The more conventional Mate X7 book-style foldable arrived in late 2025 at around CNY 12,999 (roughly USD 1,830) in China and 2,099 euros in Europe. Huawei also runs a successor tri-fold, the Mate XTs, which leakers pegged at around CNY 20,000.

Xiaomi is the value player, but largely only at home. Its Mix Fold 4 launched in China in July 2024 at CNY 8,999 (about USD 1,237), with the Mix Flip clamshell in the same range.

Xiaomi does not sell these foldables through official global channels, so most buyers outside China rely on grey-market importers who charge several hundred dollars more.

Honor, another Chinese maker, launched the Magic V5 in China in July 2025 at RMB 8,999 and took it global at 1,999 euros and 1,699.99 pounds.

Apple was the missing name until this year. It unveiled its first foldable at its “Surprise and Shine” event on September 9 2026 alongside the iPhone 18 Pro line. Pre-event estimates clustered around USD 2,099 to USD 2,299, with UBS arguing that Apple’s buying power could push it as low as USD 1,800 to USD 2,000.

Analysts including Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman had long expected pricing above USD 2,000, making it Apple’s most expensive iPhone ever. Kuo has also warned that early yield problems could keep supply tight into 2027.

What actually drives the cost
The single biggest factor is the display. A foldable needs a large flexible OLED panel that can survive hundreds of thousands of folds, plus a second cover screen.

TechInsights’ teardown valued the Galaxy Z Fold5’s inner flexible display subsystem at USD 121.99, against roughly USD 84.40 for the rigid AMOLED panel in a Galaxy S23 Ultra, according to Counterpoint Research.

Earlier flexible panels cost even more, with the Fold4’s inner display valued at USD 199.23.

These panels rely on ultra-thin glass (UTG), a sheet of real glass around 30 micrometres thick that Samsung introduced on the 2020 Galaxy Z Flip to replace the plastic (CPI) covers that scratched easily. UTG is flexible but delicate, and its yields are lower than ordinary glass.

The hinge is the second big cost. TechInsights found the Fold5 hinge uses a three-part “triple rail” structure, with each hinge carrying four springs and four side mountings screwed to a central support.

This is a mechanical assembly of many machined parts, sourced from specialist suppliers, and it has no equivalent in a sealed slab phone. For Apple’s foldable, Kuo estimated the hinge alone at USD 70 to USD 80.

Everything else compounds the problem. Foldables need dual battery packs split across two halves, thinner chassis materials such as titanium and armour aluminium, and increasingly silicon-carbon battery cells to pack more energy into a slim body.

They demand extra display driver ICs, more durability testing, and foldable-specific software work. Manufacturing yields are lower and scrap rates higher, especially for tri-fold panels that must bend cleanly at two points.

Add it up and the bill of materials tells the story.

A Nikkei teardown with Fomalhaut Techno Solution estimated the Galaxy Z Fold4 cost about USD 670 to build, against a USD 1,799 launch price. UBS pegged the Galaxy Z Fold SE BOM at USD 790 and estimated Apple’s foldable at USD 759.

By contrast, Counterpoint put the Galaxy S23 Ultra BOM at USD 469, and TD Cowen estimated the iPhone 16 Pro Max at USD 485.

A foldable therefore costs roughly USD 180 to USD 320 more to build than a top slab, before you factor in R&D spread over far smaller volumes, richer warranty provisioning, and screen repairs that can run to USD 500 or more.

Samsung lists the Fold8 inner display replacement at USD 579.

How big is the foldable world, really
Despite the noise, foldables remain a niche. Global shipments were around 13.5 million units in 2022 and about 17.2 million in 2024.

IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, in a release dated December 9 2025, forecast 2025 shipments growing 10% year on year to 20.6 million units, which is still only about 1.6% of the roughly 1.24 billion smartphones shipped worldwide.

Counterpoint’s Foldable Smartphone Market Tracker measured foldables at 2.5% of global smartphone shipments in the third quarter of 2025.

Cumulatively, the installed base of foldables shipped since 2019 is on track to pass 100 million units by the end of 2026, according to Counterpoint.

That is tiny next to the billions of slab phones in use.

Is Samsung still king?
Mostly yes, but with an important asterisk. Counterpoint’s tracker put Samsung at 64% of global foldable shipments in Q3 2025, up from 56% a year earlier, with Huawei second at 15%, Motorola at 7% and Honor at 4%, as total shipments grew 14% year on year to an all-time quarterly high.

But Samsung’s lead has not always held. Huawei overtook it for the first time in Q1 2024, when its shipments surged 257% year on year and Samsung’s share fell to 23%, according to Counterpoint.

Huawei still dominates its home market, holding 71.6% of China’s foldable shipments in 2025 per IDC, ahead of Honor at 9.1% and Samsung in fifth at 4.3%, but its lack of a Western presence caps its global number.

For 2026, Counterpoint forecasts Samsung’s share slipping from 40% to 32%, with Apple taking 25% and Huawei around 24%, so Samsung’s lead is real but narrowing.

Are prices finally falling?
Motorola’s Razr (2025) launched at USD 699.99 and is regularly discounted below USD 600, while Samsung’s Z Flip7 FE at USD 899 and Tecno’s Phantom V Flip series have pushed clamshells under USD 1,000.

However, at the higher end, prices have edged up, not down, as tri-folds and larger book-style devices push the ceiling higher.

For prices to fall meaningfully, several things need to happen. Panel yields must improve so that fewer expensive flexible screens are scrapped. Second-source hinge suppliers must bring competition to a concentrated market.

Chinese panel makers such as BOE, Visionox and TCL CSOT need to keep undercutting Samsung Display; BOE already overtook Samsung Display in foldable panel procurement in late 2023 as it supplied Huawei.

Above all, the category needs scale. Until foldables sell in the hundreds of millions rather than the tens of millions, the fixed costs of these complex, low-yield components will keep them firmly in luxury territory.

Apple’s entry may finally provide that scale, and IDC expects the category to grow 30% in 2026 while Counterpoint models a more cautious 21%, but even the bulls agree foldables will stay below 3% of the total market for years yet.

Cook has moved to the role of executive chairman, and the handover means the most watched product debut in years doubled as the introduction of a new leader.

Ternus set the tone with a bold claim. “iPhone Duo is the most transformational change to iPhone since the original,” he said, adding that it “redefines what it means to use a foldable phone.”

Whether the market agrees will shape both the device’s fortunes and the credibility of Apple’s engineer chief executive.

What Apple announced
The iPhone Duo is a book-style foldable. Closed, it is short and wide, a shape Apple likens to a passport, with a 5.4-inch outer screen. Opened, it reveals a 7.6-inch inner display that Apple says is 50% larger than the screen on the iPhone 18 Pro Max.

Both are Super Retina XDR panels with ProMotion up to 120Hz and peak outdoor brightness of 3,000 nits.

The inner screen carries a matte nano-texture finish, a coating that reduces glare and, crucially, helps disguise the crease that runs down the middle of every folding phone.

The engineering is dense. The frame is mirror-polished grade 5 titanium and the hinge cover is 3D-printed from recycled titanium, with a mechanism Apple says uses more than 100 components.

Open, the Duo is 5.2mm thick, making it the thinnest iPhone ever when unfolded. Closed it is 11.3mm, and it weighs 254g. It carries an IP68 rating for dust and water resistance to a depth of six metres for 30 minutes, unusual for a folding device.

Security is handled by Touch ID built into the side button rather than Face ID, so unlocking works whether the phone is open or shut.

Inside sits the A20 Pro, Apple’s first 2-nanometre chip, the same processor used in the new iPhone 18 Pro. Supply-chain reporting points to 12GB of memory, though Apple does not disclose that figure. The rear camera is a dual 48-megapixel system, a main sensor and an ultra-wide, with no dedicated telephoto lens.

A dual-cell battery delivers up to 24 hours of general use, and a 60W or higher charger takes it to around 50 percent in about 20 minutes.

The Duo is eSIM-only worldwide and supports the Apple Pencil, with that feature arriving later in the year. It comes in two colours, star white and night sky, and runs iOS 27.1. Pre-orders open on 16 October and it ships on October 23, several weeks after the other new phones.

That gap matters. Apple also launched the iPhone 18 Pro at USD 1,199 and the iPhone 18 Pro Max at USD 1,299, each USD 100 more than last year.

Both keep the previous design but gain the A20 Pro chip, Apple’s own C2 modem in place of Qualcomm’s, a 48-megapixel main camera with a variable aperture (the first time an iPhone can control how much light the lens lets in), a smaller Dynamic Island and much longer battery life, up to 45 hours of video on the Pro Max.

These go on pre-order on September 12 and ship on September 18. Unusually, the standard iPhone 18, the cheaper iPhone 18e and the iPhone Air 2 were held back to spring 2027, so this autumn’s line-up is premium only.

Alongside the phones came the Apple Watch Series 12, the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and the AirPods 5. The software story centred on Siri AI, a rebuilt version of the assistant that Apple says handles 2.5 billion requests a day and works across more than 300,000 apps.IOS 27 arrived as a free update on September 14. Ternus used the stage to argue that the iPhone is the best personal device for artificial intelligence because Apple controls the hardware, the operating system and the data on the phone. Notably, Siri AI is not available in the European Union at launch.

What the reviewers think
The hands-on reaction was warm but not uncritical. Engadget called the Duo “Apple’s most exciting device in a decade” and praised the way the matte inner display hides both reflections and the crease.

TechRadar went further, saying Apple had “solved the foldable crease problem in the most wonderfully basic way”, noting the crease could be felt with a finger but not seen. MacRumors was more measured, reporting that “the crease is still there, but barely”, and that it remained visible in certain lighting.

Not everyone was convinced the compromises were worth it. Reviewers at The Verge repeatedly returned to the missing telephoto lens.

Senior reviews editor Nathan Edwards said he liked the form factor but was not willing to trade away the zoom camera he relies on. That points to the central tension. In several respects the cheaper iPhone 18 Pro is the better-equipped camera phone, so buyers are paying a large premium for the screen and the hinge, not for photography.

The question of lateness hangs over the launch. Samsung created the category with the Galaxy Fold, unveiled on February 20 2019 and released that September, and Huawei, Honor, Motorola and Oppo have all shipped folding phones since.Apple’s defence, echoed by Ternus, is that it waited deliberately for a design that felt seamless and durable. The counter-view is blunt. Apple has arrived more than six years after the category began and is charging more than the established leader.

What the analysts think
Financial reaction was mixed and the share price reflected caution. Apple closed at USD 315.34 on September 9, down 0.28%, as investors weighed the foldable against margin pressure from rising memory costs. Shares edged higher in after-hours trading.

The bulls were vocal. Dan Ives, partner and senior managing director at Yorkville Ives and Co., the merchant bank he co-founded after leaving Wedbush Securities, told CNN the Duo was the first new Apple product in a decade, since the AirPods, that could “move the needle” and might kick off a broader innovation cycle.

Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management doubled his estimate of the Duo’s share of iPhone revenue in the 2027 financial year from 5% to 10%, and argued the split launch could push March-quarter revenue growth towards 20% against a Wall Street consensus nearer 14%, because buyers who need a phone now are steered to the pricier Pro models.

Morgan Stanley’s Erik Woodring, rated Overweight with a USD 360 target, had called the foldable the most consequential launch since the iPhone X and estimated it could add around USD 14 billion in December-quarter revenue.

Bank of America’s Wamsi Mohan kept a Buy rating and a USD 380 target.

The bears focused on price and margins. Jefferies retained an Underperform rating. KeyBanc had warned before the event that the launch could prove a negative catalyst if the pricing caused sticker shock.

Morningstar expects the Duo to remain a low-volume premium product and sees gross-margin compression in 2027.

On volumes, Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International Securities forecast 7 to 8 million foldable units in the second half of 2026, with production potentially reaching 20 million or more in the next cycle, and warned that early supply would be tight.

Counterpoint Research’s March 2026 forecast expects Apple to take around 25% of the global foldable market in its first partial year, behind Samsung on about 32% and roughly level with Huawei on 24%, with cumulative foldable shipments passing 100 million by the end of 2026.

IDC pegs 2026 foldable growth at 30% and, on an average selling price near USD 2,400, expects Apple to capture about 34% of category revenue despite a smaller unit share.

Price, competition and the Ternus test

On price the Duo is a statement. At USD 1,999 it starts 100 dollars above Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold 8, which begins at USD 1,899, and rises to USD 3,199 for 2 terabytes.

In the United Kingdom it starts at 1,999 pounds, and in India at 299,900 rupees, roughly 700 dollars or 700 pounds more than the iPhone 18 Pro Max in each market.

That is a punchy figure in a smartphone market that IDC expects to shrink sharply in 2026 as a memory-chip shortage pushes up component costs, with foldables the only growth segment.

For Ternus the launch is a clean expression of who he is. He ran Apple’s hardware engineering for years, and his updated company biography emphasises reliability, durability and materials.

A folding titanium phone is exactly the kind of product an engineer chief executive would choose as a first statement.

The risk is that it does not answer the criticism that has dogged Apple most, its slow progress in artificial intelligence.

The company’s response, that owning the device is the way to win the AI era, is a bet that will take longer than one keynote to judge.

ALSO READ | Apple Upgrade turns your next iPhone into a monthly lease 

The challenge is broader than Siri. AI is changing how consumers search, create content, use software, and interact with devices. Apple faces significant challenges as its competitive edge has historically relied on its control over hardware, software, and services.

And it is also struggling with supply chain snags, especially on the chip front. To deal with the industry-wide chip shortages, the tech giant has already lifted prices across its Mac and iPad ‌line-ups. It has also braced up for dampening sales figures in the current quarter.

Ternus must determine how AI should reshape the iPhone and wider Apple ecosystem without undermining the privacy and security principles that distinguish the company.

The timing is demanding. Apple is preparing for a major product cycle, with its September 9 launch event expected to showcase new iPhones and potentially its first foldable iPhone. It will be Ternus’s first major public product moment as CEO.

Analysts see high-end devices like the upcoming foldable iPhone eventually becoming the main driver of Apple’s higher selling prices and margin growth.

Investors will also be watching whether he can revive a perception that Apple has become more evolutionary than revolutionary. Cook leaves behind an extraordinary financial record.

Apple’s market capitalisation rose from about USD 350 billion when he became CEO to roughly USD 4 trillion, while services grew into a business generating more than USD 100 billion a year.

The company also launched successful new categories such as Apple Watch and AirPods and developed its own chip technology.

Yet Apple’s recent AI missteps have created a strategic vulnerability. The company is competing with smartphone rivals and technology companies spending tens of billions on AI infrastructure, models, and talent globally.

That could push Ternus toward a more hardware-led answer to the AI race. His engineering background may prove useful as Apple seeks to build devices in which AI is embedded rather than simply offered as a cloud service.

Future products such as foldable phones, smarter wearables, augmented-reality devices, and more powerful Macs could become important parts of that strategy.

There is also a management challenge. Ternus must preserve the operational discipline that made Cook’s Apple extraordinarily profitable while encouraging greater risk-taking and faster decision-making.

He will also have to manage relationships with suppliers, regulators, and governments at a time when Apple faces scrutiny over its App Store practices and remains dependent on a complex global manufacturing network.

For now, Ternus has the advantage of continuity. He knows Apple’s culture, products, and senior leadership from the inside and has worked under both Steve Jobs and Cook. Apple’s board has described him as the right leader to take the company into its next phase.

But continuity may not be enough. Scale, efficiency, and financial expansion defined the Cook era. The Ternus era will be judged increasingly by whether Apple can turn AI from a weakness into a new source of product leadership.

His first job, in other words, is not simply to make Apple smarter. It is to make sure the company does not fall behind while the definition of “smart” is being rewritten.

Trying to break Samsung’s monopoly
Currently, Samsung Electronics dominates the niche called the “foldable smartphone market,” with the segment touted to be the next mainstream despite its premium price tags.

Foldable phones are anticipated to be a promising opportunity for consumer electronics companies that have encountered challenges due to a significant shortage of memory and storage chips, leading to price increases and a decline in overall consumer demand.

As per the research firm IDC, there will be a 12.6% jump in foldable phone shipments in 2026, whereas conventional smartphones will see a record ⁠16.7% export decline.

Analysts expect Apple to launch a foldable iPhone with a screen similar in size to an iPad mini. Earlier in 2026, Samsung unveiled a new ⁠passport-sized foldable phone as the South Korean tech giant seeks to consolidate its industry foothold.

Apple is expected to ship more than 17 million foldable iPhones by 2027, IDC predicted.

In 2025, Apple unveiled a slimmer iPhone Air and loaded its iPhone 17 base models with several better features. The iPhone 17 line-up helped drive a strong upgrade cycle among consumers.

ALSO READ | Apple stock tumbles despite strong earnings, bucking Nasdaq trend

Yet market cap alone is a crude measure. What matters to shareholders, employees, and customers is what that valuation represents.

The creation of sustainable, recurring revenue streams. Here, Cook’s strategic choices become clearer. When he started, Apple was a company of peaks and troughs, dependent on product cycles. By the end, it had become a company of steady climbs.

The services revolution
In 2011, Apple’s services business – consisting primarily of the App Store, iTunes, and AppleCare – generated 6.3 billion pound annually.

This quarter, Apple reported 24.6 billion pound in services revenue alone. For fiscal year 2025, services reached £87 billion, making it Apple’s second-largest business after the iPhone, with a gross margin significantly higher than hardware.

This was deliberate strategy. Cook understood that the installed base of iPhone users represented not just a current revenue opportunity, but a platform for recurring income. Under his watch, Apple launched Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Fitness+, Apple News+, and Apple Arcade.

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Investor psychology could make the eventual adjustment more severe. Excessive optimism can push prices beyond what fundamentals justify, leaving markets vulnerable to a sharper decline when sentiment changes.

The ECB emphasised that predicting the timing of such a correction is impossible and that boom-bust patterns are typically identifiable only in hindsight. and that boom-bust patterns are generally identifiable only in hindsight.

The potential fallout extends well beyond Wall Street. Euro-area households have about 440 billion euros of exposure to US technology equities, much of it through mutual funds and exchange-traded funds rather than direct holdings. Insurance companies and pension funds also have substantial exposure to the Magnificent Seven.

That fund-based exposure could amplify a sell-off. If investors rush to redeem holdings during a sharp correction, funds may first sell liquid assets and eventually distressed holdings, putting further pressure on valuations and potentially triggering another wave of redemptions.

The ECB therefore regards a major decline in Magnificent Seven shares as a potential financial stability issue rather than simply an investment loss.

The risks are becoming more significant as the financing of the AI boom grows increasingly complex. Nvidia recently announced partnerships with Apollo Global Management, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR aimed at mobilising more than USD 500 billion to finance AI infrastructure.

The initiative is intended to help AI laboratories and emerging cloud providers fund expensive data centre equipment, with Nvidia potentially guaranteeing part of the collateral.

Meanwhile, major technology companies are committing enormous sums to AI infrastructure. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Oracle are expected to spend about USD 750 billion on data centres in 2026, according to S&P Global Ratings estimates cited by Reuters. The scale of spending has intensified questions over whether future AI revenues will justify the capital being deployed.

Yet there is evidence supporting the bullish case. Investors remain focused on robust cloud growth and persistent demand for AI computing capacity, while Microsoft and Amazon have reported strong results that have eased some concerns over the profitability of AI infrastructure spending.

Major investors are increasingly trying to identify which companies will capture durable profits from the AI ecosystem rather than simply questioning the overall investment cycle.

The ECB also sees less immediate risk of a home-grown technology crash in Europe. Euro-area price-to-earnings ratios remain considerably below US levels, while European stock markets contain a larger share of traditional industries. Digital investment and AI adoption are nevertheless increasing across the region.

That relative caution offers limited protection because European and US equity markets have historically been closely correlated.

A Wall Street correction could therefore hit European share prices, weaken investor sentiment, tighten financing conditions and affect corporate hiring even without a comparable European technology bubble.

ALSO READ | Wall Street bets USD 500 billion on Nvidia’s AI boom as Big Tech faces debt concerns

The ECB’s bigger concern is what happens if an equity correction coincides with broader financial instability. Unlike during the dot-com collapse, policymakers now have less room to cut interest rates or deploy fiscal policy to cushion a major shock.

The message is that AI is succeeding, but technological success does not guarantee permanently rising asset prices. For investors and policymakers, the challenge is preparing for a repricing of AI expectations without mistaking genuine technological transformation for a guarantee of ever-higher valuations.

Trading in an existing Apple device at the start lowers the monthly payment, and Apple Card holders can earn Daily Cash on what they pay. One quirk worth noting is that a device ordered for store pickup must be collected within seven days or the lease is cancelled.

The crucial point is that the customer never owns the device during the term. Ownership sits with Klarna unless the customer chooses to buy the hardware when the lease expires. That is the fundamental difference from the old programme, which was structured as an instalment loan that always ended in ownership.

When the term is up, there are three exits. Customers can upgrade to the latest generation of the device without an upgrade fee, purchase the device with a one-time payment covering the remaining balance, or simply return it and walk away.

Upgrading early is possible too, though it attracts a charge, and Apple’s own lease terms warn that customers “may incur substantial fees” for ending the agreement before the initial term runs out.

The economics of leasing an iPhone

Monthly payments start at USD 17.99 for an iPhone and rise to USD 31.99 for the priciest models on a 24-month term. Apple Watch and iPad leases begin at USD 11.99 a month, while Macs start at USD 24.99, with high-end MacBook Pro configurations reaching the high USD 30s to USD 50s.

Apple’s own worked example makes the maths clear. An iPhone 17 Pro with 256GB of storage retails at USD 1,099. On a 24-month lease, the typical payment is USD 31.99 a month, which adds up to USD 767.76 over the full term.

A customer who then wants to keep the phone pays a one-time residual of USD 31.24, bringing the total to exactly the USD 1,099 retail price. On a 12-month lease, the same phone costs USD 45.99 a month. All figures exclude taxes and trade-in credit.

The case for leasing is strongest when it is set against instalment plans. A standard 256GB iPhone 17 costs USD 33.29 a month to buy on a 24-month instalment plan, against USD 22.99 a month to lease over the same period.

That is a saving of more than USD 10 a month, or roughly USD 247 across two years. The trade-off is that after 24 months of instalments the phone is yours, while after 24 months of lease payments it is not.

 

Unlike the old iPhone Upgrade Program, Apple Upgrade does not bundle AppleCare+. Extended warranty cover must be bought separately and is billed by Apple outside the lease.

That matters more than it might for a purchased phone, because a leased device has to go back in acceptable condition, and damage can trigger fees at return. Apple points out that AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss can help customers avoid those charges.

The programme also skips Apple’s entry-level hardware. The iPhone 16 and 16 Plus, Apple Watch SE, MacBook Neo, Mac mini, iPad (A16) and Studio Display are all excluded, meaning the cheapest routes into the ecosystem still require an outright purchase or instalment plan.Why Apple wants you to lease
For Apple, the logic is straightforward. Leasing converts lumpy, unpredictable hardware sales into steady recurring revenue, keeps customers on a regular upgrade rhythm and binds them more tightly to the ecosystem.

Analysts have described it as the clearest signal yet that Apple is shifting towards a hardware-as-a-service model, selling ongoing access to devices rather than one-off products.

The timing is telling too. The launch follows price rises on some devices amid a memory chip shortage driven by the artificial intelligence boom, and iPhone prices are widely expected to climb further. A low monthly figure softens the sting of a rising sticker price.

Lease or buy

For users who upgrade every year or two anyway, Apple Upgrade is genuinely attractive. Payments are lower than instalments, nothing is owed upfront, and swapping to the newest model becomes routine.

For those who keep a phone for four or five years, the sums point the other way, since buying and holding remains the cheaper path and leaves an asset to trade in or resell.

Personal finance experts are more cautious. Thad Hwang, founder and chief executive of budget carrier Goji Mobile, told Yahoo Finance that buying outright remains the best move for anyone who can afford it, though he acknowledged that most people do not have a spare $1,000 sitting around and called Apple’s structure unusual for combining no money down, 0% financing and a lump-sum final payment.

 

Stoy Hall, a certified financial planner in Iowa, told the same outlet that the real risk is not any single payment but “what happens when that gets stacked on top of the car payment”, streaming services, buy now, pay later purchases and the other small monthly charges people barely notice.

Their caution is worth heeding, since fees for damage or cancellation and a separate AppleCare+ subscription can quietly erode the savings. As with any lease, the monthly figure is the headline, but the total cost of ownership is the story.