I think e-Sim is the way Apple wants it to go for dual Sim, but Apple face strong resistance in China to use e-Sim. That’s why they have no choice but to develop a physical dual-Sim phone. And Apple is losing market share in China due to the strong rise of Huawei and other China phones, Apple got no choice but to “somehow” make dual-Sim happen in China,hk,Macau. Hence they build physical dual-Sim
Dual Sim phones have been out for so Long, almost all the China branded have dual Sim for very Long. But all using physical dual, hence I assume China not keen to go into e-Sim
Depends on how fast China adopt e-Sim, otherwise I’m certain Apple would continue to make 2 different variant, one for China market and the other for rest of the world