Analyst: Apple placed chip order for 32GB iPhones
A correction was made to this story. See below for details.
Updated at 2:54 p.m. PDT with with additional information about the volume of NAND chips Apple is reportedly purchasing and its effect on the number of units the company could ship.
Apple has reportedly ordered 100 million units of 8-gigabit and 16-gigabit NAND flash chips, with the bulk of its order coming from its main iPhone chip supplier, Samsung, according to a research report released Monday by a Lazard Capital Markets analyst.
The majority of the sizable order is expected to be applied toward the 16-gigabit NAND, signaling that a 32-gigabyte iPhone is in the works to debut in June, said Daniel Amir, a Lazard Capital Markets analyst.
An order of 100 million 16-gigabit chips, for example, could produce roughly 12 million of Apple's 16GB iPhones, far more than the 7 million iPhones Wall Street expects Apple to make in the second quarter. But the same order of 100 million chips could produce roughly 6 million Apple 32GB iPhones.
Last month, Amir noted in a research report that he had heard from industry contacts that Apple was expected to begin production on a 32GB iPhone in April and May, with a release in early June.
Apple currently has a 16GB iPhone on the market. Wall Street is expecting the computer maker to ship 3 million to 3.5 million of its iPhone smartphones in the first quarter and to virtually double that figure in the second quarter.
Amir said that while the sizable NAND order could be used to dramatically increase production on the 16GB iPhones, that scenario is unlikely, given that Apple appears to be searching for ways to reduce inventory of the 16GB iPhones through special promotions and discounts.
And while the flash memory could be used in a refresh of Apple's iMacs, Amir said the bulk of the NAND order was made with Samsung, Apple's main iPhone chip supplier.
"Historically, Apple's orders with Samsung have been for iPhone flash (memory), since Samsung has worked with Apple in developing special packaging for the iPhone," Amir said.
He added that a large order from Apple also tends to result in a rippling effect through the flash memory market, and he anticipates as much as a potential 20 percent increase in pricing by the other memory makers.
Correction: When it was initially published, this story used an incorrect acronym for the 8-gigabit and 16-gigabit NAND chips. Gigabits are represented as Gb.
Dawn Kawamoto covers enterprise security and financial news relating to technology for CNET News. E-mail Dawn. 
They are still stuck in the 2-4GB era with that creaky WinMo OS that everyone hates so much.
get a blackberry bold/curve much better at all those things you mentioned !
16Gbit flash chip is only actually 2GB. And the iPhone 16GB currently uses a single 128Gbit flash chip, 32GB would need a 256Gbit chip, and I can't find any such chip on any flash companies web sites, they peak at 128Gbit. .
But this doesn't solve the problem, what is apple going to do with 100 million 2GByte flash chips?
Is it just me?
That would make it clunky
"make it available for Sprint or Verizon"
It was offered to them, they declined.
"make the plans the same price as a normal cell phone plan"
Is that realistic?
"add encryption and then you have something than can finally live up to a Blackberry or a HTC phone in an enterprise or SMB enviornment."
Yeah, whatever.
"That would make it clunky."
I don't know- iBooks have been pretty darn pretty and they have removable batteries. There's a lot of cell phones out there that look better than the iPhone that have removable batteries.
"It was offered to them, they declined."
True enough, and even now when Apple customers are demanding to be released of the blight and hell that is AT&T's customer experience, Apple has chosen to stick with AT&T. This is Apple's choice and theirs alone. It's been two years and I'm sure if Apple wanted to offer it to other carriers, that those carriers would want to get the customers. It's Apple's choice currently to keep people with AT&T.
"Is that realistic?"
No, and I agree with you on that one. All the data plans from all the carriers are hideously overpriced when you look at the actual costs of data transfer involved. It's a pure cash cow for them.
"Yeah, whatever."
Dismiss Blackberry and HTC phones all you wish, but they do offer security whereas the iPhone does not. IT departments are loath to introduce a mobile device that runs all applications and access levels as root with zero protection or security in place. That's not the sort of information security grenade you want to toss into your network willy nilly. The iPhone is a consumer device still and does not qualify as a business smartphone for this reason as well as others. I don't think I'd want to dimiss security as you have as 'whatever'.
Whatever, see this article:
http://www.macworld.com/article/139983/2009/04/iphoneenterprise.html?lsrc=rss_main
Apple would do well to just announce the thing already. :)
The screen (on the 2nd and 3rd gen nanos) are the same size. The 3rd gen nano's screen is just rotated sideways. I prefer not having to rotate my nano around to watch videos and use the control. But that's just me.
It'll come. Let's just be patient.
- by baez74 April 19, 2009 8:19 PM PDT
- There's no catching up. Apple is the Mercedes of Phones. FYI, windows mobile phones combined have yet to sell near the quantity of iPhone sales. Your phone might have 32gb, but iPhone will be at least 10 times better. Mac is a state of mind, reason they don't try to beat other competitors to the market. They are not afraid. Look at years iPhone killer, the Instant. Sprint has requested any new orders since November because they are trying to get rid of their inventory. Yet iPhone has yet to stop new phone orders. People, stop trying to dis the iPhone. Everyone knows, by far it is the best phone. I speak only of Apple and not of AT&T. That is a different note. I would love to see the phone available on other networks like sprint or verizon.
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