Prelaunch Demand for iPhone 5 Unprecedented

Excitement is running high ahead of the October launch of the iPhone 5, higher perhaps than it has been prior to any iPhone launch. To wit, a new study that shows unprecedented demand for the next iteration of Apple’s smartphone.

A survey of 2,200 consumers taken in August by ChangeWave for RBC Capital Markets shows 31 percent of respondents very likely or somewhat likely to buy the iPhone 5 — significantly more than the 25 percent who said they were very or somewhat likely to buy the iPhone 4 ahead of its launch. And that percentage is quite a bit higher among current iPhone owners; 66 percent of existing iPhone users say they are very or somewhat likely to buy the iPhone 5.

In other words, we could see a very large iPhone upgrade cycle, come October — large enough that RBC has raised its estimate for fiscal 2012 iPhone sales to 110 million, up from 105 million.