Apple expects iPhone 14 line to sell better than iPhone 13 series
There is no denying that the iPhone 13 series has been a big hit with the line topping the smartphone sales charts. And reportedly, Apple expects even bigger and better things from the upcoming iPhone 14 line. This comes from Sina Finance (via MacRumors) which pointed out that the 2022 iPhone line is currently being run through trial production with mass production set for next month.
This year Apple will offer the 6.1-inch iPhone 14, 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus, 6.1-inch iPhone 14 Pro, and a 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Pro Max. Apple is clearly sharpening the lines between Pro and non-Pro models this year as the former gets the new A16 Bionic chip while the latter are stuck with last year's A15 Bionic SoC. The more expensive Pro models will feature the "sideways i" cutouts on the top of the display while the non-Pro variants continue to sport the same old notch.
The Pro variants of the iPhone 14 will feature faster LPDDR5 RAM memory chips
While both Pro and non-Pro models will be equipped with 6GB of memory, the non-Pro models will come with LPDDR4 RAM while the Pro units will sport the faster LPDDR5 RAM components. And the Pro models will still come with a telephoto camera giving those phones a trio of rear-facing lenses compared to the two on the back of the non-Pro iPhone 14 models.
Non Pro-iPhone 14 on left versus iPhone 14 Pro model on right
Apple has allegedly told suppliers that initial sales of the iPhone 14 series will top those of the iPhone 13 series. Currently, we are in the time of the year (July-August) when iPhone sales slow down due to the upcoming introduction of the next iteration of the device that takes place in September. This July, shipments of the iPhone 13 series were 33% higher than the number of iPhone 12 shipments delivered last at the same time a year ago, which could be a sign that demand for the device continues to rise.
Another report, this one by ETNews, says that Samsung Display will ship 145 million medium and small-sized OLED panels during the third quarter of this year. Those shipments will be used on the Samsung Galaxy S22 series and the iPhone 14 series. The OLED shipments for Apple's iPhone 14, 14 Plus, 14 Pro, and 14 Pro Max are expected to reach 80 million units.
Samsung originally estimated that it would ship 200 million small and medium-sized OLED panels during the third quarter. However, a company spokesman said that "smartphone OLED shipments are slowing down. The shipment reached mid 100 million due to Apple’s iPhone 14 series."
The Apple iPhone 13 was the most popular smartphone during Q1 2022 with the iPhone 13 Pro Max in second place
A tipster recently disseminated a tweet calling for Apple to unveil the 2022 iPhone series on September 13th, 2022 allowing us to guess that pre-orders will start on September 16th with a release date of September 23rd. That would be extremely close to last year's September 14th unveiling date, September 17th pre-order date, and September 24th release date which covered the U.S. and more than 30 other countries.
The latest numbers showed that the iPhone 13 was the most popular smartphone during the first quarter of 2022. The iPhone 13 Pro Max, Apple's top-of-the-line 2021 model, was second.
It will be interesting to see whether Apple's decision to clearly mark the differences between the non-Pro and Pro iPhone 14 models results in more users turning to the premium models. There are several rumors regarding price hikes for the iPhone 14 series with one calling for a $100 across the board raise to a range starting at $899 and up for the iPhone 14 to $1,199 and up for the iPhone 14 Pro Max.
Some see Apple raising its pricing on the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone Pro Max while keeping the price tags unchanged for the iPhone 14. The iPhone 14 Plus is a new non-Pro model replacing the low-priced mini variant.
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