The problem was timing. When they released SE, mini was still just a rumour. Rumour that has been going around for years, really. What eventually arrived as 12 mini has appeared long before then as rumoured SE2. They should have at least confirmed that there will be a mini and what the dimensions will be. Perhaps they felt like the price gap is so large that it doesn't matter.

And frankly, pricing of mini hasn't helped. Who expected 12 mini to launch at a higher price point than the bigger 11 has? Plus the fact that many people hadn't had the opportunity to hold one in a store. Leaving buying blind and returning as the only option of trying it out. It certainly annoyed me. Because I like red but the red on 12 didn't look nice at all on a screen. I really wanted to see the colours in person.

The thing is, 12 mini might have poor sales relative to other iPhones but in general, it's still selling pretty well. The question is how much is Apple committed to making small phones. Surely, they sell enough of them to make profit. It's really a question of lost opportunity (if they took the resources mini takes up and applied them elsewhere, they might make more money). If Steve Jobs was still around, I would be willing to bet they would keep making it. Unless he suddenly fell in love with phablets. Of course, the real question is how many new customers (sales that wouldn't have happened without mini) does the mini bring in. Not how many units were sold. That's a big difference. By this metric, mini might not be profitable.