Apple to make 22M iPhones next quarter, most of them iPhone 4

A new iPhone is expected to debut in the next six weeks or so. And Apples supply chain is kicking into high gear to churn out a glut of the shiny new smartphones in order to meet what is likely to be voracious demand. But even when the upgraded iPhone arrives, it appears Apple will continue to build the iPhone 4 in pretty large numbers, according to Rodman & Renshaw analyst Ashok Kumar.

Heres what he says is in the works for Apples supply chain:

From a supply chain perspective, total iPhone volumes could be up high single digits sequentially to around 22 million units with the upgraded iPhonerepresenting almost quarter of the volume. The new iPhone is expected to be a spec upgrade and not a complete redesign. It is likely that the existing iPhone 4 could be repositioned as a lower cost device and will continue to ship until the rollout of the completely redesigned iPhone sometime next year.

Apple has sold last years model at a discounted price previously most recently with the iPhone 3GS after the iPhone 4 arrived so thats not necessarily new. But this report does jibe with several previous reports that say Apple is planning a cheaper iPhone 4, with just 8 GB of memory instead of the 16 and 32 GB versions that its been selling since June 2010.

It makes sense Apple would continue to sell as many iPhone 4s as it can. The company has racked up sales of the iPhone 4 pretty much unabated, selling 20.3 million devices in the most recent! quarter , despite not having a new model iPhone in the summer. Almost fifteen months after the iPhone 4 arrived, Kumar notes, it is still the best-selling phone for AT&T and Verizon.

Image courtesy ofFlickr usermikecogh

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.