Is the iPhone SE really aimed at emerging markets?
Apple (in my opinion), made a huge mistake with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. Apple decided that the form factor of the iPhone 5 series was no longer viable and killed it. But worse than that, they not only killed it, they replaced it with TWO phones. Perhaps not a terrible option as they didn't really lower the bar price-wise. But they did make both of them beyond noticeably larger than the iPhone 5.
I felt at the time (and feel more strongly about it now) that Apple should have (if they were willing to create 2 new phones) make one of them either the same size of the 5 series or close enough that back peddling a bit in the future wouldn't require a 3rd new product line at a lower price point.
Of course, what naturally happened was that some people think phablets are ridiculous and simply continued to use/buy iPhone 5's. That isn't what Apple wants. Apple wants to drive sales of new product lines, not older ones.
Now that they'd gone and rolled the dice on phablets, they had two options. Kill off one of them which would enrage many or introduce a new, smaller, cheaper option. Which is what we got.
What does this history lesson have to do with emerging markets? Their justification for the existence of the iPhone SE is that these phone were designed for those markets. A clever way to avoid having made a mistake.
But, when has Apple EVER cared about emerging markets? They haven't. They likely still don't. While the price tag of the SE is much lower than any iPhone sold in North America today, those prices are still competitive in emerging markets.
Also, if they are for emerging markets... why sell them at all in North America? We use different cellular bands, have different markets and a whole army of reasons why virtually every other cell manufacturer only sells such devices into those emerging markets. Selling here means increasing production costs by adding support for those cellular networks not used elsewhere.
And it doesn't end there... no dual sim? Virtually all emerging markets are heavy users of dual sim phones. Less advanced infrastructure, regulation and partnerships mean it is easy to end up in a roaming scenario... even within the same city. Also, many will simply get a second SIM for a second family member to share the phone, but have their own number. Not having dual sims is a deal breaker in many of those markets. Period.
Then there are the questionable additions. Again more places they could have either cut costs to increase margins or drive down phone prices. Like Apple Pay. I see a grand total of 8 countries supported on Wikipedia (at the moment). The functionality seems un-necessary for such a phone. Using the A9 chip and 2GB of RAM when neither the 6 or 6 Plus hit those specs feels like overkill. NFC and a higher MP camera than the 6 and 6 Plus also seem like premium features targeting a more upscale market. And lastly, with only 2 options of 16 and 64GB for storage, I'm left wondering where the 32GB options is. Again, here in NA, forking over $100US to jump from 16 to 64GB isn't a huge deal. But, in emerging markets a $50 or less option for 32GB would likely be a much more successful way of up-selling phones.
I felt at the time (and feel more strongly about it now) that Apple should have (if they were willing to create 2 new phones) make one of them either the same size of the 5 series or close enough that back peddling a bit in the future wouldn't require a 3rd new product line at a lower price point.
Of course, what naturally happened was that some people think phablets are ridiculous and simply continued to use/buy iPhone 5's. That isn't what Apple wants. Apple wants to drive sales of new product lines, not older ones.
Now that they'd gone and rolled the dice on phablets, they had two options. Kill off one of them which would enrage many or introduce a new, smaller, cheaper option. Which is what we got.
What does this history lesson have to do with emerging markets? Their justification for the existence of the iPhone SE is that these phone were designed for those markets. A clever way to avoid having made a mistake.
But, when has Apple EVER cared about emerging markets? They haven't. They likely still don't. While the price tag of the SE is much lower than any iPhone sold in North America today, those prices are still competitive in emerging markets.
Also, if they are for emerging markets... why sell them at all in North America? We use different cellular bands, have different markets and a whole army of reasons why virtually every other cell manufacturer only sells such devices into those emerging markets. Selling here means increasing production costs by adding support for those cellular networks not used elsewhere.
And it doesn't end there... no dual sim? Virtually all emerging markets are heavy users of dual sim phones. Less advanced infrastructure, regulation and partnerships mean it is easy to end up in a roaming scenario... even within the same city. Also, many will simply get a second SIM for a second family member to share the phone, but have their own number. Not having dual sims is a deal breaker in many of those markets. Period.
Then there are the questionable additions. Again more places they could have either cut costs to increase margins or drive down phone prices. Like Apple Pay. I see a grand total of 8 countries supported on Wikipedia (at the moment). The functionality seems un-necessary for such a phone. Using the A9 chip and 2GB of RAM when neither the 6 or 6 Plus hit those specs feels like overkill. NFC and a higher MP camera than the 6 and 6 Plus also seem like premium features targeting a more upscale market. And lastly, with only 2 options of 16 and 64GB for storage, I'm left wondering where the 32GB options is. Again, here in NA, forking over $100US to jump from 16 to 64GB isn't a huge deal. But, in emerging markets a $50 or less option for 32GB would likely be a much more successful way of up-selling phones.
As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't care about emerging markets. And, they shouldn't. They don't even have a majority of the sales at home. The new price point likely will help Apple abroad as well. But, as to specifically targeting emerging markets; that is impossible for Apple to do with any device it would also sell in North America. Truly targeting emerging markets means budget devices, and that simply isn't in Apple's DNA and they would never get away with selling a truly cheap phone here.
This feels, to me, like an excuse to cover up their past mistakes and gamble on lower margins to increase their market share on this continent while using emerging markets as an excuse for such a radically cheap device (by their standards) that returns to a form factor they already abandoned.
They simply didn't make enough concessions for this to truly be a product aimed at markets like India or Asia or other emerging markets. The left out a crucial component for those markets in the form of dual sims and then packed in a ton elitist features most can live without and provided storage options designed to fundamentally strong arm you into upgrading.
Sure, the phone will probably sell well. It addresses two real concerns Apple has without ever needing to look abroad. A large number of people liked the size of the iPhone 5 and with a lot of carriers abandoning phone subsidies there is an increasing need for phones which people can buy flat out or pay a reasonable supplemental fee for.
To me, the only odd thing about this product is the ludicrous claim that such an Americanized product was created for the rest of the world.
After writing this I decided to do some research to help fact check some of my claims: here is an article which states that ASP of a phone in most emerging markets is $30-50.
Here, here and here are some forums/pages discussing dual sims in emerging markets. Just Google it, we're in the minority here for not using dual sim devices.
Larger screens are also already becoming more popular in emerging markets.
Apple is also ignoring one of the biggest emerging markets in its first wave of sales.
Anyway, go look at any metric you can think of that you'd actually associate with emerging markets. You'll probably land at the same conclusion. This is either the poorest attempt at this, or just a ruse.
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