iPhone 6 May Launch a Month Early

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published May 12, 6:31AM EDT

The conventional wisdom is that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) will release its iPhone 6 in September. The conventional wisdom, however, may be wrong. If so, Apple may hit the market with its new smartphone a month early, giving it a jump on sales in the fourth quarter, often Apple’s largest in terms of revenue.

The Taiwan Economic News wrote about two pieces of information related to Apple’s flagship product:

Apple will reportedly unveil the next incarnation of its popular iPhone series in August — a month earlier than industry watchers were generally expecting.

And:

80 million iPhone 6 handsets would be produced this year.

Some would argue that Apple needs to sell more than 80 million units this year to prove the iPhone 6 has a level of innovation to help the company overtake Samsung‘s lead in smartphone sales in many countries. Apple sold 43.7 million iPhones in its most recent reported quarter and 51 million in the quarter before that.

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While the iPhone 6 will test demand in the United States for a new smartphone from Apple, it is the Chinese market that will be the litmus test. If Apple releases the product in the People’s Republic well before the end of the year, sales through China Mobile Ltd. (NYSE: CHL), the world’s largest wireless provider, could be the path to a large spike in sales. By most measures, Apple’s position in the Chinese smartphone market is either fifth or sixth place.

The role the iPhone 6 plays in Apple’s future cannot be underestimated. The almost universal perception of the company is that its ability to create market-leading, wildly innovative products died with Steve Jobs. It has been left to his senior management team to prove that Apple is still worthy of the perception that it is in the vanguard of consumer electronics.

READ MORE: Is Apple Crazy to Buy Beats?

If the iPhone does come out early, all it really does it move up the date on which Apple’s near-term fate will be determined.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.