Apple’s latest smartphone featuring a 6.1-inch LCD display is expected to hit the market later this year. The news was revealed by analyst Ming-Chi Kuo on Sunday. He has predicted it to be a huge hit. In spite of having all the features of the iPhone X, the device is priced at a much lower cost. The OLED display used in iPhone X is missing it and has been replaced by an LCD display. The consumers and investors will be extremely satisfied with the new phone, claims Kuo.
Over the years, Kuo has been the strongest and most reliable source of information regarding upcoming products of Apple. There was a controversy this month when he said Apple could stop manufacturing the iPhone X and replace it with a new 2018 model while talking about the price issue of the iPhone X.
Kuo said, “We are positive on the shipments outlook of the 6.1″ LCD iPhone, and forecast it will have a weighting of around 50% in the new models in 2H18.”
Since the specs of the 6.1″ LCD iPhone will not match up to those of the OLED models, we believe the supply chain investment themes for the new 6.1″ LCD iPhone will become the more likely to center around ‘new entrants’ and ‘market share gainers,’ rather than ‘beneficiaries of spec upgrades ‘ or ‘beneficiaries of ASP increase.”
The premium LCD model is expected to maintain the same camera “notch” as on the iPhone X. The Face ID array will be present as well. Though the screen size is increased compared to the 5.8-inch screen of the iPhone X, the edge-to-edge design will be missing in the LCD version. It comes with a rectangular battery, costlier than the ones used in the iPhone 8 Series but less expensive than the one used in iPhone X. Unimicron is going to supply the batteries required for this model.
According to Kuo Pegatron, Foxconn and Wistron are handling the assembling process together. Pegatron will be accounting for 60% of capacity.
The 6.1-inch LCD iPhone will play the role of the successor to the 5.8-inch iPhone X. It also paves the path for the upcoming new jumbo-sized 6.5-inch “iPhone X Plus” featuring the edge-to-edge OLED display.
