While initial sales of Apple Inc’s new iPhone are expected to be modest due to its high price, the overall cost of the device is likely to fall at a 20 percent annual rate over the next 10 years, according to financial services firm Needham and Co.

Analyst Charles Wolf, who on Monday raised his 12-month price target on shares of the Cupertino-based iPhone maker to $135 from $115, said the declining cost will coincide with falling component prices and a rise in wireless carrier subsidies.

“The decline in price should accelerate demand as the iPhone invades the sweet spot of the mobile phone market,” he wrote in a report distributed to clients. Full Post »

Rogers Wireless has sealed a deal with Apple Inc. to become the exclusive carrier for iPhone in Canada, according to a customer advisory notice sent to subscribers this week.

The largest Canadian wireless communications provider told its customers that availability and pricing were still being sorted out, but added that it would be the only wireless carrier to offer the Apple handset in Canada. Full Post »

Thursday’s hot iPhone rumor comes compliments of CNBC analyst Jim Cramer, who suggests Cingular/ATT will sidestep subsidization of the Apple handset by giving away lengthy service contracts.

“In its call, the company made it very clear that it’s going to use Apple’s iPhone to get customers from Verizon Wireless by giving away its service for a year and a half to those customers who buy the phone,” Cramer explained in his blog posting at TheStreet.com.

The CNBC “Mad Money” host believes the strategy will help the wireless carrier court a flurry of new subscribers while maintaining requests from Apple not to discount the cost of the $499 and $599 mobile devices.

Samsung Electronics has added iPhone to a rapidly expanding list of consumer electronics devices from Apple Inc. for which it supplies the primary SoC, AppleInsider has learned.

People familiar with the new Apple handset say the Korean electronics giant will cater to Apple’s request for a unified central processing unit, which will serve a dual role in handling the device’s application processing and digital media capabilities.

Meanwhile, those same people say wireless IC maker Infineon has also captured a significant piece of iPhone, asserting itself as the primary supplier of both baseband and RF chips. Specific chip models were not identified. Full Post »