We obviously expect Apple to announce its new iPhone 11 lineup next month, as it has hosted a September iPhone media event every year since 2012. An analyst at Wedbush today reports that his latest checks indicate that all three new iPhone 11 models will also be released in September too, successors to the iPhone XS and iPhone XR lines.
According to the latest reports, we are expecting the new XR to be called ‘iPhone 11’ and the XS and XS Max replacements to be named ‘iPhone 11 Pro’.
It may sound obvious to say that all three iPhone 11 models are going on sale in September, but it does break the recent patterns.
Simultaneous iPhone 11 release date
In 2017, Apple debuted the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus in September. At the same event, it announced the iPhone X but the model didn’t ship until November. In 2018, Apple again announced the iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, and iPhone XR simultaneously. However, whilst the iPhone XS went on sale in September, the XR models launched in late October.
Therefore, assuming the Wedbush supply chain checks are accurate, this would actually be the first year that Apple has launched a three-model flagship iPhone lineup with the same release date. More specifically, Dan Ives at Wedbush reports that the iPhone 11 trifecta will be released in the second week of September. This would be slightly earlier than consensus expectations; the safe bet for the iPhone 11 release date is Friday, September 20.
The Wedbush report also focuses on the Trump tariff impact on Apple company performance. Like Ming-Chi Kuo, Ives believes that Apple would absorb a 10% tariff hit on affected products this fall, including iPhones, Macs, iPads, and AirPods units. However, if the trade war protracted into 2020, Apple would not be able to stomach the tariff hit in the medium term. If Apple was forced into passing the tariff costs onto the end consumer sale price, Wedbush analysts estimate Apple would sell about 8 million fewer iPhones in the United States.
With an iPhone launch about a month away, we would expect Apple to send out media invites to press in the last week of August. Naturally, 9to5Mac will cover all the iPhone 11 news as it breaks.
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