Apple’s new iPhones sold out within two minutes of preorders opening in Taiwan on Thursday, according to Chunghwa Telecom, one of the island’s largest carriers. The iPhone 18 Pro series and the iPhone Duo, Apple’s first foldable phone, opened for preorder Thursday afternoon local time and vanished from inventory almost immediately, the carrier said late Friday.
The sellout covers the first wave of preorder demand, not global availability. Apple’s own preorder system and other carriers operate separately, and inventory refreshes continuously ahead of the September 18 on-sale date for the Pro models. But the speed of the Taiwan sellout, alongside carrier data showing registrations more than double last year’s level, points to demand well above the iPhone 17 cycle.
What the carriers reported
Taiwan Mobile said the iPhone 18 Pro Max was the most popular model, accounting for about 50 percent of its new iPhone preorders, with the 256GB version the top configuration. Burgundy was the most requested color, followed by Glacier. The carrier also reported that preorders for the iPhone 18 Pro series surged nearly 200 percent compared with the iPhone 17 Pro series last year.
Taiwan Mobile’s myfone online store sold out of the iPhone Duo within two minutes as well. Far Eastone opens its preorders Saturday evening and said registrations accepted since Thursday have run more than double last year’s level. Chunghwa Telecom cited a survey in which 70 percent of Apple fans favored the Pro models, 60 percent of those interested in the Duo preferred Star White over Night Sky, and 46 percent wanted the Glacier color on the Pro line.
| Model | Starting price (US) | Preorder | On sale |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone 18 Pro | $1,199 | Sept 12 | Sept 18 |
| iPhone 18 Pro Max | $1,299 | Sept 12 | Sept 18 |
| iPhone Duo (256GB) | $1,999 | Oct 16 | Oct 23 |
Two phones, two timelines
The Pro models go on sale September 18, one week after preorder. The Duo follows a different schedule: preorders open October 16 and the phone hits stores October 23. The staggered launch gives Apple a second demand spike in October and spreads supply across two windows, which matters given the foldable’s constrained production.
Analysts had warned for months that early Duo volumes would be limited. Ming-Chi Kuo of TF International Securities predicted last year that the foldable would launch in small quantities, similar to the original iPhone X pattern, with mass production trailing the announcement. The two-minute sellout in Taiwan is consistent with tight initial supply rather than proof of unlimited demand.
Pricing separates the two products sharply. The iPhone 18 Pro starts at $1,199 and the Pro Max at $1,299. The Duo starts at $1,999 for 256GB, making it the most expensive iPhone Apple has ever sold and pricier than the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 8 at $1,900 or the Google Pixel 11 Pro Fold at $1,899. Storage tiers climb steeply from there, with a 2TB configuration listed at the equivalent of NT$118,900 in Taiwan.
The Duo’s pitch
Apple positions the Duo as a phone and small tablet in one. Closed, it is a 5.4-inch slab roughly the size of a passport. Opened, it reveals a 7.6-inch Super Retina XDR display, the largest ever on an iPhone, about 80 percent larger than the iPhone 18 Pro’s screen. When opened it is also the thinnest iPhone to date at 5.2 millimeters.
The design choices mark departures from the standard iPhone. There is no Face ID, because the folding hinge leaves no room for the sensor array. Unlocking runs through a Touch ID sensor in the power button or through a nearby Apple Watch. The Duo supports the Apple Pencil, previously an iPad-only accessory, and Apple says the inner display delivers up to 31 hours of video playback, with the outer display rated for up to 44 hours.
CEO John Ternus, who took over from Tim Cook on September 1 and hosted his first product event on September 9, framed the phone as a break with the foldables that came before. “Others have created a foldable that feels like two phones awkwardly stuck together,” he said at the Cupertino event. The Duo comes in Star White and Night Sky, and Apple says it can also be used partially folded, propped at an angle for calls or video.
The context around the launch
The September 9 event, branded “Surprise and shine,” was the first public introduction of the Ternus era. Cook, who attended, moved to the executive chairman role. Alongside the phones, Apple introduced the Apple Watch Series 12, an Apple Watch Ultra update, the iPad mini 8 and AirPods 5 with upgraded durability.
The launch also lands against a difficult component backdrop. A global memory shortage, driven largely by AI data center demand, has pushed RAM and NAND prices sharply higher this year, and analysts credit that shortage with part of the Duo’s high price. Microsoft and other device makers have raised prices on the same logic. Apple has kept Pro pricing increases modest, $100 year over year on the Pro Max in most markets, while pushing the premium cost into the foldable.
Competitive pressure frames the stakes. Foldable phones have existed since 2018 but still account for a small fraction of global smartphone sales, and Samsung has dominated the category without a credible challenge. IDC predicts Apple could sell more than 10 million Duo units in its first year, which would make the foldable the category’s largest product overnight. Huawei, which launched its own tri-fold Mate XT 2 days before Apple’s event, is competing in China with a device that starts near $2,980 and runs entirely on domestic chips.
What the sellout does and does not prove
Fast sellouts are a signal, not a verdict. They measure the interaction of demand and deliberately limited initial inventory, and Apple has every incentive to keep early stock tight to sustain the story through the October launch. The more telling numbers will arrive later: how long the backlog runs, whether secondary market premiums hold, and what Apple says about Duo supply at its October earnings call.
Still, the contrast with last year is hard to ignore. Taiwan Mobile’s 200 percent jump in Pro series preorders and doubled registrations at Far Eastone suggest the September 9 event reenergized a lineup that had grown incrementally for several cycles. The Pro models hit stores September 18. The real test for the foldable begins October 16, when the first buyers find out whether the wait is measured in weeks or months.