A top analyst with a good track record for predicting Apple’s upcoming product releases said the company will release a smaller, cheaper iPhone next year in the first quarter, according to a report by CNBC.
Ming-Chi Kuo, a TF International Securities analyst, said the iPhone SE2 will launch with an A13 chip, which is used in the latest iteration of the phone, but that it will have a design that is closer to the iPhone 8, with a 4.7-inch screen.
The “iPhone SE2, which will be the best upgrade choice for existing 100mn iPhone 6 series users, will be a key growth driver for Apple in 2020,” Kuo said.
The first iPhone SE had a 4-inch screen, which some people preferred, and it had a similar design to the iPhone 5, but with better components inside. The iPhone 8 costs about $449, and if Apple follows the same pricing scheme, the SE2 could offer more power for less money.
″We believe that [the] iPhone SE2 will meet more users’ demand and increase iPhone’s market share because of the more affordable price,” Kuo said.
The phone probably won’t have the same camera capability as the 11, since Apple will have to cut some things out to keep the price down. It will also probably have a home button, since the Face ID feature was not available on the 8.
“All Apple content and service could run smoothly on [the] iPhone SE2, and it will benefit the growth of Apple’s content and service businesses thanks to the adoption of the A13 processor and 3GB LPDDR4X,” Kuo said about the device’s memory specs. “Though most of iPhone SE2′s hardware spec will be similar to iPhone 8′s, we think the excellent computing power offered by A13 and 3GB LPDDR4X, and the more affordable price, will be great selling points. Therefore, we estimate iPhone SE2 shipments in 2020 will reach 30-40mn units.”