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You ain’t seen 
nothing yet!

It’s too bad that Apple doesn’t report any sales figures for the Middle East because it would be very interesting to see how the iPhone 4S will fare in the region now that it’s been officially released.

From what we can tell based on previous generations of iPhone, the 4S will do very well. I would guess we would see it all over Dubai in the months to come. But then I guess I am a bit bias as I’m still very happy with my iPhone 4S, even after many weeks of use by now.

But even if the 4S will do well in the Middle East, what’s the future for Apple on the worldwide smartphone stage? As it turns out, it may be that we’ve only seen the very beginning of something much bigger. And no, I’m not even talking about the now almost mythical iPhone 5, whenever it’ll see the light of day.

Apple has just brought iPhone 4S to India where it’s off to a bumpy start and Brazil has also been graced by the 4S, although the price there is ridiculously high, even with Middle Eastern standards. These are two huge markets with enormous potential for Apple to sell more smartphones but there are others that are ripe for the picking as well, China and Japan are two examples.

Apparently Apple is already in discussions with China Mobile, with around 640 million mobile subscribers, the biggest mobile operator in the world. What the growth potential is in China for iPhone we don’t exactly know of course. However, if the interest in Apple’s other products is any indication, iPhone will sell like crazy in the middle kingdom.

NTT DoCoMo in Japan is also virgin territory for iPhone, and with around 60 million mobile subscribers there’s great potential there as well. Apple is supposedly in discussions with NTT DoCoMo as well. And the biggest carrier in Japan should be keep to take Apple’s smartphone on as its competitors KDDI and Softbank already offers it.

With India and Brazil already taken care of, what if iPhone is launched aggressively in China and Japan as well, how will that affect Apple’s bottom line? We already know that Apple has more cash on hand than it probably knows what to do with and it looks like that will just keep growing. Bullish Cross Research expects Apple to report $42 billion in revenue in fiscal Q1, driven largely by an expected 32-40 million iPhones sold.

Apple’s introduction of iPhone across the globe may seem slow but the way that Cupertino goes about it is with care and calculation. And once a carrier and country is captured in its grip, it doesn’t seem like it will let go.

All this points to that, even with the increased threat from well-selling Android smartphones like Samsung Galaxy SII, we shouldn’t count Apple out just yet. In fact, I think there’s every chance the lyrics to the Bachman Turner Overdrive song is correct: “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Magnus Nystedt @mnystedt

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