According to news on December 21, Tianfeng Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo shared the latest news about Apple on his personal social account. According to the actual market performance of iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus, The fourth generation of iPhone SE originally scheduled to be released in 2024 may be postponed to after 2024. The worst case scenario is to terminate the advancement of the project. It is reported that the fourth generation of iPhone SE will adopt a notch screen design and completely abandon the non-full-screen shape.
(Picture from: Twitter "Ming-Chi Kuo")
This year's cold wave in the consumer electronics market has spread to Apple. Judging from the initial sales of this generation of iPhone, it is obviously down compared to the previous generation, leaving aside the lack of appeal of the standard version and the iPhone 14 The objective factors behind the delayed launch of the Plus are not as discussed as the previous two generations. This forces Apple to re-examine its next new phone release strategy. According to the original plan, after the arrival of the iPhone 15 series, the iPhone SE 4 will appear as an "appetizer". With a new design language and significant improvements in performance, it will dominate the mid-range market. However, judging from the latest news, this generation of SE may be terminated.
(Picture from: Apple’s official website)
Realistically speaking, iPhone SE’s sales in the past were not very good, but not too bad either. It is also one of the popular products in certain countries/regions, such as North America and Japan. Users in these countries tend not to rely on smartphones to handle everything in life, so small-screen, low-cost iPhones SE has become the best choice. The iPhone SE 4 will be replaced with a notch screen, and the screen size will also increase a lot. Even though it looks more modern, it also loses the unique features of the SE series.
It is worth noting that the replacement of the iPhone SE 4 with a new mold and a new screen will inevitably increase the manufacturing cost and the price will also increase. Assuming that the price of the iPhone SE 3 is about 3,500 yuan, it will increase by about 1,000 yuan. The total price is about 4,500 yuan. It seems that it is not as good as buying an iPhone 12 or iPhone 13.
(Picture from: Apple’s official website)
Of course, The current per capita replacement cycle has reached 43 weeks, This means that most users will not have any plans to replace a mobile phone for about 3 years after purchasing a mobile phone. However, iPhone 13 still experienced a good demand during the Double 11 shopping festival that just passed, which makes the similar type of iPhone SE 4 has lost part of the potential market again, and without enough sales, it seems difficult for Apple to achieve the expected profit gains from mid-range phones.
On the other hand, the performance of the consumer electronics market in 2023 is expected to be similar to this year. For Apple, reducing the development of new projects with unknown profits is the best choice, especially during such a critical transition period.
(cover image from: Apple official website)
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