The iPhone SE may be one excellent small and affordable iPhone, but the market hasn’t reacted well to Apple’s expectations, as Nikkei Asia reports that Apple has halted 20% of production the iPhone SE in the next quarter and 10 million fewer AirPods for 2022, well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has also speculated Apple to ship only 15-20 million iPhone SE in 2022, as opposed to his previous 25-30 million estimation.
Shanghai lockdown doesn’t affect the iPhone SE production. However, the new iPhone SE demand is lower than expected (the delivery status “in stock” as one of the proofs), and I cut my shipment estimation in 2022 to 15-20M (vs. 25-30M previously).
— 郭明錤 (Ming-Chi Kuo) (@mingchikuo) March 28, 2022
While there hasn’t been an exact reason for this production cut, various reports cites COVID lockdowns in China and the Ukraine war to be the probable reason, but in most cases the iPhone SE’s low demand could be attributed to its target audience, as the phone only features very minor upgrades in the same design, making it less compelling for previous owners to upgrade or even attract new customers.
The iPhone SE isn’t exactly a budget phone for what it is priced at, but it sure has certain unique selling points over similar priced Android phones, such as a more capable A15 Bionic chip, 5G, years of iOS software updates and IP67 water and dust resistance, but considering how many Android phones are already way ahead of the iPhone SE in features with much lower price tags, and how brands like Xiaomi and Samsung have committed to several years of OS and security updates, the iPhone SE’s value proposition is just hardly there like it used to.
Source: Nikkei Asia, via The Verge