Archive for the ‘June’ tag
Retail sales in the U.S. stalled in June: Maybe the iPhone will save us
By Wells Fargo Research
Retail sales fell slightly more than expected in June, with overall sales declining 0.5% and sales excluding motor vehicles declining 0.1%. The weakness was not totally unexpected as several weekly sales measures have been posting declines for much of the past two months and consumer confidence and buying plans both fell sharply in June. The loss of momentum is most apparent in the three-month rate of growth, which has slowed to a 4.1% pace for overall sales and just a 2.7% pace for sales excluding motor vehicles.
Sales at motor vehicle dealers fell 2.3% following a 0.6% drop in May. The major motor vehicle manufacturers recently announced they would keep assembly plants operating throughout the summer, as sales were reported to be robust and inventories were reported to be in line with demand or possibly even a bit tight. This morning’s sales figures cast some doubt on these predictions and raise the possibility that we may see an unintended build in inventories this summer that requires more extensive sales incentives or production cutbacks to clear out inventory.
The one big gainer for the month was electronics stores, where sales jumped 1.3 percent, following a 0.9 percent jump in May. The increases likely reflect the introduction of a number of new smartphones, most notably the newest iPhone, which debuted in June.
32GB high end iPhone and a low end version in works
Lazard Capital Markets analyst Daniel Amir believes that Apple is working on two new iPhones that will arrive in the coming months. These would include a high end 32GB iPhone with camera improvements as well as a lowe-end 3G version. Production for the devices would begin in April and ramp up in May, with a release in June 2009.
A 32GB iPhone has been long expected and has been dependent on the release of suitably dense memory chips that could fit within the current iPhone casing. A couple of vendors have announced possible memory chips that would be available this year. As a whole, analysts have been notoriously unreliable sources, and this particular group has no notable track record. Still, a June release of the new iPhone is certainly expected. Now with WWDC’s dates set for June, Apple has an appropriate venue to announce new products.
[Via MacRumors]
The new iPhone coming in June 2009
Last week some more details about the next iPhone revision continued leaking out.
First, there were spottings of new Apple device IDs found embedded within the iPhone 3.0 firmware. Silicon Alley Insider then claimed that the next iPhone would come with “much faster internet”. Finally, AppleInsider said that the new iPhone would indeed have a video camera, supporting evidence of video publishing screenshots also found in iPhone 3.0.
It’s not surprising that the number of leaks is increasing as Apple does have to keep their carrier partners at least somewhat informed heading into a new release. We’ve also continued to hear unconfirmed whispers and have specifically heard that the new iPhone with support a 7.2Mbit chipset.