John Ternus had been Apple’s chief executive for barely a week when he stood in Cupertino on September 9 and pulled open the company’s first foldable iPhone.
Apple calls it the iPhone Duo. Prices begin at $1,999, and the two-terabyte version tops out at $3,200. Preorders open October 16, and the phone goes on sale October 23 in more than 70 countries. Ternus took over on September 1.
Opened up, the inner screen measures 7.6 inches, which Apple says is 50% bigger than the display on the iPhone 18 Pro Max. Shut, a 5.4-inch cover screen takes over. Touch ID returns, this time as a button on the side. At 254 grams it is the heaviest iPhone Apple has built.
Samsung hits back
Samsung’s U.S. mobile account on social media needed only a few hours to respond. It told Apple, in effect, to come back once it had finished reheating somebody else’s leftovers.
Ben Wood, chief analyst at CCS Insight, read the timing as deliberate. Apple, he said, tends to enter a category when the technology has matured. Samsung has held the lead in foldables since the Galaxy Fold appeared in 2019. Google and Motorola followed with their own models. Apple sat out for seven years.
Chinese makers got in first this time. Xiaomi unveiled its 18 Fold, and Huawei showed a trifold, the Mate XT2, one day before Apple’s event.
What the analysts expect
Liz Lee, an associate director at Counterpoint Research, expects Apple to take about 25% of the global foldable market this year. Samsung would still lead at 38%, with Huawei third on 22%. She called the pricing bold, because the Duo lands only about $100 above the Galaxy Z Fold 8 even though it stays under $2,000 at the entry level. Gene Munster of Deepwater Asset Management said Apple had not shipped anything this exciting in a decade.
TrendForce is more cautious on volume. It projects roughly 5 million Apple foldables in 2026, or 24.8% of the category, against about 7.1 million for Samsung. The same firm sees Android foldable shipments dropping by more than 20% this year as component costs rise. IDC puts foldables at under 3% of global smartphone sales.
