Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPhone 16e Sales Outperform SE in First Quarter YoY, Pro Models Decline
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
My mother just bought one. It does everything she needs it to do, and more. Calls, texts, emails and photos. She uses an iPad for everything else. It seems like a good phone for folks like her.
Honestly, to make a fair comparison, I’d compare the 16e March 2025 sales with the SE3 April 2022. I don’t think it is fair to compare it with a device that has been on sale for two years at that point.
And even that way, it still looks impressive: a recently launched device like the 16e got 7% of the total sales, while an old looking, two year old smartphone like the SE3 was last year, was still representing a 5% of total sales. Quite impressive.
And even that way, it still looks impressive: a recently launched device like the 16e got 7% of the total sales, while an old looking, two year old smartphone like the SE3 was last year, was still representing a 5% of total sales. Quite impressive.
I'm surprised with the horrible price point. Don't people realize the items you're losing in the feature set of the phone is worth more than $200? Why would you get this dumb dumb phone for only a $200 savings? Apple is praying on the ignorance of poor people. This phone should be $400 max at best.
Sure, discount that apple keeps your data for just their purposes and google, haha.
Also, forgetting that the processor is twice as fast out of the gate seems like purposeful omission.
I just upgraded from my iPhone 12.
...
Got a Galaxy S25 for cheaper than the 16e. The S25 is a nice phone. I like the extra screen I get with the pinhole versus the notch. Notifications are presented much better. The operating system is also a lot less buggy.
...
Got a Galaxy S25 for cheaper than the 16e. The S25 is a nice phone. I like the extra screen I get with the pinhole versus the notch. Notifications are presented much better. The operating system is also a lot less buggy.
IMO, people don't by the iPhone for its features; they buy to gain access to Apple's ecosystem.
Feature per $, the iPhone is horrible. The Ecosystem sells the iPhone, which explains why the iPhone still sells well despite being basically the same phone for years. Only in China, where the ecosystem an afterthought, that the iPhone struggles.
I bought it outright from a third party retailer. I had a standard 12. Never used the wide angle lens and don’t care for the capture button so made sense for me. No magsafe was an issue until I learned that Standby works with a case and since I had to buy a case for my 12 as the magnets aren’t strong enough, the decision was made. Would have liked it to be 500 instead of 600 but no point in paying for features I don’t care about so still saved compared to the standard 16.
To be fair, the 16e was launched late in the quarter, so the actual share is probably more like 15-20%.
New data from Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) suggests Apple's iPhone 16e is off to a strong start, capturing 7% of U.S. iPhone sales in its first partial quarter of availability. The new mid-range offering outperformed the iPhone SE's share from the same quarter last year.
The entire iPhone 16 lineup, now consisting of five models with the addition of the 16e, accounted for 74% of total U.S. iPhone sales in the March 2025 quarter. It's a marked increase from the 68% share held by the four iPhone 15 models during the same period in 2024.
In the USA, the line up is just four models including the 16e. Apple may be dangling the iPhone 14 in some secondary markets longer , but the 16e replaced both the SE and 14 in the USA. So doing better than the old SE isn't really 'saying' much. It should be higher because smashed two submarkets together with one device.
2024- 03 SE+iPhone 14 is 19% ( the iPhone 13 was 10% so a SE combo of 15% )
2025 - 03 16e + remnats of iPhone 14 is 15% if add in remnants of SE 16%
Both of those 2025 numbers are smaller than the sum in 2024. The 16e all by itself is definately smaller than 15% ; by a very substantive amount. ( 14 was going to loose share in 2025 even if still around. ( there was 4% drop from 14 to 13 in 2024. Share shrinks with age. )
It is mainly just 'spin' being sold here that 16e is 'very successful'. It is very likely making money, but selling better than a 2+ year old SE isn't saying much (the SE was in far tail end of its lifecycle).
I also omitted the fact that the Pixel has a 120 Hz refresh rate display that is almost double the brightness of the 16e. It has a dual camera system as opposed to the single shooter on the 16e and it is $100 cheaper.
It’s based on what Apple’s internal expectations for sales were.
Kind of made me wonder if there was a power struggle and the manager wanting to do a mini size got canned right before the mini launch and the manager who hated small phones won
I kind of like the single lens design of the 16e vs 16, but the lack of MagSafe is a deal breaker
We will never know how the iPhone mini would have fared had Apple kept it around and continued to support it. My guess is that the 16e has higher margins than the iPhone mini, given that the former is made up largely of parts from older / existing devices. The mini iPhone is a flagship in every sense, but Apple was not able to charge more for it because they had effectively marketed themselves into a corner with the whole "larger screen = more premium" angle.
Second, the 16e targets users who normally would not buy a pro iPhone anyways (eg: companies looking for a cheap corporate phone option, or even an android switcher), while a user who buys an iPhone mini might have been a potential candidate for a more profitable pro iPhone instead. So both are being graded on two different scales. Enough for one to be considered a success, while the other a failure, despite both doing equivalent sales.
The 16e is a great iPhone for those who don’t care about the upgrades that the 16 has. They just see themselves saving the difference.
MagSafe, the Dynamic Island, the Ultra Wide, some camera features like Macro and Cinematic Mode, sure, you lose all that. But many upgraders possibly come from older iPhones. If you do, chances are you don’t care. Sure, if you are upgrading from an iPhone 11 you lose one camera, but maybe you don’t care about that either. The 16e has Plus-like battery life, too, and that’s a factor people do consider.
I’m surprised to see the Plus numbers that low. Sure, you can get the 128GB Pro with the cost of the 256GB Plus, maybe that’s a factor. I preferred the battery life over a telephoto and 5x zoom, but most may not.
Comparing against 2024 sales numbers of the 3rd-gen SE is pointless, though. Old form factor and a two-year-old iPhone is not a fair comparison.
I got the 16 Plus over the 16e because I wanted the Dynamic Island and two cameras after using one since my first iPhone (upgraded from an iPhone Xʀ), but that’s just me. Many wouldn’t have cared. MagSafe is pretty much irrelevant because I charge wired.
MagSafe, the Dynamic Island, the Ultra Wide, some camera features like Macro and Cinematic Mode, sure, you lose all that. But many upgraders possibly come from older iPhones. If you do, chances are you don’t care. Sure, if you are upgrading from an iPhone 11 you lose one camera, but maybe you don’t care about that either. The 16e has Plus-like battery life, too, and that’s a factor people do consider.
I’m surprised to see the Plus numbers that low. Sure, you can get the 128GB Pro with the cost of the 256GB Plus, maybe that’s a factor. I preferred the battery life over a telephoto and 5x zoom, but most may not.
Comparing against 2024 sales numbers of the 3rd-gen SE is pointless, though. Old form factor and a two-year-old iPhone is not a fair comparison.
I got the 16 Plus over the 16e because I wanted the Dynamic Island and two cameras after using one since my first iPhone (upgraded from an iPhone Xʀ), but that’s just me. Many wouldn’t have cared. MagSafe is pretty much irrelevant because I charge wired.
I agree, and I always thought the Mini was a little too expensive for what it was. Sure, flagship features, but I wouldn’t have purchased an iPhone for $800 to get the mediocre battery life it has, even on original iOS versions. I reckon it would’ve needed to be cheaper to be enticing. The battery life standard had gotten way better, and it was a massive downgrade vs what was established.
This is the sole reason I got a standard 12 instead of the mini. I had a 6S at the time and felt the screens up to that point had been too big so I was all set to buy the 12 mini. But then I found out the battery life and that was a deal breaker. So I decided to give the larger screen a go. It was unwieldy at first but I got used to it pretty quickly.
The battery life could have been another factor. While people may argue that Apple's iPhone lineup has gotten increasingly fragmented, they all seem to revolve around a few baseline expectations - good camera, great performance and excellent battery life. Making a thicker iPhone mini would defeat the entire point. It's also why I ultimately decided to get the 13 pro max instead. It's assuring knowing your device has enough juice to last a full day (and then some) regardless of what you do with it.
And I think it’s important to mention that people’s usage patterns have changed: they’re heavy now. Very heavy.
Back when the 6s was current, people were getting 7-8 hours of SOT. I see people getting that, maybe a little more, about 10 hours with the iPhone 16, which has triple the runtime of the 6s (by Apple specs, which more or less match reality if you’re a light to moderate user like 6s users were).
Mostly video-heavy social media apps which kill battery life. By the time the Minis arrived, that was the standard, too. It just isn’t enough for that usage pattern.
You see people killing the 16 Plus in one day, going 100% to 15-20%. I have it. I’m finishing the day with 80-85% with 5-6 hours of SOT. There’s no way you can end a day with 15%, or there is, if you use video-heavy social media apps. They’d kill a 6s on iOS 9 or 10 in 4 hours today.
The Mini’s battery life isn’t for this world of iPhone usage anymore.
I think you hit the nail on the head: it’s better to have the peace of mind to know that your iPhone will have enough battery life for any usage pattern.
Granted, I have efficient settings, but on a recent test, which consisted of Full 5G and the vast majority being camera usage, outdoors, I was at 64% remaining after 5h 23 min of screen-on time. The 16 Plus will always be enough for one day. Can I trust the Mini to give me that? Maybe, but it would be cutting it close. That’s where the 16e comes in: a (slightly) cheaper alternative with Plus-like battery life. If people value the basics, this one meets them.
The SE was two years old last year and the 16e was just launched. Of course it is going to exceed last year on a Q/Q basis.
I traded in the 16 pro, the new phones are too heavy. Refreshing to go to something that has better battery life, and way lighterThere's a small but thriving community of iPhone 16e users on Reddit.
One guy even traded in his 15 pro for one.
I handled one at the Apple Store a while back and found it to be a nice piece of hardware. Light, feels good in the hand, the single camera bump may actually be preferable for some users, it seems like there's more to the overall user experience than a plain spec sheet would otherwise let on.
Camera-wise I don't miss much. The 16 pro camera was too buggy IMO, just missing the screen (edge to edge bezels).