IDC expects Apple to ship 10 million foldable iPhones in year one at $2,500

IDC predicts Apple’s first foldable iPhone will ship more than 10 million units in its first year at a price of $2,500, reviving a category that was heading for a double-digit decline. In the EU the device will have to carry an energy label grading its repairability and its survival of repeated drops.

Apple’s first foldable iPhone will ship more than 10 million units in its first year, according to IDC. The research firm expects the phone to rescue a category that was otherwise heading for a double-digit decline this year.

The device is expected in September. IDC senior research director Nabila Popal said she expects “the passport-style Apple foldable to be widely successful despite the high $2,500 price tag,” aimed at “a very elite set of consumers.”

The category forecast moves with it. IDC now sees foldables growing 12.6% this year and 18% next year, with Apple taking 40% of all foldable shipments by 2027.

The rest of the market is going the other way. IDC has revised its forecast for the whole smartphone market to a record 16.7% decline this year, driven by the memory shortage that is passing component costs onto shelf prices.

“The components that make AI possible are the same ones in short supply, and their cost is being passed straight through to the shelf,” IDC’s Francisco Jeronimo said. “The era of the cheap smartphone has ended.”

Samsung has had this category largely to itself for seven years. Its Z Fold8 Ultra starts at $2,099 in the United States, which puts the price IDC expects from Apple roughly $400 above it.

In Europe the phone arrives with a label attached. Since June 2025 every smartphone sold in the EU has had to display an energy label showing a repairability class, a battery endurance figure and a rating for surviving repeated drops.

Apple’s current scores are mid-table. The iPhone 17 Pro Max is rated class C for repairability, class B for repeated free fall at 180 drops, and 1,000 battery charge cycles.

Samsung’s folding phone already beats that on two of the three. The Galaxy Z Fold 7 was rated class A on free fall and 2,000 battery cycles, matching Apple only on repairability at class C.

The rules do not spare foldables either. Regulation 2023/1670 exempts phones whose displays roll and unroll, not ones that fold, so a hinge faces the same 800-cycle battery minimum and seven years of spare parts.

That makes Europe the one market where the crease gets graded. Apple will publish a durability score for the most expensive phone it has ever made, on the same day it announces what the phone costs.