A new report claims Apple has raised production orders for the iPhone Duo by 30%, citing Chinese financial news site STCN. The devices are expected to sell before the end of 2026. The report goes further, suggesting that Apple must have cut iPhone 18 Pro orders to make room for the increase.
The reasoning does not hold up. The report treats manufacturing as a zero-sum game, which it is not for Apple. It also cites a figure of 10 million units for the iPhone Duo, a number that was already reported in July rather than being an exclusive. Even taking the figures at face value, the percentages do not work. If the Duo rose from about 7 million to 10 million units, the report implies three million fewer iPhone 18 Pro orders, yet Apple is predicted to build around 80 million iPhones across the new Pro line and the iPhone Duo in the final quarter of 2026. A 30% drop in Pro orders would exceed three million units.
The report also appears to count the iPhone Duo as one of the Pro models, which leads it to conclude that total orders have not changed. Its authors seem to have been working from a machine translation, and readers who are more fluent in the language also judged it poorly sourced and written.
Finally, the report is based on component orders rather than finished iPhones. Apple works with many manufacturing partners and component suppliers worldwide, and changes in component orders have little bearing on how many iPhones are built. As AppleInsider has previously noted, and as JP Morgan has agreed, Apple has not cut iPhone 18 Pro orders, so this report does not change the outlook for iPhone demand.
Source: AppleInsider · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing