Apple plans to launch its next-generation iPhone during the third quarter of

Apple plans to launch its next-generation iPhone during the third quarter of the year, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Apple has placed orders for key components to be used in the new version of the iPhone and it would be thinner and lighter than the iPhone 4.

Apple released the iPhone 4 in June 2010.

“Apple’s sales estimates of the new iPhone is quite aggressive,” the Journal quoted a source at one of Apple’s parts suppliers as saying.

“(Apple) told us to prepare to help the company meet its goal of 25 million units by the end of the year,” the source said.

“The initial production volume will be a few million units,” the source said, adding the supplier had been told to ship components to Apple’s Taiwan-based assembler Hon Hai in August.

Financial analysts have been predicting in recent weeks that Apple would begin production of a new iPhone in August and introduce it in September or October.

Source AFP