Sources: as part of a new strategy to drive value in India instead of volume, Apple stopped selling the iPhone SE, 6, 6 Plus, and 6s Plus in the country
Apple has stopped selling the ‘lower priced’ smartphones iPhone SE, 6, 6 Plus and 6s Plus in India. — Apple has taken four …
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's India problem was already on the record: Counterpoint counted fewer than 1M iPhones sold there in the first half of 2018, and the departure of three key Apple India sales executives followed. Cheaper routes into the market had also been tried and blocked — India rejected Apple's bid to sell refurbished iPhones back in 2016, and the 2017 price cuts on the 6s, 7, and SE were the volume play that didn't move the needle.
Pulling the SE, 6, 6 Plus, and 6s Plus is the opposite move: with refurbished imports off the table and discounting ineffective, Apple is exiting the sub-premium tier in India entirely and letting the lineup start higher — value over volume, per the sources.
First-order effects
- Indian buyers lose every entry-level iPhone option in one stroke; Apple's India lineup now begins at a higher price point, immediately lifting average selling price at the cost of unit volume in a price-sensitive market.
Second-order effects
- The budget segment Apple vacates flows to Android vendors already dominant in India, while Apple's retail and carrier partners there are pushed to sell fewer, pricier models — and the SE's global role as the cheapest iPhone comes under the same logic that later ended it, when Apple discontinued the SE line and moved its entry point to the $599 iPhone 16e.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, Apple's product line structurally converges toward big-screen, high-margin models worldwide — the 2025 endpoint where the lineup spans only 6.1-, 6.7-, and 6.9-inch phones — with price-sensitive markets served indirectly through older-flagship discounts rather than dedicated low-end hardware.
The trend: Apple is trading unit share in emerging markets for per-device value, progressively deleting low-end iPhone hardware from its lineup until only large, premium screens remain.