Apple Inc. unveiled a new, smaller iPhone that will start at $399, seeking to jump-start sales of its flagship product by enticing more users to upgrade, especially in high-growth markets such as China and India.
The iPhone SE has a 4-inch-screen with a stainless steel finish, and incorporates the faster A9 processor that also runs the larger iPhone 6S handsets, Apple vice president Greg Joswiak said at an event Monday at the company’s Cupertino, California, headquarters. The phone has full support for the Siri voice-enabled digital assistant, a 12-megapixel camera, and includes features found on the larger phones like Apple Pay and Touch ID.
Apple will ship the iPhone SE starting March 31. The company sold 30 million of the older 4-inch iPhones last year, Joswiak said.
The company also said it’s cutting the price of the cheapest Apple Watch, to $299 from $349.
Apple also today showed off a new iPad, incorporating the power and some of the features of its higher-end larger Pro model, even as tablets are losing popularity with the buying public.
The new iPad Pro with a 9.7-inch display will start at $599 and be available for order March 24, the company said at an event Monday in Cupertino, California. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro was introduced last September and targeted business users.
Apple chose to introduce a new 9.7-inch model because “it has remained our most popular size,” said Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president and head of marketing. For current users, “it is their ultimate upgrade,” he said.
Revenue from the tablet, introduced in 2010, fell by 21% in the three months that ended in December, with existing users seeing no need to buy updated models and more people choosing larger phones instead. The company sold 16.1 million of the devices in the quarter, a 25% decline from the holiday quarter a year earlier.
Tablet shipments are forecast to decline 5.9% to 195 million units in 2016, according to IDC. Apple is projected to have 22% of the worldwide market in 2020, a decline from 29% this year, according to IDC’s report earlier this month.
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