Analyst: Apple iPhone 8 to be delayed but will still be available for the holidays

The baseball season has just started and warm weather is returning to the Northern Hemisphere. That is why it seems strange to be thinking about the 2017 holiday season right now. But looking ahead is what Wall Street analysts have to do in order to make accurate forecasts for their clients. Take Drexel Hamilton analyst Brian White. Today, he told clients through a note, that the 10th anniversary edition of the Apple iPhone (dubbed the iPhone 8) will not be released in September as hoped.

White says that the 3-D sensing technology, which allows the front-facing camera to recognize the user's face in order to unlock the phone and verify identity, is giving Apple some problems. White adds that this feature and an OLED display will be found only on the 2017 premium version of the iPhone. Recently, Samsung and Apple signed a pact that has Samsung providing its rival with 70 million to 95 million OLED panels for the iPhone 8. In 2018 and thereafter, all iPhone models are expected to make the move from LCD to OLED.

The analyst says that Apple will still be taking pre-orders in September for the Apple iPhone 7s and Apple iPhone 7s Plus. But those two models won't include all of the snazzy new features for the iPhone 8. White did tell clients in his note that the expensive iPhone 8 (rumors have the phone priced at $850-900 for the 64GB model) will still be available in time for the 2017 holiday season. That happens to be the time of the year when Apple sells the most iPhone handsets. Last year, a record 78.3 million units were sold during Apple's fiscal first quarter which covers October through December.

source: CNBC