William Gallagher
Investment bank Morgan Stanley says Apple is not cutting orders for the iPhone 16 range — and that it will be the iPhone SE 4 that makes Apple Intelligence take off.
Morgan Stanley has previously told investors that the sales of the iPhone 16 have been lower than expected. Now, though, while iPhone 16 lead times are still shorter than at this time for the iPhone 15 range, the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max appear to be selling better.
This is chiefly based on the lead times quoted by Apple, and Apple does not release any details about the numbers of iPhones either sold or produced. In a note to investors seen by AppleInsider, though, Morgan Stanley says it believes that better supply conditions are contributing to the shorter lead times.
Its own supply chain checks show no change in the orders for iPhone 16 models. However, the expected iPhone SE 4 is "increasingly showing signs of being a volume play for 2025."
In other words, Morgan Stanley expects the iPhone SE 4 to be released in March 2025, and to benefit from supporting Apple Intelligence. This will make the new iPhone, say the analysts, "a more compelling offer than most legacy iPhone models that don't have Apple Intelligence support and/or sell for a higher price."
Morgan Stanley believes that the iPhone SE 4 will be how Apple sells to what the analysts describe as the low-end smartphone market. The analysts had previously predicted Apple to make and sell 15 million of the iPhone SE 4, but it is now forecasting between 15 million and 20 million.
This depends on the iPhone SE 4 supporting Apple Intelligence. But Morgan Stanley believes that it will, which backs up recent rumors about the device.
Malcolm Owen
Christine McKee
Andrew Orr
8 Comments
The more expensive iPhones 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max are selling better than the cheaper iPhones for the third year in a row, The cheaper iPhones won’t be leading the drive to Apple Intelligence. It will be the more expensive iPhones in short the best selling phones….
https://www.techradar.com/phones/iphone/iphone-15-sales-figures-show-the-pro-models-have-become-the-default
https://itwire.com/your-it-news/mobility/iphone-15-pro-max-tops-sales-charts-in-1q24.html
I hope it'll be small enough to replace my 12 mini. It's a shame iPhones have become the size of small tablets. I don't want that huge screen, I got a Mac and an iPad for that.
Whenever I buy anything, I make an effort to avoid something that's made in any dictatorship, and I try to buy a version of that product that's made in a democracy. Usually I have to pay a little more for that, but I get the advantage of knowing that I'm supporting the environment, human rights, world peace and democracies themselves. Every time I saw an iPhone SE I noticed it was labelled "Assembled in India" which is a democracy. So I'm quite inclined to buy an iPhone SE next. In which country will the iPhone SE 4 be assembled?
Apple doesn't need an iPhone SE to make Apple Intelligence a hit - it needs Apple Intelligence to have a killer feature! But so far, it's been utterly disappointing in this regard. Sure, summaries of your notifications or emails are useful and so is the object removal in Photos and the writing aids. But none of these things would be reason for someone to either buy a new iPhone or even upgrade from their current one. The only thing that I can think of that would move the needle is a much improved Siri. If she could finally get closer to being the assistant we were promised a dozen years ago, THAT would really help the most people - and, thus, lead to more iPhone sales. Alas, I'm on the 7th beta of iOS and Siri - while mildly improved (it can now answer some basic questions in the context of a previous one) - still haven't gotten much better. There are just so many areas where it's so utterly retarded. Case in point from just yesterday: I was driving and asked, Siri, through CarPlay, to "Play the album 'It's OK to not be ok" - and it played the last album I listened to before :-( I don't have an accent and spoke very clearly - yet Siri didn't have a clue. I even repeated the command. Still the wrong response. That album is in my music library and bought within the last year! I ended up manually selecting it.
My point is that Siri is still more frustrating than helpful on most occasion. The slight improvements I've seen since iOS 18.1 betas have certainly not been ground shaking.