Apple Incorporated’s first foldable iPhone is projected to ship more than 10 million units in its first year, despite an expected price tag of $2,500, research firm IDC has said.
The device, which is expected to launch in September, will mark Apple’s entry into the foldable smartphone market, seven years after Samsung Electronics Co. introduced the category.
IDC senior research director Nabila Popal said the passport-style foldable iPhone was expected to attract strong demand despite its high price, targeting a highly affluent group of consumers.
“I expect the passport-style Apple foldable to be widely successful despite the high $2,500 price tag,” Popal said. “A very elite set of consumers are being targeted here, who will be lining up to buy the device.”
IDC expects Apple to account for 40 per cent of all foldable smartphone shipments in 2027.
Foldable smartphones, which can open from a phone-sized device into a tablet-sized screen, remain a relatively small segment of the wider smartphone market. However, IDC projects the category to grow by 12.6 per cent this year and 18 per cent next year.
The growth comes as the broader smartphone market faces a sharper downturn. IDC has revised its forecast for the overall smartphone market to a 16.7 per cent decline this year, citing rising costs for memory chips and other components.
Francisco Jeronimo of IDC said shortages of components used in artificial intelligence technologies were also affecting smartphone production and prices.
“The components that make AI possible are the same ones in short supply, and their cost is being passed straight through to the shelf,” Jeronimo said. “The era of the cheap smartphone has ended.”
Despite their small share of the overall market, foldable devices remain an attractive segment for manufacturers because of their premium prices and higher profitability. The wider smartphone market ships more than one billion units annually.
