Apple would sell millions of the SE2 without cannibalising sales. Every other phone manufacturer would salivate at this opportunity, especially at 100%+ margins. "Not enough" smacks of a lackluster excuse of an adhd department head.
Making things at the scale that Apple makes them is hard. If the SE was a great business idea, Apple would keep doing it. Maybe they will make another one in the Spring. It's not dead dead yet.
This was also true, ten years ago, of the iPod Touch. It was the reason for the iPhone 5C. It's at least partially the reason for the iPhone XR today. It's also the reason Apple keeps selling the iPhone 7 and 8.
The problem (for consumers) is that, eventually, you run out of the tailings you were using to make one of these "byproducts", since you never signed on to produce more of them. (That being rather the point of the whole process, from Apple's perspective.)
Once the supply contract for iPhone 5S "chassis" components is run through, that'll likely be the end of that form-factor. No device Apple has produced since then has that form factor, so there are no hand-me-down components to repurpose into a new device of that form-factor.
It’s just business
Apple will probably sell 70,000,000 in 90 days this quarter. I think they know how to sell a lot of phones
Margin = profit / sale price Markup = profit / cost Profit = sale price - cost
I frequently meet people that are not aware of the above.