Apple arranged its limited iPhone Duo stock so that most went to Apple Stores instead of to online pre-orders. Apple chose to have perhaps four times more iPhone Duo stock at retail than for sale online on launch day, and even so, most went home empty-handed. Apple described demand for the iPhone Duo as being "extraordinary," and manufacturer Foxconn has talked about using its international facilities to produce more. According to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple elected to route the greater number of iPhone Duo units to Apple Stores instead of keeping them for online pre-orders, with as much as 80% of the stock reserved for the stores. Without any actual figures, though, it is still unlikely that Apple had very many iPhone Duo units in stores. Apple itself said stocks would be limited, and based on all information possible, that seemed to be optimistic. Even so, Apple pushed back when told that iPhone Duo quantities were going to be extremely limited in the stores. When a store gets 50 iPhone Duos to sell, when they previously got hundreds of the iPhone X, or thousands of the iPhone 18 Pro, that sounds extremely limited. Now according to Gurman, some stores got around 50, and the biggest flagship stores may have had up to 250.
Apple never publishes figures about how many iPhones it makes, let alone how it apportions them across its retail channels. But it is always true that a certain amount are reserved for online pre-orders, and a certain amount go to stores. In this case, though, reportedly not only did Apple reserve just 20% of its inventory for online, that included online pickup orders. So that 80% was aimed at walk-in buyers. An Apple Bite is a small piece of news or content we think our readers may enjoy, but isn't quite large enough for a full write up.
Source: AppleInsider · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing