Apple orders LOTS of iPhone memory
Reports are surfacing that Apple has ordered massive amounts of flash memory to be used in its new iPhone product (or products), spurring rumors of exactly how all that memory will be used.
The memory reports started at DigiTimes and have continued from there. DigiTimes reported that Apple has just ordered 100 million 8Gb NAND flash chips mostly from Samsung Electronics. The upshot of the report was that this was likely to cause a shortage of those chips, perhaps causing the price to rise. Apple was not alone in increasing orders; Nokia and Sony did the same.
This is just about twice the amount of NAND that Apple ordered last year, causing the Apple rumor mill to go into overdrive, according to a PC World story. There are, of course, a number of ways that the Cupertino electronics giant could use all that iPhone memory. The fun is in trying to figure out which of the possible ways is likely to be correct.
First, of course, they could be simply planning to sell more phones. The iPhone has remained a popular buy even in the current tight world economy and Apple may figure that sales will remain strong, and perhaps even grow. But it seems unlikely sales will double, so there must be something else behind the increase in Apple’s NAND appetite.
It is possible that they are planning to increase the amount of memory per phone, which fits in with the rumor that there may be an iPhone with video capabilities in the new line-up. Video takes up a lot of memory space. And, of course, the word “line-up†brings to mind the thought that there may be more than one new iPhone when the June product introductions are made.
Most plausibly, there may be a premium level iPhone with video capabilities and 32Gb of ram and a less expensive iPhone, with fewer features, less memory, and a lower price to be used in breaking into certain foreign markets, like those in China and India. If that happens, there will also likely be a third model, somewhere in between, that will represent the “normal†phone, and which will carry 16Gb of memory. The Apple line-up, therefore, could include three models.
All of this is speculation at this point. For all the pundits know, this NAND order could be for a new killer iPod. It is likely, though, that much of it is for the iPhone, and that the number of models will be larger, probably two or three. Apple may well be positioning itself to break into all of the available markets for smart phones, increasing its already considerable grasp on that marketplace.
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