Cupertino, Calif. – Apple Inc. may introduce a model of its iPhone this year that is half the price of the handsets that went on sale in the U.S. last month, a JPMorgan Chase & Co. analyst said Tuesday.
The new model, based on Apple’s thin iPod Nano, may cost less than $300, analyst Kevin Chang said by telephone from Taipei, citing a patent Apple filed in the U.S. and component suppliers he declined to identify. Apple began sales June 29 of two iPhone models priced at $499 and $599.
A lower-priced iPhone may win customers away from rivals Nokia and Motorola, with Chang estimating Apple may ship as many as 40 million units of the new handset by September 2008.
Apple will probably sell the new phone with several wireless carriers, unlike the five-year exclusive agreement it has with AT&T for the current iPhone, Chang said.
“We’ll see this new iPhone having a noticeable impact on the handset market,” Chang said.
