The next iPhone SE is expected to echo the iPhone 14 design, seen here in 2022 (Photo by BRITTANY … [+]
Apple’s next iPhone is set for a March 2025 launch. With reports that production will begin this December, the Apple community is looking forward to welcoming the new iPhone SE into the family.
Reinventing The iPhone SE
This will be the fourth iPhone SE since the product line debuted in 2016, with 2020 and 2022 seeing updated hardware. The SE is effectively Apple’s only mid-range smartphone, offering a more affordable way into the Apple ecosystem than the main line of iPhones. Given Apple’s continued focus on premium handsets, the SE is a crucial oasis for budget-conscious consumers.
Details on 2025’s iPhone SE come from noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Writing on Medium.com, Kuo notes that “iPhone SE4 mass production will start in December 2024, with projected production of around 8.6 million units from December 2024 to 1Q25.”
The iPhone SE will draw obvious comparisons to the Google Pixel 8a and the Samsung Galaxy S24 Fan Edition. Both of these models similarly target the mid-range market, and both are derived from more powerful handsets that cost significantly more.
iPhone SE Alternatives
Google launched the Pixel 8a in May 2024. The Pixel family is now on the 9th iteration, and Google is expected to launch a Pixel 9a at the I/O Developer event it holds each May. That leaves the iPhone SE in a comfortable position to trump the Pixel 8a, although there will be a stiffer challenge in the Pixel 9a not long after release.
The Samsung Galaxy S24 FE is also at the end of a product cycle, namely the January 2024 release of the core Galaxy S24, S24+ and S24 Ultra handsets. With the FE coming in near the end of that annual product cycle, not only is it going to be six months older than the iPhone SE, but January 2025 should see Samsung’s marketing moving on to the S25 brand, leaving the S24 FE in a curious slot in the portfolio that looks older than it is.
Apple generally pitches the iPhone SE as having a capability that is broadly similar to the main line of iPhones. That will definitely be the case for the upcoming model. Tim Cook and his team are pushing the company’s entry into the generative AI market, and the iPhone SE will no doubt be pitched both as an affordable AI option and an Apple device “designed from the ground up” to support the awkwardly backronymed Apple Intelligence suite of generative AI tools.
Given the Android-based competition at this price point will be heavily invested in AI, and the aforementioned Google and Samsung handsets running the second-generation AI software, it will be critical for Apple to gain AI mindshare in this crowded market sector.
The iPhone SE goes beyond being an iPhone. It’s an iPhone that broadens the reach of Apple’s ecosystem. It’s a moment for Apple to move into the mid-range while doing its best to carry an aura of premium-level hardware. Without the SE, Apple cannot reach the market with current technology. Without the SE, Apple cannot continue to push its nascent efforts into the maturing generative AI space. And without the SE, Apple would have to cede much of the ‘my first smartphone’ space to the competition.
Production can’t start soon enough.
Now read the latest iPhone SE, MacBook, and iPad headlines in Forbes’ weekly Apple Loop news digest…