Four years later, apple finally released the new iPhone se.

Like four years ago, iPhone SE carried the most advanced chips of the day (A13), following the previous generation of industrial design (iPhone 8) and most of the components. This is a hit

The reaction of public opinion is almost the same, people keep a high attention to se. Apple, which has always positioned itself as a high-end company, is used to making more than 5000 yuan mobile phones. When it comes to the price range of high-end Android, can it still show enough product competitiveness and brand appeal?

A number of questions emerged about the new iPhone SE,: why didn't apple redesign a comprehensive screen solution? And why is android offering a product that looks exactly the same as iPhone 6 six years ago when new designs and features emerge?

Most importantly, why the code name

First generation SE Savio

All this has to go from

Apple is facing its first iPhone since it came out in 2016

The iPhone 6s series, released in the fall of 2015, continued the design of previous iPhone 6, adding only three D Touch of this new feature. That's a lot

The impact was shown in Apple's earnings for the second quarter of 2016. The second fiscal quarter of Apple corresponds to the performance from January to March, which is the Chinese Spring Festival. The sales performance of Greater China during the Spring Festival will directly affect the overall performance of apple.

In the second quarter of 2015, thanks to the success of iPhone 6, Apple's performance in Greater China increased 71% year-on-year, and iPhone sales in the world also increased 57% year-on-year, strongly driving the growth of Apple's performance.

By 2016, iPhone sales were down, down 18% from a year earlier. After nine years of development, the high-end market of iPhone is almost saturated, and there is not much room for growth.

Early iPhone se|unsplash

At this time, on March 21,2016, the first generation iPhone SE came out. SE is thought to be the apple attack

But iPhone SE didn't

Apparently,

Since then, Apple's revenue report has quietly shown a trend of change.

Apple made two decisions after the iPhone market slowed down. One is to broaden the market and explore the middle end. The iPhone se was Apple's attempt.

The other is

This strategy has been successful. The iPhone x is very popular, leading the iPhone business directly to a single quarter sales record of $61.1 billion, which has not been broken until today. Apple continued to make great strides by launching the XRS and XS series at the end of 2018, as well as the XS max, which can be sold for up to $1449.

Today, the iPhone x r has become the number of iPhone 11. Apple has completed the deployment of two price range product lines, i.e. 8000 yuan start (high end) and 5000 yuan start (middle end).

During this process, every spring, iPhone SE upcoming rumors are like

But it never showed up. The reason behind this is simple,

In the era of full screen, the price of iPhone has risen a step

iPhone sales have fallen year after year as iPhone average prices have risen. And with apple's emphasis on iOS performance optimisation in recent years, many older phones have been glowing with battery updates

Since 2019, Apple will no longer disclose the specific sales data of iPhone in the financial statements, but according to the sales situation of iPhone and the approximate average price, the sales volume of iPhone is still in a declining state.

In 2019, apple finally changed its strategy again and began abandoning aggressive pricing. The price of iPhone11 is lower than that of the same XR a year ago, especially in an environment where prices for both Android phones are starting to rise

So half a year later, in the spring, when Apple needed more iPhone users, iPhone se finally returned. Or familiar formula: top chip, last generation design, even the price is the same as four years ago, 3299. In addition, there is no price increase for the added quantity. The storage gear has increased from 16g four years ago to 64g now.

But it has no full screen, no FaceID,, no double, no triple. Of course,

Apple needs new users and nails, but that doesn't affect the other two

Apple needs entry-level users

so why does apple need so many iPhone users? At the expense of iPhone average price,

In fact, in the four years since the release of the first iPhone se, Apple's revenue structure has changed a lot.

Change happens at the same time. Apple's overall revenue fell only 2% in 2019 against a 13.6% annual decline in iPhone sales. Because these two parts of the business, accessories and services, led the new growth. AirPods and AppleWatch are selling better and better, maintaining a 30-50% year-on-year increase every quarter. A new subscription service, such as Apple News 、AppleTV 、Apple Card、Apple Arcade, has also continued to boost revenue from software services. And these two businesses are based on hundreds iPhone millions of active users.

Smartphone is a more and more saturated market. The fierce market competition makes the growth of iPhone product line more and more difficult. Apple needs to find new revenue drivers. Today, wearable devices (headphones, watches, etc.) and services (video games, etc.) will become the most important source of revenue growth.

In the first quarter of 2020, after two years, apple again set a record quarterly revenue. This time, instead of relying on the expensive iPhone, it relies on a series of expansion experiences around the iPhone.

Apple no longer relies too much on the iPhone itself, does not need to drive the frequency of the user's switch, does not need to drive the iPhone price to continue to rise. In the past few years, the proportion of iPhone sales revenue to Apple's total revenue has continued to decline. Apple needs more iPhone users to join the ecosystem. As a result, the iPhone se, as the best entry-level iPhone, is once again on the stage.

New iPhone se|apple

Apple has been maintaining a very stable pace of product iteration. For more than ten years in a row, every autumn it can come up with a new main iPhone. This mechanism eventually becomes the practice of the whole smartphone industry, affecting the development cycle of upstream technology.

But even apple, because the market performance is not in line with expectations, will cause the original product rhythm to be disrupted, so that four years later, it will be delayed to update this highly concerned product.

In 2016, after the release of the first iPhone se, apple first launched Apple Music on WWDC in the summer, and then launched airpods for the first time in the autumn. Now looking back, that's the beginning of Apple's business layout adjustment.

Coincidentally, half a day after the launch of the new iPhone se, Bloomberg reported that Apple was developing a new high-end headphone that would be equipped with dynamic noise reduction.

Guo said earlier that apple is developing a new homepod sound, which is expected to be released this year. Following the trajectory of four years ago, apple did not stop.

After four years of clues, you will find that the story of iPhone se is like a fable of the game between enterprise and market. It was Apple's attempt to solve the iPhone business crisis, but it did not achieve immediate results. After that, Apple has tried to increase the scale on both sides of the scale. Finally, relying on the deep technical reserves and flexible adjustment ability, Apple has crossed the peak, walked out of the trough, completed the business transformation and found a new way out.

Four years later, the iPhone se seems to be the same formula four years ago, but the business logic behind it has changed. In the dynamic process of continuous game between enterprises and market, Apple has gone through a cycle.