The conventional wisdom holds that we shouldn’t expect too many tech miracles from the iPhone 5. The latest iteration of Apple’s popular smartphone will mainly just be an incremental upgrade over previous versions. Ho-hum.
But what about an economic miracle? In a new research note, JP Morgan’s Michael Feroli estimates that iPhone 5 sales could boost U.S. economic growth in the fourth quarter by up to 0.5 percentage points. That could mean the difference between a disappointing economic expansion and a half-decent one.