Apple's iPhone 5 'could add 0.5pc to US GDP' In a note entitled "Can one little phone impact GDP?," Mr Feroli says JPMorgan's analysts expect Apple to sell 8m iPhone 5s before the end of the year at around $600 each. If there are about $200 of imported parts in the phone then $400 of each unit would count towards the US government's GDP figure. "If calculated using the so-called retail control method, sales of iPhone 5 could boost Q4 GDP by $3.2bn, or $12.8bn at an annual rate," he wrote. This would boost annualized GDP growth in Q4 by 0.33 percentage points. If hedonically-adjusted constant quality prices of phones declined due to newer or better features - a reasonable conjecture - then the lift would be even greater, though past iPhone releases don't bear a visible impact on the relevant CPI components. The third of a percentage point lift would limit the downside risk to our Q4 GDP growth projection, which remains 2pc. The US fears a slide into recession after a "fiscal cliff" at the end of the year. The government is facing trillions of dollars in looming tax hikes and spending cuts that are expected to take $500bn out of the economy in 2013 alone. Apple is expected to unveil the iPhone 5 at a conference on Wednesday, alongside tweaked versions of the iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano and iPod Touch. In July, the world's biggest company announced that it had sold 26m iPhones in the last quarter, compared with an expectation of 28m and the 35.1m it sold in the second quarter of its financial year. Apple also revealed that that profits in the preceding three months climbed 21pc to $8.8bn - $1bn less than had been forecast.