Why Is the iPhone Duo? ⇥ nytimes.com

Brian X. Chen, New York Times:

But even though they’ve been around for years, foldable phones aren’t particularly popular. They’re expensive, awkward and not as durable as regular smartphones. So why did Apple build one?

[…]

Foldable phones, which account for less than 2 percent of the handset market, may be the only part of the phone industry that will grow this year. IDC said it expected the chip-shortage-induced price increases to contribute to a 17 percent drop in worldwide smartphone sales this year — the steepest annual decline in history. However, sales of foldable phones could grow 12 percent to 22.9 million because of the iPhone Duo’s arrival, the research firm said.

It is worth noting Counterpoint’s stats blend book-style folding phones, like Google’s Pixel Fold and Samsung’s Galaxy Z Fold8 Ultra — yes, that is the real name — and regular-sized phones that flip in half. This is kind of important for the conclusion Chen draws, which is that this is a way for Apple to justify charging at least $2,000 USD for a smartphone. But I am curious if the ultra-expensive part of the market has sold as well as less-premium flip phones.

Samsung’s Galaxy S26 Ultra, for example, starts at $1,100 USD, while its Fold8 jumps to a starting price of $1,900 USD. But the Flip8, which is very similar to the S26 Ultra, is just $100 USD more than its non-folding sibling. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the only person I know with a folding phone has one of the flip ones.¹ But Google and Samsung do not have the brand cachet of Apple, and a $2,000 iPhone is an incredible status symbol.

The biggest question I have is whether folding phones become a mainstream category. The iPhone X’s thousand-dollar pricetag was a huge amount of money when it was released, but Apple had no trouble selling it and its subsequent thousand-plus-dollar phones. Just as importantly, however, is that it set a new standard that quickly flowed to the company’s less expensive models. Apple has not sold an iPhone with a home button in over four years. Is the Duo a similar conceptual leap, or will a book-style folding phone always be a niche?