Kuo: from now on only Pro iPhones will receive the latest socs

From now on, only the Pro models of new iPhones will receive the latest socs, says TF Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. The regular models and the SE versions of the devices only get older generations of Apple’s processors.

Kuo calls the choice to only provide Pro iPhones with the latest soc a ‘structural change’, he says on his own blog. Due to the change in the iPhone 14, which has been rumored for months, Apple would sell relatively more of the Pro versions. Instead of around 40 percent of iPhones sold being a Pro model, according to Kuo, it would be around 60 percent this year.

Kuo won’t say why Apple is doing that, but it probably has to do with increasing revenue per phone sold. The Pro models have a higher selling price, which increases the average selling price of an iPhone, and if Apple sells the same amount of iPhones, the company gets more sales from its phones.

The assumption was that due to the chip shortage, Apple could not have enough of its A16 produced to also provide the regular versions with the latest soc. With iPhones, the split would be new. Until now, iPhones of the same generation, from the cheaper SE models to the most expensive Pro Max, always have the same soc.

This has not been the case for other product groups for years. For example, the cheapest iPads invariably have older socs and the Pro iPads are the first or only to get the latest and fastest socs. Apple is expected to announce the four iPhone 14 models in September. Unlike the last two years, there would be no more mini version. The iPhone 14 Pro models would no longer have a notch, but a small round hole and a pill-shaped hole in the screen.

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