Apple Can't Say When Foldable iPhone Duo Will Be in Stock
Apple's new chief executive says the company is working to supply more of its $1,999 foldable phone, while its operating chief says it is hard to predict when supply will meet demand.
Anyone hoping to buy Apple's foldable iPhone Duo has no date to plan around. The phone sold out quickly after release, and Apple's operating chief told analysts that matching supply to demand is hard to predict.
No timetable for more phones
"At this time, it's really hard to predict when supply and demand will be in balance," said Sabhi Kahn, Apple's chief operating officer, on a call about the latest results. The phone costs $1,999, or £1,999 in the UK, and went on sale toward the end of October.
John Ternus took over as chief executive from Tim Cook in September. He said he was "thrilled" with the early reaction and that Apple is working to reach more buyers.
Executives did not bring up the phone's reported weak spot. Some buyers have seen screens crack. Last week Apple said it would replace phones hit by a fault that made a "small number" of units crack along the inside fold.
Chips are tight across the range
The Duo is not the only Apple product in short supply. Kahn said most Apple devices still face supply limits, partly because it is hard to obtain enough processors built on "advanced nodes". That is chip technology that lets devices run faster, and Apple has mostly had it made by TSMC in Taiwan.
He expects the limits to run into next year, with iPads and Macs hit hardest. Apple has repeatedly pointed to "unexpected demand" as part of the problem.
Memory costs keep climbing
Ternus said memory costs are still rising by "unprecedented" amounts. Memory here means the capacity devices use to keep apps, photos and messages. Data centres hold much of that storage, and the spread of AI chatbots from firms such as OpenAI and Anthropic has pushed them to seek far more room, which makes storage costlier for Apple and other tech companies.
Earlier this year Cook likened the abrupt rise in Apple's data centre costs to a "thousand year flood". Apple has since put up prices on essentially all of its hardware by around 20%.
The numbers behind the call
The quarter ran to 26 September, so the Duo is not in it. iPhone sales still rose 17% to $57bn, and Apple said it sold more iPhones over the past year than ever. Mac sales grew 27% to $10.7bn, another record. Sales for the full year rose 15% to $479bn.
The iPad fell 10%. Wearables, a group that includes headphones and the Watch, fell 7%.
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Apple has not said whether the Duo's shortage comes from the same chip and memory limits it describes for other devices, and the call gave no delivery date. The next quarterly results should be the first to include Duo sales, and they would show how much the foldable adds to revenue. Any word from Kahn on when supply catches up would matter more to buyers than the sales totals.
Source: BBC News