Six inch iPhones on the way

Apple rumoured to be looking at new large-screen iPhones

Mike King

Mike King is a Fool.com.au Investment Analyst and Writer. He caught the investing bug more than a decade ago, at a time when the U.S. had invaded Iraq and fear reigned in the markets. His initial success as the markets took off encouraged his passion and thirst for knowledge. With 13 years behind him at one of Australia's largest domestic banks, Mike's passion for stocks led him to join a boutique funds management firm, where he stayed for four years. A seven-year stint in equity research at one of the largest investment banks in the world followed that, giving Mike a thirst to pursue his passion further. Mike holds a Diploma in Applied Finance and Investment and a Graduate Certificate in Financial Planning. His passion is to help retail investors invest better, and that passion was one of his primary reasons for joining The Motley Fool Australia in late 2011. Mike has written thousands of articles since joining, including for Fairfax Media, Yahoo!7, Ninemsn and has also appeared on ABC's The Business. You can see all of Mikes' holdings here

Published September 9, 2013 10:54 am AEST

Apple is reportedly testing large screen iPhones, with some screens as big as 6 inches.

The company is expected to unveil both a high-end new iPhone, dubbed the iPhone 5S and a cheaper version later this week, but is already working on bigger iPhones, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).

The current iPhone 5 has a 4-inch screen, and Apple is evaluating screens from 4.8 inches all the way up to 6 inches. At the top end, that puts the iPhone only Sony's Experia Z Ultra, at 6.4 inches would be bigger. A 6 inch iPhone is pretty big, even bigger than Samsung's Galaxy Note phones, and putting it into the half phone, half tablet territory. Last week Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note 3 with a screen size of 5.7 inches. Apple's mini tablet, the Ipad mini has a screen size of 7.9 inches.

It's not yet clear if Apple will follow the iPod approach with multiple sizes for the iPhone, but to cater for different users and markets, it would be a pretty good bet. One of the biggest markets for Apple would be China, which it has yet to really crack, with sales in the country dropping 14% in the last quarter. According to various reports, Apple is ranked in either fifth or sixth place in the Chinese smartphone market, well behind no.1 Samsung.

That may be about to change as Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 5C, a low-cost iPhone targeted at developing markets. That could allow China Mobile, with 740 million subscribers the dominant mobile carrier in China, to offer both the low-cost and premium, full-featured iPhones.

Reuters is also reporting that Japan's largest carrier, NTT DoCoMo will carry the iPhone for the first time.

Apple will also release its updated operating system IOS 7 this week.

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Motley Fool writer/analyst Mike King doesn't own shares in any companies mentioned.

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