Oliver Haslam·

Planned iPhone SE 4 Release Now Canceled, Analyst Says

Apple’s initial plans to release a fourth generation iPhone SE next year have reportedly been canceled. The company had also hoped to test its own in-house modem in that device, plans that have now also been canned.

While he had previously reported that the iPhone SE 4 could be delayed, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo now believes that it has been canceled for a 2024 release.

Previous rumors had suggested that the iPhone SE 4 would borrow from the iPhone XR, possibly moving the Touch ID sensor to the Side button and putting the selfie camera into a notch.

Kuo also believes that Apple had planned to use the iPhone SE 4 as a testbed for its first in-house 5G modem, allowing it to ditch Qualcomm for the future iPhone 16 flagship. But Apple is reportedly concerned that its own modem might not be as performant as the Qualcomm modem that it would replace.

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 cancelation 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.

It’s now thought that Apple could continue to use Qualcomm modems into 2024, something that the company wasn’t expecting. Qualcomm had already said that it expected to receive fewer modem orders from Apple from next year thanks to Apple’s plans to use its own modems.

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