The iPhone SE would not be updated for its first anniversary |  iGeneration

The iPhone SE would not be updated for its first anniversary | iGeneration

The small iPhone SE will not be updated in the first quarter of 2017, predicts Ming-Chi Kuo. That doesn't rule out a possible evolution, in one form or another, later in the year, but nothing on the horizon of its first anniversary, in March.

For the KGI Securities analyst, Apple will face an annual drop in iPhone sales that it will want to offset by preserving its margins. It is therefore better, in this case, to favor the sales of higher-end models instead of strengthening the appeal of the cheapest iPhone in the family.

Apple should also increase the pressure from this end of the year on its suppliers to obtain discounts. A classic method but which cannot work with everyone, recalls the analyst.

L'iPhone SE ne serait pas mis à jour pour son premier anniversaire | iGeneration

There are suppliers whose components can be replaced by those of other subcontractors, and those of Samsung or TSMC (which manufactures the processors) which are more complicated to substitute. Samsung could even increase the prices of its 3 GB flash memories (the capacity used in the 7 Plus) in view of the strong demand.

For the current quarter (which will end just after Christmas), Kuo expects sales of 40 to 50 million iPhones, against 51.2 million a year earlier. He explains it by a decline of Apple in China, or rather a "normalization" of its sales levels to use the terms of Apple's management, and a lesser attraction for 4.7 "formats.

For the following quarter of 2017, Apple would sell between 35 and 40 million phones, instead of 40.4 million over the same period of 2016.

On the whole of Apple's activity, with the reinforcement of new portable products and Apple Watch, the financial director of Apple was relatively optimistic for the current quarter. Luca Maestri is thus counting on a turnover of between 76 and 78 billion dollars instead of 75.872 billion in Q1 2016. All of this will be announced at the end of January.

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