Huberty also believes that more than half of current iPhone users will upgrade to the new device this year, which could bolster demand for the new device among non-iPhone users. The reason for such a large number of upgrades is that more than half of all U.S. iPhone owners are using the original iPhone or the iPhone 3G, Huberty says. Both devices have hardware limitations that prevent them from using some of the new features in the upcoming iOS 4 operating system, which will be released to current iPhone users on Monday. The original iPhone won’t be eligible for the OS upgrade at all, and the iPhone 3G is incapable of using iOS 4’s new multitasking feature. So the incentive to switch to a more capable iPhone from older versions of the device will push demand for the iPhone 4.
New U.S. users who don’t have an iPhone may be attracted to Apple’s new device, because of AT&T’s new tiered data plans that can drop the overall cost of owning an iPhone by almost $400. The variety of new features available in the iPhone 4, most notably the device’s front-facing camera, may also contribute to the iPhone’s predicted growth.
Smartphones are the fastest-growing segment of the mobile phone market. Worldwide smartphone use grew by 48.7 percent between the first quarters of 2009 and 2010, according to Gartner.
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