Well-respected analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has reported that 2022 will see Apple kill off its 5.4-inch iPhone, with this year’s “iPhone 13 mini” set to be the last shrunken iPhone to feature in Apple’s lineup.
Since the introduction of the iPhone 12 mini last fall, multiple reports have pointed to the smallest of Apple’s four iPhone 12 models seeing lacklustre sales and production cuts as a result of higher than expected consumer demand for the premium iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max.
Apple saw the iPhone 12 mini account for just 5% of total iPhone 12 sales during the first half of January in the US, according to data from research from Counterpoint Research, cited by Reuters, with the device being the only one out of the iPhone 12 series to not make it onto the list of the top 10 most activated smartphones in the country over the holidays.
Several reports have claimed that Apple suppliers are shifting workers from the iPhone 12 mini assembly lines to work on the iPhone 12 Pro instead, with Asian site Nikkei claiming that target output for the device has changed to 75 million iPhone units for the first half of 2021, down 20% from December 2020.