As Apple already immediately sold out of iPhone Duo units through January 2027, the company likely just sold at least 6 million of its foldable in a couple of hours. And the number might approach 10 million.
That means Apple may have just claimed a third of the global foldable market.
iPhone Duo sells out in minutes
The iPhone Duo went up for preorder on Friday morning, and Apple ran out of its prelaunch stock in minutes. Well before noon, anyone placing an order for the foldable from the U.S. Apple Store was told their product wouldn’t ship before January 2027.
“Demand for iPhone Duo, our first foldable iPhone, has been nothing short of extraordinary. We are working hard to get this revolutionary new product into customers’ hands as quickly as possible, and we will continue accepting orders online,” according to a statement from the company gave to a variety of news sites on Friday.
While Apple claims extraordinary demand, judging actual demand for a product based on preorder sales is a dicey business. It depends on how many units of the product are available at launch.
For example, if Apple had only made 100 iPhone Duo units, of course they all sold out. That would reveal nothing about demand for the product.
But Cupertino made far more than 100 iPhone Duo units. More than a few thousand. Analysts estimate it produced millions of them… and they all sold out in a couple of hours.
6 million iPhone Duo shipments in 2026
Apple did not reveal how many units of its new foldable it is producing. That’s a figure the company never makes public for any of its smartphones. But analysts fill in the gap.
“Apple is expected to achieve over six million shipments of iPhone Duo by the end of 2026,” said the analysts at Omdia in September. Counterpoint analysts agree on the 6 million figure.
And considering the wait time for the foldable is now January 2027, those units aren’t sitting in warehouses hoping to someday be sold. They are already sold even before Apple can produce them.
Apple now makes up a third of the foldable market
Android manufacturers launched the first foldable smartphones years ago, with Samsung introducing its original Galaxy Fold in 2019. Apple waited until 2026 to enter the market with the iPhone Duo, yet analysts already expect the device to account for roughly a third of global foldable phone shipments this year.
Omdia estimates that manufacturers shipped 18.2 million foldable smartphones worldwide in 2025. The analysts at the rival market analysis firm IDC approximate the total at 20.6 million.
So if Apple really will ship 6 million iPhone Duo units before the end of 2026, that will equal approximately one-third of the entire foldable market in 2025.
Putting iPhone Duo in perspective
To be clear, even if analysts are correct and Apple ships 6 million iPhone Duo units in the next few months, the foldable will represent only a small slice of the company’s overall smartphone business. Analysts at GF Securities predict the company will ship around 257 million iPhones worldwide this year, meaning the Duo’s projected shipments would account for just over 2% of the total.
That would still be a significant debut for Apple’s first foldable, but it puts the device’s expected sales in perspective: Apple’s conventional iPhone models will continue to account for the overwhelming majority of its smartphone shipments.
Foldables in general remain niche products. Omdia estimates that manufacturers shipped approximately 1.25 billion smartphones overall in 2025, of which 18.2 million included folding screens. That means foldables accounted for just 1.5% of global smartphone shipments.
Ed Hardy has been writing full-time about tech for 26 years, and using it for much longer than that. His intro to Apple was a Macintosh SE/30 (which he still has), but now he uses a 13-inch iPad Pro as his primary computer.
That’s because he’s a “tablet first” type of guy. Rather than use a Macbook, he connects a keyboard case to the iPad. And instead of a desktop Mac, he connects his tablet to a 27-inch display and full-size keyboard. (So don’t try to tell him that everyone has to use a Mac to be productive.)
Before coming to Cult of Mac, Ed wrote for NotebookReview, TabletPCReview and Brighthand, as well as other sites.
