Apple may launch iPhone 14 series early this year, report

Apple may launch the upcoming iPhone 14 series a week earlier than last year, said Mark Gurman of Bloomberg citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.  

Apple typically holds its annual iPhone event around second week of September. The iPhone 13 series was launched on September 14 last year. Gurman said that Apple may hold it on September 7 this time. Apple is yet to announce a date for the launch of iPhone 14.  

An early launch means new iPhones will also show up early in stores.  

Gurman also reported that Apple has asked store workers to get ready for an early launch, sometime around mid-September.  

Though iPhones still account for lion’s share of Apple’s revenue, the global year-on-year (YoY) shipments of iPhones fell in April-June quarter. According to a Counterpoint Research report, iPhone shipments declined by 5% YoY in Q2 2022, however, its market share increased.  

The early launch can be seen as an attempt to make the most of the festive season sales in emerging markets including India.  

According to renowned Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple is expected to launch two big screen iPhones this year. The first big screen variant will be in the iPhone 14 Pro series while the other will be in the low-priced iPhone 14 series. This means that there will no Mini variant with a 5.4-inch display this year for users who still prefer small phones. This shift in strategy can be attributed to the growing demand for large screen devices to support hybrid work and learning.  

Having a large screen device in the iPhone 14 series gives Apple the opportunity to cater to a large segment of buyers looking for large screen devices without burning a hole on the pocket.  

Kuo further said that the Pro series iPhones will also run on the latest Bionic A16 chipset while the iPhone 14 and 14 Max will run on last year’s A15 chipset.