“Credit Suisse’s information-technology team estimates that about two-thirds of the Apple iPhones sold over next year will be with 64 gigabyte configuration and about 5% will be 128 gigabyte,” Credit Suisse writes for Barron’s. “Factoring in the mix, we estimate that NAND content per iPhone is increasing from an average of 25 gigabytes (GB) in calendar-fourth-quarter 2013 to 55GB in calendar-fourth-quarter 2014, leading to iPhone becoming 17% of industry NAND demand (versus 10% in calendar-fourth-quarter 2013) and driving about 8% quarter-over-quarter industry bit growth in fourth-quarter 2014.”
“In addition, we expect that non-Apple smartphones are also likely to follow Apple and increase NAND on their next generation of phones — assuming 50% growth on GB per box (versus 120% year-over-year for iPhone) for non-Apple smartphones, we estimate that NAND for smartphones can be up 66% year-over-year in 2015 (versus our NAND demand model at 27% year-over-year) and result in industry demand up-siding to 57% year-over-year (versus our current estimate of 46% year-over-year),” Credit Suisse writes. “Among NAND suppliers, we believe that Toshiba [of Japan] is supplying 128GB while Hynix [of Korea], Toshiba and SanDisk are supplying NAND for 64GB and Hynix for 16GB.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple should “leak” that their top executives all undergo a severe test: Each year, they have to leap off a very tall bridge into very shallow water and only those who survive get to stay with the company.
I feel like now that Android’s original reason for existing (multiple carriers, 2009-2011) and its later reason for existing (large screen sizes, 2011-2014) have been nullified by Apple’s current product line, the only real thing Android device makers can do at this point to differentiate and make themselves compelling to premium buyers is to keep upping their screen sizes…but how big can they go? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if a large number of the premium Android phones that hit the market in the second half of 2015 will have screen sizes of 6 inches or greater.
Exactly! This should have happened much sooner but better late than never.
Android’s reason for existing is (and has been) to be cheap (more than multiple carriers or large screen sizes). Apple cannot, and does not want to, make 100% of the worlds smartphones. And there are still more potential customers out there who do not own smartphones, than those who currently use them. Android’s purpose (from Apple’s perspective) is to increase the number of smartphone users faster than Apple can by itself, by providing an inferior but more affordable product. Then, over time, a steady stream of those non-Apple smartphone users will decide to buy an iPhone. And once they get an iPhone, they become loyal Apple customers.
Look at the world of personal computers. Windows copied the Mac, and made PCs ubiquitous (during Microsoft’s heyday). NOW, that (still) HUGE pool of trained Windows users is steadily transitioning to the Mac platform, allowing Apple to profitably grow Mac sales every year, while the rest of the PC market is stagnant or in decline. It’s a repeat in the smartphone world, with a significantly compressed timeline and Apple in a far better position than it ever had in “Mac versus PC.” Windows and Android HELP (more than hurt) Apple in big picture over the long term. 🙂
Why?
At least.
1. By continuing to offer a 16GB model, Apple doesn’t have to raise prices so people can’t complain.
2. By continuing to offer a 16GB as the base, gives the impression that the 64GB and 128GB are better bargains than previous models along with their storage increases.
3. Since apps are constantly increasing in size and more pictures are being taken, 16GB is not enough for many anymore. This helps sell more 64GB and 128GB models.
I’m surprised I’m among only 5% who choose 128GB for storage. I thought the percentage of 128GB buyers was going to be much higher.
I agree. I think it’s mostly due to short-sighted people who don’t consider that the $100 or $200 they spend to get the higher capacity iPhone is a drop in the bucket compared to how much they’ll pay in total over the duration of a two-year service contract.
It works out to about $4 per month extra for the 64 GB or $8 per month extra for the hundred and 128 GB. For the 64 GB model ( the one to get, in my opinion), you’re paying 4 bucks a month extra to *quadruple* your capacity. And guess what? You’ll probably get that back if you later sell it, once you upgrade again.
Keep your iPhone longer than the minimum two years? Then springing for the 64GB phone is even more of a no-brainer.
At the very least Brett. I was going to say that 64 GB should be the low end. I constantly have to manage mine with a mere 32 GB. There’s simply too much excellent software and music to stuff onto my iOS gear!
Just put in a micro-SD card for all that extra stuff. Oh, wait…
/s
I think Android power users are happy using microSD cards and feel they don’t require greater amounts of on-board memory especially if they have to pay extra for it. The Android bunch is always saying Apple is ripping consumers off by forcing them to buy iPhones with more memory. I’m rather sure that even Google would prefer Android hardware partners to stop using micro-SD cards but the hardware manufacturers don’t want to spend more money for on-board memory and consider micro-SD storage a feature advantage that the iPhone doesn’t offer.
One thing we Apple fanatics know is that Apple does OVER CHARGE for memory of all sorts. That’s been going on forever. It would be nice to have Apple allow Micro-SD.
Micro SD slows response so Apple won’t do it.