Not sure what could have caused that, though.
Also there had been leaks for months now. See this leak from back in January. https://m.gsmarena.com/updated_iphone_8_might_arrive_with_fa...
As for manufacturing, they might have all the components, but you still need new assembly lines. And not for small runs, for million of devices. With China on lockdown.
Apple are amazing at logistic, however it's been months in the making, nothing reactionary.
Let's assume there was a speculated range. In a world with COVID-19 demand pressure and the speculated range is reasonably accurate, Apple is more likely to target the low end of that range than it would in a "normal" world.
I think people don't like the sarcastic nature of my earlier comment but that doesn't mean the underlying notion is wrong.
I find it hard to believe that Apple ignored reality and just priced the phone however it felt like doing prior to a major shift in their consumer base's economic habits.
Apple's mobile handset prices have been cut by 10% or more in China. In the US, new iPad Pro and Macbook Air prices have been discounted about 20% by authorized retailers and new old stock of the fully loaded MBP15 was discounted 35% by Best Buy a couple of days ago.
Apple typically reports a profit margin of about 1/3 for its devices on average, and 2/3 for its services. My understanding based on gross margin numbers from competitors is that handsets fall on the higher side of that average, and PCs on the lower side. In times when consumer demand for devices is expected to be price-elastic (eg when 15 million Americans get laid off in the span of three weeks and vast numbers of people are staying home so they don't need to replace mobile devices as frequently), margin can come down to increase unit sales and optimize net profit.
Handsets are not sold in a free market; prices are set by Apple and its partners. If they don't bring the price down, there are some consumers who will say "this is nice; I want it, but I can't afford it right now." That cohort of near-miss buyers would constitute a deadweight loss -- an inefficiency between supply and demand, caused by the pricing scheme set by Apple itself.
You can entice those shoppers to buy anyway (ie, eliminate the market inefficiency) by reducing the price. Pricing products expensively to widen gross margins works to increase profit in a time when demand is strong, but when demand is depressed and consumer discretionary spending becomes scarce, prices must come down to optimize for the new demand picture.
On a separate note, this particular device re-uses many components from past Apple devices (as did the previous SE), so you ought to differentiate the timespan of its development cycle from a new flagship handset for which a new processor is developed and most third-party components are being implemented for the first time.
It seems overwhelmingly likely that the current release + pricing is merely fortuitous.
$399 is where the prior SE was unveiled, but handset MSRP has bloated since 2016. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus base models came out at $649-$769 when new, compared to $699-$1099 for the base models of the iPhone 11. On the Samsung side, base model S20 Ultra is pushing $1400.
My personal view is that the next major battlefield for Apple vs Huawei vs Samsung is the developing world, and consumers there are fairly price sensitive (plus they often pay a premium due to import taxes, importer costs, and other add-ons to the retail price). There has to be a huge divergence in the slate of prices -- on the one hand, you have flagship handset expectations going skyward due to 5G, multi-camera, screen improvements, etc -- and on the other hand you have countries like Ecuador and Colombia where an entire month's minimum wage (before tax and living expenses) is insufficient to buy a new iPhone SE, even without accounting for the economic slowdown due to the virus.
Some of the market for the iPhone SE didn't even exist a couple of months ago. Apple only announced online sales and plans to open a store in India after Trump helped negotiate an entry point to that market during his visit a month ago.
Are you suggesting that Apple doesn't respond to its consumer sales environment when choosing pricing?
