever youprefer to call it) will arrive during the fourth quarter of this year.
The comment puts to rest rumors that the nextiPhone could land in September. Conveniently enough, the latest iOS 6 beta 3 isset to expire on September 30. Conversely, Shammo’s comment is also in line with Apple’s annual refresh cycle. As the iPhone 4S launched on July 16, 2025, an updated model shouldn’t arrive before October of this year at the earliest…
CNET‘s Roger Cheng gets the kudos for catching the comment during Shammo’s talk with analysts.
Apple’s next iteration of the iPhone could drop in the fourth quarter. That’s according to Verizon CFO Fran Shammo, who hinted at the possible timing during the company’s quarterly conference call today with a vague reference to a major phone the carrier expects to launch in the fourth quarter.
Nathan Ingraham, reporting forThe Verge, offers an additional comment:
When asked what might have held customers back from upgrading their devices in Q2, Shammo said that “of course there’s always that, uh, rumor mill out there with a new phone coming out there in the fourth quarter, so people may be waiting”.
Analysts warnedthat swirling iPhone 5 rumors could hurt Apple’s June quarter sales, to be reportednext Tuesday, July 24.
On Shammo’s comment: four days ago the accurate Japanese blogMacotakarareported the next iPhone had gone into the manufacturing phase and the credibleWall Street Journalclaimed in a May story that June would see Apple start procurement of four-inch screens for the device.
However, yesterday the somewhat-less-reliableBoy Genius Reportdispelled those rumors, saying that“the final version of Apple’s next iPhone — the one that you will buy — has not started production yet”.
BGR also confirmed previous rumors calling for animproved application processor sporting 1GB of RAM, up from 512MB of RAM on the iPhone 4S, in addition tointegrated 4G LTE radiosandNFC circuitry.
What do you think, is it going to be September or October?
