[CUPERTINO, California] Apple 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 will 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 said. Priced at S$1,999 and set for an October release, the iPhone Duo sits atop the Apple lineup and carries industry-wide hopes for stoking greater interest and sales of foldables.

Market researcher IDC estimates foldables will grow 13 per cent to 22.9 million units shipped 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 per cent 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 per cent year-on-year decline across this summer, according to the researchers.

That helped Apple grab 33 per cent of China’s highly competitive smartphone arena, an unusual feat when companies like Huawei Technologies, Oppo, Vivo and Xiaomi usually have roughly equal shares with Apple. But 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 favour 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. BLOOMBERG