Apple doubles iPhone production

Apple apparently has more confidence than you would normally see in a recession like this one. A research report says they are doubling iPhone production in advance of the release of new models.

The research report comes from Ben Reitzes, an analyst from Barclays Capital. He notes that Apple has doubled iPhone production as compared to last quarter and attributes that increase to two likely sources: anticipation of higher sales this summer and the possibility that they will be releasing not one new iPhone model, but two, according to an ars technica story.

There have been a number of recent rumors pointing to the introduction of two new iPhone models in June. Some of the more recent ones suggest that one of them could be a higher end “Pro” model. Reitzes seems to agree with this rumor regarding a new, higher-end mobile device. According to him, one new version of the iPhone would come with an upgraded camera able to shoot video and 32GB of storage, allowing said video to be stored. This would allow the iPhone line to compete with low-end digital camcorders like the popular Flip from Sony.

Reitzes thinks the other new model would be a slightly upgraded version of the current iPhone 3G, but would retail at a lower price, perhaps $100 or $150. He thinks there is even some chance that the second model might come with fewer features than the current 3G. This would allow a newer, less expensive iPhone to compete in lower-end markets such as China and India.

Something must be driving the company’s thinking on the release, since the company obviously thinks that iPhone buyers will be queuing up to purchase the new iPhones in June. The introduction is widely expected to be at the Apple developers conference in early June, and will coincide with the actual introduction of the new iPhone OS 3.0 announced last month.

It is good to see this much confidence in the teeth of such a horrible economic climate. Apple has rarely been wrong about anticipated sales volumes of its hardware, so this is probably not a case of being overconfident. Rather, it is almost certainly another well-considered and accurate estimate of sales of a very popular mobile device.

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