Apple’s iPhone Duo sales predicted to hit 6m units

Apple Inc is set to sell about 6 million units of the iPhone Duo this year, Counterpoint Research said, offering the first estimate for how the company’s inaugural foldable device would fare.

The figure, more typical of the niche foldable segment than Apple’s usual smartphone sales, is contingent on how well the company ramps up production of the new hardware, Counterpoint senior analyst Ivan Lam (林科宇) said.

Priced at US$1,999 and set for a release this month, the iPhone Duo sits atop the Apple lineup and carries industry wide hopes for stoking greater interest and sales of foldables.

Apple’s iPhone Duo is pictured at a product unveiling event at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, on Sept. 9.

Photo: Bloomberg

Market researcher IDC Corp estimates that shipments of foldables would grow 13 percent to 22.9 million units this year with Apple’s help. Without the iPhone Duo, the segment would have seen a decline, it said.

Introduced alongside the Duo this month, Apple’s iPhone 18 Pro family has gotten off to a fast start in China, Counterpoint said. The company’s Pro edition smartphones were for the first time released without a corresponding base-model upgrade, steering consumers looking for an upgrade to the pricier models and helping deliver a 12 percent rise compared with the iPhone 17 Pro’s initial sales. That performance bucked a broad downtrend in the world’s largest smartphone market, with Chinese brands taking the brunt of a 17 percent year-on-year decline across this summer, the researchers said.

That helped Apple grab 33 percent of China’s highly competitive smartphone arena, an unusual feat when companies such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為), Oppo Mobile Telecommunications Corp (歐珀), Vivo Communication Technology Corp (維沃) and Xiaomi Corp (小米) usually have about equal shares with Apple.

However, elevated component costs are forcing all phone makers to raise prices and try to make up the shortfall of unit sales in higher revenue per unit. That works in Apple’s favor by narrowing the cost advantage of its rivals.

“Price hikes of over US$200 on many Chinese flagship models may have raised the price anchor, strengthening the iPhone’s relative value proposition,” Lam said.