Cheaper 6.1-inch LCD 2018 iPhone expected to be Apple's most popular model

Rumblings from the Chinese supply chain suggest that component manufacturers are seeing a different balance of orders than they were expecting, given rolling iPhone X sales throughout the year.

The Wall Street Journal report on Friday cites industry executives with "direct knowledge of production plans" again remarking that Apple originally wanted about the same number of LCD and OLED screens. However, at some point the plans allegedly changed, and Apple wants more LCD models now.

This isn't the first time that this has been claimed, or predicted. In February, Ming-Chi Kuo, then with KGI Securities, expected the same thing.

Besides the 6.1-inch LCD iPhone first rumored in January, Apple is rumored to add two new OLED models to its iPhone lineup this fall including a 5.8-inch iPhone X replacement. A 6.5-inch OLED "iPhone X Plus" is also supposedly in the works.

All 2018 iPhones are said to boast logic boards built on substrate-like PCB (SLP) technologies first adopted by iPhone X and iPhone 8. The 5.8- and 6.5-inch OLED iPhone models will sport stacked board designs like iPhone X, while the 6.1-inch LCD model will stick to a traditional single-layer layout, Kuo said.

As far as specifications, Kuo believes manufacturers will adopt a finer pitch of 28-30 nanometers on the boards, down from the 30-35 nanometers applied to 2017 phones, as part of efforts to reduce PCB size and improve energy efficiency.

Current price predictions put the 6.1-inch LCD phone pricing at between $600 and $700.

Moving up the product line, the 5.8-inch OLED model is expected top be between $800 to $900 and the 6.5-inch OLED "iPhone X Plus" will be priced around $900 to $1000.

All the two OLED models will likely ship in quantity in September and early October. One report claims that the 6.1-inch model will be pushed to November because of difficulties cutting an iPhone X-like "notch" out of a LCD panel.