This is sort of a no brainer, but an analyst has predicted that Apple iPhone 3GS owners, rather than those with an iPhone 4, will drive iPhone 4S upgrade sales this year.
Gene Muster, a senior research analyst at Piper Jaffray, predicts 18.8 million iPhone 3GS users will upgrade their two-year-old device to the iPhone 4S this year, accounting for 18 percent of Apple's entire iPhone unit sales for the 2012 fiscal year.
"While the lack of a new form-factor leaves some potential upgrades from the iPhone 4 on the table, we believe the addressable base of iPhone 3GS users that will likely upgrade to the iPhone 4S is significant," Munster wrote in a note to clients.
Munster assumed that most iPhone 3GS owners who have not already upgraded their devices will upgrade to an iPhone 4S. He takes into account an August Piper Jaffray survey showing that among existing iPhone users, 94 percent expected to buy another iPhone as their next phone. However this survey was conducted during a time many of us expected an iPhone 5 launch this fall.
Fifteen percent of existing iPhone 3GS users may switch platforms, and another 25 percent have already upgraded to the iPhone 4, Munster said.
So of those 27.6 million iPhone 3GS users who purchased their device before the iPhone 4 launched, 18.8 million "are likely to upgrade to the iPhone 4S eventually."
The iPhone 4S is aesthetically identical to the iPhone 4, but on the inside, it boasts Apple's new dual-core A5 processor, a super-charged camera, iOS 5, and Siri-backed voice recognition, among other things. Earlier this week, Apple said that it took more than one million pre-orders for the device in seven countries last Friday, making it the fastest-selling iPhone ever. For more, see PCMag's hands on with the iPhone 4S and the slideshow below.