Apple Suggested to Install More iOS in Mobile Devices: TRi

With the iPhone 4 selling well and user-friendly, functional iOS 4 operating system appealing to many, Apple expects to ship some 44.3 million iPhones in 2010 provided that supply keeps up to demand, according to the Topology Research Institute (TRi), the largest private market researcher and consultant in Taiwan.

If Apple manages to launch the code division multiple access (CDMA) version iPhone 4 by the end of the year, the TRi says Apple's handset shipment this year will likely reach 46 million units.

Apple's website shows over 1.7 million iPhone 4s were sold in the three days after its retail launch, making the new handset the most successful product in Apple history. TRi forecasts that shipments of iPhones will likely exceed 10 million per quarter following the third quarter of 2010, solidifying Apple's major role in the global cellphone business.

More than three million Apple iPad slate-PCs were sold within 80 days after its debut, TRi says, and Apple is forecast to deliver about 11.5 million iPads this year provided robust demand continues and without encroachment from other branded, eye-catching products. Starting in 2011, TRi says, revenues generated by iPad will outstrip that of iPod to make iPad the third-largest Apple product line.

Biggest Revenue Generator

TRi says less than 10 millions iPhones were shipped in the second quarter, but will exceed 10 million in the third quarter to reach about 12.5 million. If Apple launches its CDMA iPhone 4 by the end of the year, TRi says, Apple will likely supply 17.5% to 18% of the global smartphones this year, with iPhones to still be the largest revenue generator for Apple in 2011.

However, TRi says, Apple has to speed up launching the CDMA iPhone if it aims to keep the lead in smartphone shipment. Without having launched entry-level models and with consumer-oriented models less competitive than those from the current market leader Research In Motion (RIM), Apple won't be able to ship as many iPhones as smartphones with Android (software platform developed by Google), according to TRi.

TRi says if Apple aims to be better positioned globally, the company has to apply across-the-board its iOS 4 operating system, as it has done, from the end of 2010, with the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPod Touch mobile devices, as well as the iPad starting this autumn.

A senior researcher at TRi says Apple could avoid repeating its defeat in the Mac/Windows operating-system battle in the 1980s by installing the iOS in more devices, which are attracting more users, to offer incentives to software developers to devise more, better products for the App Store.