Foldable iPhone sells out
Apple has told investors it does not know when it will be able to restock its new foldable iPhone as the crucial Christmas shopping period approaches, according to the BBC. The iPhone Duo, priced at nearly $2,000 and the company's most expensive smartphone, sold out just over a week after it went on sale.
The company pointed to "constraints" in sourcing key components and said it was "really hard to predict when supply and demand will be in balance". Chief operating officer Sabih Khan said Apple was working to get the Duo "into the hands of our customers as quickly as possible".
The phone was launched by new chief executive John Ternus, who took over from Tim Cook in September. The BBC describes it as the iPhone's first major design change in almost 20 years.
Screen complaints and the earnings call
Some buyers have reported problems with the Duo's screen. Last week, Apple said it would replace any handsets affected by an issue that caused a "small number" to crack along the inside fold.
When Apple released its latest financial results on Monday, its executives did not mention any problems with the device, the BBC reported. Ternus said instead that he was "thrilled" by the early reaction to the foldable phone.
Results: iPhone and Mac up, iPad and wearables down
The figures cover the three months to 26 September, so they do not include Duo sales; the phone was released at the end of October. Even so, Apple said it had sold more iPhones worldwide over the past year than ever before.
iPhone revenue for the quarter rose 17% to $57bn (£42bn). Mac sales grew 27% to a record $10.7bn. Total sales for July through September rose from $102bn to $114bn, while pre-tax profit increased from $32.8bn to $36.1bn.
Not every category grew. iPad sales fell 10%, and sales of wearable products, including headphones and watches, dropped 7%.
Chip supply and memory costs
Khan said most Apple devices are still facing supply constraints, driven partly by difficulty securing enough microprocessors built with advanced manufacturing nodes. Most of these chips are made by TSMC, based in Taiwan. He said the problem is expected to continue into next year, particularly affecting iPads and Macs. Apple has repeatedly attributed the strain to "unexpected demand".
Ternus also said the company is seeing "unprecedented" cost increases for memory, the component that lets devices store data such as apps, photos and messages. Much memory storage runs through data centres, where demand for space has surged as AI chatbots and platforms, including those from OpenAI and Anthropic, have become popular. Earlier this year Cook described a sudden rise in data centre costs as a "thousand year flood". Apple has raised prices on nearly all its hardware by around 20%.
Investor reaction
Sunil Krishnan of Aviva Investors told the BBC's Today programme that Apple posted "a reasonably solid set of results", with a "pretty good performance" from its iPhone business. He acknowledged concerns about the company's guidance on profit margins and memory-chip costs. But he said that, in a broader context, "margins well north of 45% for a very well-established company, I think, are pretty impressive".
Apple's share price nonetheless fell 1.8% in after-hours trading, according to the BBC.
