Apple Won’t Release New iPhone SE in 2017, Sell Less iPhones

According to the latest report from usually-reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, Apple won’t release an updated 4-inch iPhone SE model next year. The expert also expects that Apple’s smartphone sales will continue to decline.

One of the main reasons for poor sales is weak demand for Phones in China. Apart from that, Kuo expects that Apple will ship only about 40-50 million iPhone units in the first quarter of 2017, which is less than 51.2 million units shipped in the first quarter of 2016. Finally, the lack of the new smaller iPhone will surely influence the overall Apple performance.

We are conservative about the sell-through of the 4.7” iPhone and Apple’s market share in China. As such, we estimate 1Q17 iPhone shipment volume of 40-50mn units, lower than the 51.2mn units in 1Q16.

Apple released the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus in September. Both devices perform quite well, with the larger model being more popular for the first time since its introduction in 2014.

[via iClarified]