Before any sales have been made, the iPhone Duo is worth $146 billion to Apple
Apple's new foldable iPhone already has made a huge contribution to Apple's valuation.
Apple is worth $146 billion more thanks to its new foldable iPhone | Image by Apple
The foldable iPhone is now reality as the iPhone Duo was officially made a member of the company's smartphone lineup on Wednesday. The company has yet to sell one single Duo, but we can now tell you how much the phone is worth to Apple and that figure is approximately $146 billion.
The iPhone Duo adds $146 billion to Apple's market cap
How did we arrive at that figure? We simply looked at what is happening today on Wall Street. On Wednesday, Apple's shares barely reacted to the introduction of the first foldable iPhone as the stock declined by 88 cents or a mere 0.28% decline during the "Surprise and Shine." But traders and investors, after thinking it over in their sleep, have been buying Apple's shares today sending the stock as high as $326.12.
At Thursday's peak price, Apple's stock had risen $10.78 a share. With approximately 14.59 billion shares outstanding, today's move has tacked on nearly $146 billion to Apple's market capitalization. While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max appear to be well received (I'm already drooling over the battery life of the iPhone 18 Pro Max), let's be real; the excitement over yesterday's unveiling and the star of the show was the iPhone Duo.
Wall Street says Apple chose to prioritize sales volume over profits
It seems that Wall Street is a bit divided about the first foldable iPhone. Apple's decision to start the iPhone Duo at a price of $1,999, less than the $2,200-$2,500 rumored price range, might generate more sales, but Apple's profit margins for the Duo are going to be lower than expected. Investment bank Morgan Stanley says that this proves that Apple is aiming for higher adoption of the first foldable iPhone instead of trying to generate the highest margins.
The iPhone Duo has added $146 billion to Apple's market cap. | Image by Apple
Saying the same thing in a different way, fellow investment bank Jefferies and broker-dealer Rosenblatt said that Apple is prioritizing sales volume of the Duo over profitability. Another concern that analysts have with Apple has to do with the memory chip shortage and price hike that is due to the buildout of data centers for AI.
Companies like SK Hynix, Samsung, and Micron have to choose between producing DRAM memory chips for smartphones or high-margin High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) stacks that have much larger profit margins than DRAM chips. The three chipmakers are choosing to make the more profitable HBM chips, and as a result, smartphone manufacturers are forced to pay higher prices for DRAM chips that have become scarce.
After seeing the Duo, retail investors are more bullish on Apple
Retail investors, who are the everyday consumers who invest in the market as opposed to huge hedge funds, mutual funds, and other professional investors, had been bearish before Wednesday's new product introductions. In the wake of the "Surprise and Shine" event, a website called Stocktwits raised Apple's Sentiment Score to 73 out of 100 (bullish) from bearish territory.
I gotta buy an iPhone Duo because:
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In addition, Apple was mentioned 2,077 times each day on the site's message boards, up 78% from three months ago. We should point out that there are some traders and investors who will say that the best way to use retail investor sentiment is to fade the numbers. Since the public is typically wrong at major turning points, the higher Sentiment Score might actually be bearish.
Apple forecast to own nearly a quarter of the global foldable market in 2026
According to TrendForce, Apple will capture 24.8% of the foldable smartphone market just by the end of this year, shipping 5 million iPhone Duo units. Not including Apple, the global foldable market is expected to see a huge 20% decline in deliveries this year. Throwing the iPhone Duo into the mix, total global shipments of foldable smartphones could reach 20.2 million units.
TrendForce has Samsung leading the way shipping 7.1 million foldables in 2026, good for 35.1% of the market. Huawei and Apple are both forecast to ship 5 million units each, giving both companies a 24.8% slice of the global foldable pie.
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