“The supply chain has received instructions from Apple indicating that the production and shipment plans for the 2024 iPhone SE 4 have been cancelled rather than delayed,” Ming Chi-Kuo said in a blog post. He went on to say that Qualcomm will be the biggest winner of Apple’s cancellation of the 2024 iPhone SE 4.
Qualcomm to remain Apple’s 5G chip supplier
With iPhone SE 4, Apple wanted to test its own baseband chip before incorporating it in the iPhone 16 series. With the phone now reportedly cancelled, Qualcomm will remain Apple’s 5G chip supplier till at least 2024.
“Due to concerns that the performance of the in-house baseband chip may not be up to par with Qualcomm’s, Apple initially planned to launch its baseband chip in 2024 and let the low-end iPhone SE 4 adopt it first, and decide whether to let the iPhone 16 use its baseband chip depending on the development status of iPhone SE 4. However, the cancellation of the iPhone SE 4 has significantly increased the chances of Qualcomm remaining the exclusive supplier of baseband chips for the 2H24 new iPhone 16 series, which is better than the market consensus that Qualcomm will start losing iPhone orders in 2024,” Kuo said.
Furthermore, the decision to cancel iPhone SE4 will help Qualcomm to maintain its lead in the global high-end mobile phone RF market till 2024.
“The company’s strong product mix, which confers competitive advantages, is expected to mitigate the negative impacts of the economic recession and allow Qualcomm to return to solid growth ahead of its competitors once the economy recovers,” the analyst noted.
The iPhone SE 4 was speculated to have a notched design – similar to the iPhone XR. Apple released the third-generation iPhone SE two years after the second-generation iPhone SE.
iOS16.2: iPhone users wait for 5G is over
