Apple May Sell Folding iPhone to Jump-Start Troubled Sales

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jun 19, 9:15AM EDT

Apple May Sell Folding iPhone to Jump-Start Troubled Sales — © ViewApart / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL | AAPL Price Prediction) may launch an expensive folding iPhone. Major competitor Samsung already has its folding phone product Z Fold6. It sells for as much as $1,900.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo posted on X, “Recent market rumors suggest Apple has placed an order for 15–20 million foldable iPhones. Based on checks across multiple components, this volume likely reflects cumulative demand over the product’s 2–3 year lifecycle, rather than 2026 alone.” He expects a launch in the second half of next year.

Apple needs a winner. The iPhone 16’s sales have been mediocre. For one thing, it has not changed much from the iPhone 15. Consumers were told it would launch at almost the same time as a new iOS that would have impressive AI features. That did not happen. This has allowed artificial intelligence (AI) leaders such as Meta, Google, OpenAI, and Amazon to pull well ahead in the AI consumer product business. Apple will not launch an advanced AI product until next year.

Apple has not found an AI software partner in China. It is the largest smartphone market in the world. Local companies, led by Xiaomi, Huawei, and Oppo, have impressive market share.

Apple also faces tariffs of as much as 25% for iPhones imported from China. Apple planned to move much of its production to India as a way to keep iPhone prices at current levels. This angered President Trump, and Apple may have run out of ways to avoid the tariffs. This means Apple faces much lower margins, or the need to increase prices.

In the most recently reported quarter, iPhone revenue was up a bit, to $46.8 billion from $46.0 billion in the same quarter a year ago.

Does Apple management think a folding iPhone can solve some of its problems? If it plans to order as many as 20 million of them, perhaps.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.