Recently, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo reported that an iPhone SE may not be released in 2024.

In a blog post this past Friday, Kuo had written that Apple (AAPL  ) will no longer be shipping or producing the phone for 2024 at all, citing supply chain disruptions.

The iPhone SE 4, which was initially meant to take after the iPhone XR, is supposedly being cancelled completely as opposed to the process just being slowed. One reason for the cancellation is possibly from Apple's lack of development in modems. According to Kuo, Apple was worried that its chip would not be up to speed with Qualcomm's (QCOM  ).

"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," Kuo wrote.

In the past, Apple and Qualcomm have competed with one another in court regarding patent disagreements for cellular modem technology in iPhones. Apple has used both Intel (INTC  ) and Qualcomm for modems and broadband chips.

Apple is also very concerned that its own baseband chip is not as optimally performing as Qualcomm's. So now, Qualcomm will likely be the sole supplier of baseband chips for the 2H24 iPhone 16 series. On the other hand, the "market consensus," according to Kuo, is that Qualcomm will begin to see iPhone orders starting to slip for 2024.

Although Apple's 2024 iPhone success or lack thereof cannot be entirely predicted, Kuo has been correct about some things in the past. In one such instance, Apple's iPhone 16 A16 chip experienced major engineering errors. Tim Cook (CEO) is typically very involved in Apple incidents, especially when it comes to supply chains, but his limits and boundaries are currently being put to the test.