Every two years, Apple updates its entry-level smartphone, and since the iPhone SE was released in 2022, the following update was planned for 2024. Today’s revelation from prominent Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo leads us to believe that the SE experiment is over.
Kuo claims that Apple has informed its partners in the supply chain that the manufacturing and shipping schedules for the 2024 iPhone SE have been canceled, not just postponed. Strangely enough, this choice has implications for Apple’s frequently reported internal baseband chip, which has been safely occupying that place for years yet is nevertheless frequently mentioned as being “just around the corner” in reports.
Possibly the last ever iPhone SE – the 2022 model
The following iPhone SE was expected to be the first device to use the baseband chip. Apple intended to use the handset as a sort of guinea pig so that, in the event that something goes wrong, it does so with the least expensive smartphone it sells rather than one of the more profitable models. If everything went according to plan, the chip might have been included in the iPhone 16 series by the end of 2024.
However, with the cancellation of the 2024 iPhone SE, questions linger on whether Apple’s own baseband chip will perform as well as Qualcomm’s alternatives. And as a result of those worries, Qualcomm is now much more likely to provide baseband processors for the iPhone 16 generation. According to the “market consensus” up to this point, Qualcomm will begin to lose iPhone orders in 2024.
Qualcomm would continue to supply Apple as a result of this move until at least 2025. As a result, it is anticipated to continue to rule the high-end mobile baseband chip market globally this year and the following year, generating significantly better profit margins than its (few) rivals.
