Apple is releasing a new low-cost iPhone as sales have been mixed in recent quarters and the company seeks growth for its most important product category. For the December quarter, Apple's overall iPhone sales were down 1% on an annual basis. Apple still sold more than $69 billion of phones in the period.
Low-end iPhones are important to Apple as it gets new customers into their ecosystem, and the new device supports Apple Intelligence, making it Apple's least expensive new phone that can access features like image generation and notification summaries.