In September 10, the lights came on at Apple’s California campus. New CEO John Ternus walked onto the stage in a workwear-style dark jacket — neither Steve Jobs’s signature black turtleneck nor Tim Cook’s business shirt. The engineer, who has worked on hardware at Apple for more than twenty years, appeared dressed as a hardware person might. On the screen behind him, Tim Cook emerged from the darkness, smiled, and said, “No, no, it’s not me,” before introducing Ternus. It was a characteristically Apple presentation, and a signal that the company had handed the storytelling role to someone who makes the product.
The capital market, however, responded differently. After the event began, Apple’s share price fell nearly 2% at one point, hitting its low for the day after the iPhone Duo’s price and release date were announced. It closed down 0.28% and edged up 0.55% in after-hours trading. Because the supply chain and the Huaqiangbei electronics market in Shenzhen had already leaked the product’s details in full ahead of the event, the “expectations gap” turned negative once the actual device was unveiled — a pattern of “buy the expectation, sell the fact.” This is less a personal problem for Ternus than a structural challenge for a company with a market capitalization of USD 4.7 trillion.
RMB 15,999: Precisely Targeted Pricing
The iPhone Duo was the only “One more thing” of the event.
It uses a horizontal, book-style inward fold, with a 5.4-inch outer screen and a 7.6-inch inner screen; unfolded, its display area is 50% larger than that of the iPhone 18 Pro Max. It measures about 9.5 millimeters when folded and 4.5 millimeters when unfolded, which Apple calls “the thinnest iPhone ever.”
To achieve this thickness, Apple made three changes: removing Face ID in favor of a side Touch ID, cutting the standalone telephoto lens to keep only dual cameras, and eliminating the physical SIM card slot entirely in favor of eSIM.
These reductions indicate that the iPhone Duo’s core logic is “form over function.” The question Apple first has to answer is not “can a foldable be stronger than an iPhone,” but “can a foldable be made to feel like an iPhone.”
Its pricing, by contrast, is not conservative. In the China market, the 256GB version starts at RMB 15,999 (approx. USD 2,360), the 512GB at RMB 17,999 (approx. USD 2,655), the 1TB at RMB 21,499 (approx. USD 3,171), and the top-spec 2TB reaches RMB 26,499 (approx. USD 3,908). IDC analyst Wang Jiping described the pricing as precise: the starting price is set above the regular top spec of the Xiaomi Fold, pressuring Xiaomi’s high-spec buyers, while the top spec is set below that of the Huawei Mate XT2, targeting the market for Huawei’s second-highest spec.
In the ultra-premium range above RMB 10,000 (approx. USD 1,475), Apple used a single product to pressure competitors from both above and below.
Production Capacity, the Biggest Variable
Behind the ambitious pricing lies a difficult supply-chain reality.
An industry survey by TF International analyst Ming-Chi Kuo indicates that, owing to Apple’s very strict quality-control standards, the iPhone Duo’s initial daily output is only in the “several hundred units” range. Shipments in the third quarter of 2026 are expected to be just 500,000 to 1 million units, compared with an expected 20 million to 22 million units for the iPhone 18 Pro series over the same period.
As a result, the iPhone Duo will not open for pre-order until October 16, will go on sale overseas on October 23, and will not reach the China market until October 26 — a month and a half after the launch event, missing the two peak consumption periods of the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day holidays in China.
Competitors are positioned differently. The Xiaomi 18 Fold went on sale on September 10, the same day as Apple’s event, and the Huawei Mate XT2 went on sale on September 12. The attention Apple’s event drew to foldables may not translate fully into iPhone Duo sales, as some demand could go to competitors that launched earlier.
A further concern is the iPhone 18 Pro series. Although it can be pre-ordered from September 12, dealers generally expect sales to fall 15% to 25% year-on-year. Channel sources say the strong sales of the iPhone 17 series pulled replacement demand forward, while the foldable may further divert high-end buyers. In their view, the large sales volume of the 17 series has become a drag on continued growth for the 18 series.
A “Double Vacuum” in the China Market
If the challenge in the global market is production capacity, the challenge in the China market is a systemic lack of product appeal.
The first gap is AI. Siri AI initially supports only English, with languages such as French and Japanese to be added in October, but mainland China is not among the first-release markets. For a device starting at RMB 15,999, the absence of AI means that its core selling point — combining a large screen with intelligent interaction — cannot be realized for now.
Over the past two years, Chinese phone manufacturers have integrated large models into the underlying layer of their operating systems. A more aggressive challenge comes from large-model companies: StepFun launched STEPX Neo, ByteDance partnered with Nubia to release the Doubao Phone, and Alibaba co-developed an on-device large model with Honor. In the AI narrative, Apple has shifted from leader to follower.
The second gap is eSIM. Because the physical SIM slot has been removed, if China’s policy on opening eSIM for handsets falls short of expectations, some users may move to domestic foldables from Huawei and Xiaomi.
In response, Apple made an unusual channel decision. For the first time, it expanded first-release eligibility on Tmall from a single official Apple Store flagship to more than 20 authorized stores, and connected the 30-minute delivery of “Taobao Flash Purchase” across more than 1,000 offline stores. This runs counter to Apple’s tightening measures of the past two years, which included suspending new dealer authorizations, restricting e-commerce livestreaming, and cracking down on gray-market goods.
The channel expansion reflects Apple’s increasingly pressured position in China’s high-end market. In the second quarter of 2026, Apple’s shipments grew 24.4% year-on-year and its share rose to 18.1%, but it still trailed Huawei’s 22.6%.
The Price-Hike Dilemma Amid Surging Memory Costs
The main driver of the price increases across the lineup is rising supply-chain costs.
Since the second half of last year, DRAM and NAND prices have climbed sharply. According to supply-chain sources, phone storage that previously cost about USD 10 now costs close to USD 100. TrendForce data shows that, for the Pro 256GB model, memory costs in the third quarter of 2026 rose nearly 400% from a year earlier.
At his farewell earnings call, Cook described the current memory market as a “once-in-a-century flood.” To maintain a gross margin above 40%, Apple raised hardware prices across the board. In the China market, the iPhone 18 Pro series’ starting price rose by RMB 1,000 (approx. USD 148), and even the previous-generation iPhone 17 standard version increased by RMB 800 (approx. USD 118) against the broader trend.
The increases, however, have lengthened consumers’ replacement cycles. Against a slowing macroeconomy, the balance between protecting profit and driving sales volume is increasingly difficult to strike.
Notably, the standard iPhone 18, the iPhone Air, and the cheaper iPhone 18E have been postponed to a spring 2027 release, breaking Apple’s decade-long practice of a single, concentrated autumn launch. With limited resources, Apple has chosen to prioritize defending the highest-end segment and to trade time for space.
At each of Apple’s leadership transitions, the capital market responds primarily through the share price rather than applause.
Ternus’s task is to prove that he can not only present well on stage but also resolve four challenges behind the scenes: production capacity, the AI gap, the eSIM question, and the pressure from price increases. If he cannot, the foldable starting at RMB 15,999 risks being, in the end, a thicker, heavier, more expensive iPhone with fewer features. For Apple, there is little room to lose this defensive contest.
[Disclaimer]: The above content reflects analysis of publicly available information, expert insights, and BCC research. It does not constitute investment advice. BCC is not responsible for any losses resulting from reliance on the views expressed herein. Investors should exercise caution.