That 5G iPhone You Were Looking Forward To May Not Come Any Time Soon

Apple is seemingly reviewing its plan to launch the milestone first 5G iPhone in 2020, claims a report by Nikkei Asian Review. This year was slated to be a milestone year for Apple, but the company is seemingly evaluating its present market scenario to understand whether the planned iPhone launch should be postponed. The key reason for this is the coronavirus pandemic, due to which not only have all proponents of the technology industry seen a shortage in the supply chain, but now anticipate a large scale fall in demand as well.

According to the report, Apple desperately wants its first ever 5G iPhone to be a hit. The company saw a reversal of fortune of sorts with the iPhone 11 lineup of 2019, which was critically acclaimed for what the devices brought to the table, as well as their general pricing. With iPhone sales finally picking up towards the end of 2019, Apple had expected to maintain strong demand for the iPhone 11 lineup through 2020, before launching the 5G-ready iPhone 12. The latter is expected to be a milestone device, bringing a design change that does away with the notch on the display, and most importantly, 5G connectivity.

However, the coronavirus pandemic has also caused a considerable amount of stress in the world apart from the supply crunch in global manufacturing markets. With a massive number of countries now being affected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, many companies are downsizing their employee bases, and businesses go through unprecedented downtime as well. As a result, analysts expect the rest of the year to also witness slow market movement in commodities, and buying smartphones will, for obvious reasons, take the backseat.

As a result, Apple now anticipates that if their milestone 5G iPhone is launched this year, then the tame demand for expensive phones will lead to the device going largely unnoticed. As a result, it is likely that Apple may postpone the launch of the 5G iPhones to at least the end of 2020, or possibly, even 2021. With Samsung and Huawei already having launched 5G devices, Apple will look to not be too delayed with launching their new devices, but all eyes will be on how the world manages to recover from the ongoing coronavirus crisis.