Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), the world's top tech company by market value, will report to the public its revenue and earnings for its second fiscal quarter.

The highly-secretive Apple likely won't talk about the sixth generation iPhone at its conference call on April 24, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. PT.

But the Q2 numbers Apple CEO Tim Cook will show April 24 should give us a clue of whether the iPhone 5 would be released October or in June (same month as prior iPhone models).

Apple in October unveiled a marginally improved iPhone 4S, instead of the mythical and radically different iPhone 5. While it does have an improved camera, software and processor and a revolutionary virtual assistant named Siri, it retained the 3.5-inch screen, copied the design of the iPhone 4, and didn't have 4G LTE support. Despite the lukewarm reviews, the iPhone 4S delivered record sales of 4 million units in the first three days.

Apple's marketing machine and founder Steve Jobs' death just days before the iPhone 4S release date may have enticed millions to upgrade or switch to iPhone 4S.

However, as a result of the iPhone 4S's so-so performance improvements, battery issues and lack of new features, there are concerns that interest in the device would peak earlier than previous models.

In the fiscal first quarter ended Dec. 31, 2011, Apple disclosed sales of 37 million, an increase of 128% compared to the same period in 2011. Apple released the iPhone 4S in the U.S. and six other countries Oct. 14. The device was rolled out in other countries in November to January.

If iPhone 4S is quickly losing steam, Apple could lose market share to Android rivals with an an October release for the next iteration of the iPhone. Samsung Electronics is expected to release the Galaxy S 3 in the Summer. HTC Corp. is releasing soon a quad-core and 4.7-inch HTC One (aka HTC One XL) soon. Other device-makers are also prepping their own offerings.

Eroding sales of the iPhone 4S could force Apple to returning to its previous schedule of releasing the iPhone 5 in June (or earlier), instead of waiting until October, exactly a year after the iPhone 4S was released.

Research firm Gartner, however, expects Apple's market share to slip for a couple of quarters as novelty of the iPhone 4S wears out.

Gartner said in February, "Apple had an exceptional fourth quarter, selling 35.5 million smartphones to end users, a 121.4 percent increase year on year. Apple's continued attention to channel management helped it take full advantage of the strong quarter to further close the gap with Samsung, which saw some inventory build up for its smartphone range. Apple's strong performance will continue into the first quarter of 2012 as availability of the iPhone 4S widens. However, since Apple will not benefit from delayed purchases as it did in the fourth quarter of 2011, Gartner analysts expect its sales to decline quarter-on-quarter."

Apple's annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is slated for June this year. The conference is primarily used by Apple to showcase its new software and technologies for developers, as well as offering hands-on labs and feedback sessions. At last year's conference, Apple unveiled the Mac OS X Lion and the iOS 5 mobile operating system. This June, aside from iOS 6, Apple might need to unveil the iPhone 5 in order to keep its momentum going.

The iPhone 5 is expected to have an all new design, lighter, wider and longer than the previous model, a 4.6-inch screen, a bigger battery, a quad-core chip (or just a dual-core A5X chip with quad-core graphics processor like the new iPad) and 4G LTE support.

To contact the author, e-mail: c.fernandez@ibtimes.com.au