Apple’s first foldable smartphone, the iPhone Duo, is generating strong early demand according to a new analysis from market research firm TrendForce.
Less than a week after preorders opened, Apple’s website showed delivery windows extending into January 2027 for some orders, underscoring pent-up interest in the book-style inward-folding device. Initial user feedback has been mixed. Owners have praised the expanded viewing area and split-screen multitaskingy.
TrendForce projects that global foldable smartphone shipments will rise just 0.5% in 2026. Against that largely flat backdrop, the firm estimates the iPhone Duo will ship approximately 5 million units this year, accounting for about 24.8% of the market. That share would place Apple in a virtual tie with Huawei for second place behind Samsung (projected at roughly 35.1% on about 7.1 million units), while Android brands excluding Apple are expected to see combined shipments fall more than 20% year-over-year amid rising component costs. Apple’s entry is therefore accelerating a realignment of market share even as overall volume stays nearly stagnant.
One of the Duo’s most discussed hardware features is its barely visible display crease. Foldable OLED panels consist of multiple layers — cover materials, adhesives, display elements, and encapsulation — that experience differing tensile, compressive, and shear stresses when bent. Apple has optimized the bending radius, layer thicknesses, elastic moduli, and controlled slippage through the adhesive stack to reduce strain and improve recovery when the phone is opened. Nanoscale surface textures further scatter reflected light so the residual fold band is less noticeable. The teardrop hinge is equally critical: it keeps the display flat and stable for touch input when open and creates the necessary clearance for the intended fold curvature when closed.
Global Foldable Smartphone Market Share Forecast by Brands, 2024-2027
On the software side, the larger workspace is intended to support simultaneous document reading, AI-generated summaries, and content editing. Realizing that potential requires apps to adapt layouts dynamically as the device opens and closes while preserving state. Some applications still display black borders or under-utilize the available screen real estate, indicating that developer optimization has not yet fully matched the hardware’s capabilities. The bigger display also raises power-management demands: even static white-background content continues to consume energy for OLED emission, independent of refresh-rate reductions. Balancing multitasking, AI workloads, and battery life will depend on more efficient emissive materials, optical structures, and adaptive driving technologies.
TrendForce notes that Apple’s core advantage remains its vertical integration of silicon, operating system, and developer ecosystem. As app compatibility improves and hardware reliability issues are addressed, the Duo is expected to expand the practical value of foldable displays and shift competitive focus from pure form-factor novelty toward multitasking efficiency. Secondary coverage of TrendForce’s outlook has further projected that Apple’s share could rise to nearly 30% (around 29.8%) in 2027 as the overall foldable market rebounds, though those longer-term figures remain forecasts contingent on execution.
MacDailyNews Take: For a category that has grown only modestly in recent years, Apple’s debut is already reshaping – and is poised to dominate – the foldable smartphone market.
If and when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, they’ll be showing the world how it should be done and what to copy going forward. As usual. — MacDailyNews, February 27, 2019
As with fingerprint and facial recognition, when Apple debuts a foldable iPhone, then foldable smartphones will have been done right. — MacDailyNews, January 17, 2019
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