When the iPhone SE was announced, there were many who thought it smelt of desperation. After all this was a phone that basically revisited a design Apple made 3 years ago, while stuffing it with hardware of its flagship, all the while pricing it so that it is more affordable than its larger iPhone 6s/6s Plus sibling.
It felt like Apple was grasping at straws, but we guess the naysayers have been silenced because according to Apple’s CEO Tim Cook who spoke during Apple’s earnings call, it turns out that the iPhone SE has been a hit, or at the very least managed to exceed the company’s expectations, although to be fair we’re not sure how well Apple had initially expected the phone to do.
According to Cook, “We’re thrilled with the response that we’ve seen on it. It is clear that there is a demand there even much beyond what we thought. That is really why we have the constraint that we have.” As it stands, the iPhone SE’s shipping time is at around 2-3 weeks, although if we wanted to be skeptical, it is possible that Apple could have grossly underestimated demand lest they end up with another iPhone 5c situation where they’d be sitting on huge amounts of unsold units.
That being said, there are plenty of signs pointing at the iPhone SE doing pretty well for itself. For example in China, it seems that the more affordable iPhone has managed to steal some customers away from Chinese companies and that’s saying a lot.