Apple 'registers' new iPhone models with EEC, speculations hint at iPhone SE 2

Cupertino giant Apple may introduce a new iPhone as soon as next month. It's also possible that the company launches a new iPhone at its upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) scheduled to be held in June along with showcasing the next-generation version of iOS, iOS 12. The speculations come courtesy a filing in Eurasian regulatory database.

A report in French website consomac.fr claims that the launch of new iPhone is imminent quoting sources in Eurasian Economic Commission (EEC). "We have indeed discovered that the Eurasian Economic Union has just authorized the sale on the Armenian, Belorussian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Russian soil of a whole slew of new smartphone heads. Equipped with iOS 11, they carry the model numbers A1920, A1921, A1984, A2097, A2098, A2099, A2101, A2103, A2104, A2105 and A2106," says the report.

These model numbers don't match with any of the existing models. The filing also lists the smartphones as, "Apple smartphones running iOS 11". This means that the leak cannot be of this year's iPhones, set to launch in October, as they are sure to come running with Apple iOS 12 out-of-the-box. Apple is expected to launch three new iPhones in October 2018, successors to iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.


This means that most likely the iPhone that has appeared in the EEC database is successor to iPhone SE, rumoured to be called iPhone SE 2. The current iPhone SE models come in A1662, A1723 GSM, A1723 CDMA and A1724 variants.

Incidentally, this is not the first time that EEC has hinted at Apple launching new products. It has quite good track record regarding some of the previous Apple launches AirPods, iPhone 7, new MacBooks and the latest iPad.

Apple launched iPhone SE in March 2016 and the smartphone currently sells for Rs 18,000 approximately. The company last year added a 32GB model to the iPhone SE range. The smartphone comes in four color options.

Apple is also reassembing the iPhone SE units in India. The company has tied up with Taiwan-based Wistron for the same. It is the only Apple smartphone which did not see a price increase after the government hiked duty on imported phones in the Union Budget.