We have earlier reported that Apple was on the brink of stumbling significantly short of their first-quarter fiscal results on account of an economic slump as 2018 came to an end. What should have been a prime period to buy the all-new iPhone XS/Max and XR instead saw these pricey devices gather dust on display, especially in China, while gadget buyers went for more affordable alternatives. The tech giant has taken several measures to make up for impending losses such as putting greater focus on Apple online services separate from their devices. Another way has been to launch clearance sales.
Indeed, such has been the dire need of Apple to sell something that, as The Verge tells us, they have briefly done a clearance sale on Sunday, January 20, for an iPhone variant that they have already retired. That would be the iPhone SE, a contemporary of sorts to the iPhone 6S and the iPhone X, billed to consumers as an entry-level iPhone that was smaller and less capable than its mainstream peer, but markedly better than the models that came before. Apple had put the SE online on its Clearance Sale listing, where it stayed for only several hours of Sunday before disappearing again.
Launched in 2016, the iPhone SE boasted some neat features for its 5S-equivalent small size. It had a better battery capacity for its day, a 4K-compatible 12-megapixel rear cam, the latest Apple A9 system-on-chip and 32GB internal memory. It was also the last notable iPhone model with the classic headphone jack. The following year Apple took notice of the entry-level iPhone’s popularity and introduced a variant with beefier storage, 128GB in all. For its brief appearance on Apple’s online clearance sale, the iPhone SE’s two variants were discounted by P100 (32GB) and P150 (128GB) respectively, in space gray, gold, rose gold and silver case colors.
Apple went on to retire the iPhone SE along with its 6S and X “brothers” in 2018 to make way for the iPhone XS and XR successors. Unfortunately the iPhone XR, despite its entry-level designation, was much heavier on the pockets than the SE was. Coupled with the troubled economy, it spelled potential disaster with the poor sales rocking Apple hard. That seemed a good enough impetus to bring back the iPhone SE to clear out its remaining inventory, and the quick selling out of the clearance sale units speaks loudly of how Apple may have blundered by retiring the phone after only two years.
Image courtesy of MacWorld
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