Yes, as crazy as that sounds, but according to Kenta Yamaguchi’s piece on ASCII that’s exactly what is happening. The point of his story is that starting today, second brand carriers Y! mobile and UQ Mobile are selling iPhone SE instead of iPhone 8. Until yesterday they only offered the budget Apple Pay Suica capable iPhone 7 and normally they would offer iPhone 8, but iPhone 8 is nowhere to be seen in the budget lineup. Instead they are offering iPhone SE only 4 months after it went on sale at first tier carriers.
The big loser here is Rakuten Mobile who do not offer iPhone SE. Apple fully understands the ‘Face ID sucks in the face mask COVID era’ market opportunity, aka unfortunate success, that is the A13 Touch ID powered iPhone SE. Apple also wants many background NFC tag reading capable iPhones out there for iOS 14 App clips, so iPhone SE is going on sale everywhere.
Yamaguchi san says the SE is so popular that major carriers are bitching it will slowdown the 5G migration in Japan…while still selling as many iPhone SE units as they can. 5G will just have to wait until Apple comes up with a budget 5G Touch ID iPhone SE.
You must be logged in to post a comment.