In the wee hours of the morning, Patently Apple posted a report titled "Ming-Chi Kuo predicts another delay in the debut of Apple's Mixed Reality Headset." As the morning progressed, Kuo tweeted out a new research note stating that Qualcomm will be the biggest winner of Apple’s cancelation of 2024 iPhone SE 4. Qualcomm will likely remain the exclusive supplier of baseband chips for 2H24 new iPhone 16 series (vs. market expectations that Qualcomm will start losing iPhone orders in 2024). Kuo listed 3 key points, as follow:

• The supply chain has received instructions from Apple indicating that the production and shipment plans for the 2024 iPhone SE 4 have been canceled rather than delayed.

• Due to concerns that the performance of the in-house baseband chip may not be up to par with Qualcomm’s, Apple initially planned to launch its baseband chip in 2024 and let the low-end iPhone SE 4 adopt it first, and decide whether to let the iPhone 16 use its baseband chip depending on the development status of iPhone SE 4. However, the cancelation of the iPhone SE 4 has significantly increased the chances of Qualcomm remaining the exclusive supplier of baseband chips for the 2H24 new iPhone 16 series, which is better than the market consensus that Qualcomm will start losing iPhone orders in 2024.

• Qualcomm is expected to continue to dominate the global high-end mobile phone RF market in 2023 and 2024 at least, leading to markedly higher profits than its competitors. The company’s strong product mix, which confers competitive advantages, is expected to mitigate the negative impacts of the economic recession and allow Qualcomm to return to solid growth ahead of its competitors once the economy recovers.