Apple cannot say when more foldable iPhones will ship after Duo sells out

Apple has no timetable for when additional units of its foldable iPhone will reach customers, after the $1,999 handset sold out within days of going on sale just over a week ago, according to BBC Technology. John Ternus, who became chief executive in September, succeeding Tim Cook, told analysts on Monday that he was delighted by how buyers responded to the iPhone Duo.

Speaking on a call about the company's latest financial results, Apple's new chief operating officer said forecasting a balance between supply and demand is currently very difficult. The device costs £1,999 in the UK.

Some owners have reported cracks appearing on their screens. Apple executives did not raise the cracking problem during the analyst call. The company said last week that it would swap any handsets affected by a fault that caused a small number of the devices to split along the inner fold.

Demand for the Duo remains strong. Even so, Apple has not indicated when stock will be more widely available.

Separately, Apple reported that it shipped more iPhones worldwide over the past year than at any point in its history. In the three months ending 26 September, a period that closed before the Duo launched in late October, iPhone revenue climbed 17% to $57bn.

Mac sales also set a record, rising 27% to $10.7bn. iPad revenue dropped 10%, and wearables including headphones and the Watch slipped 7%.

The chief operating officer said most Apple products still face limited supply, partly because advanced-node microprocessors are hard to obtain. Most of those chips come from Taiwan's TSMC. Those shortages should persist into next year and hit iPads and Macs hardest, he added, with unexpectedly strong demand making matters worse.

Ternus also pointed to what he described as unprecedented increases in memory costs. He linked the pressure to soaring demand for data centre capacity driven by AI platforms. Apple has raised prices across nearly all of its hardware by roughly 20%.