Apple’s $2,000 iPhone Duo hits China with queues and scalpers

Apple’s first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, went on sale in China this week, Reuters reported. Bloomberg and CNBC described long lines on October 23 and a device priced at roughly $2,000.

What Apple says the Duo is

According to Apple’s iPhone Duo product page, the phone opens into a 7.6-inch inner Super Retina XDR display and keeps a 5.4-inch outer screen for use when closed. It runs on the A20 Pro chip, with a 6-core CPU, a 7-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine.

The rear has two 48MP cameras (Main and Ultra Wide), and the front camera is 12MP. Apple lists storage options of 256GB, 512GB, 1TB and 2TB, and colors named Night Sky and Star White. It claims up to 31 hours of video playback on the inner display and up to 44 hours on the outer one, based on its own July 2026 tests with preproduction units. Those figures have not been independently checked.

Apple calls it the thinnest iPhone when open, though the page gives no thickness in millimeters. The phone supports Apple Pencil (USB-C), but not hover. It is also eSIM-only worldwide, which matters in China, where the South China Morning Post said the design drew immediate attention along with the price.

The page lists the phone as sold on apple.com, at select carriers and at partner stores. It shows no price, and it does not mention China by name.

Lines, scalpers and thin supply

Reuters headlined its launch story with the China debut and a second piece quoting fans reacting as the phone reached stores. Bloomberg’s video coverage said the roughly $2,000 phone debuted with long lines and limited supply. CNBC’s headline said scalpers were offering buyers hundreds of dollars extra outside a Beijing launch. We could not open the CNBC article itself, so the amounts and the number of resellers are not confirmed here.

The pattern is familiar for a first-generation Apple product. Limited stock lets resellers charge a premium, and any markup on the resale market says more about scarcity than about the phone’s long-term value. Apple has not, in anything we read, given unit numbers for the launch.

A price that sets a new ceiling for iPhone

The economics are the main story. Bloomberg’s coverage puts the Duo at about $2,000 in the US, and its reviewer called the screen stunning but the apps uneven, a verdict that matters for buyers paying that much. Apple’s own page points to trade-in offers for Android phones and older iPhones, and to its Apple Upgrade leasing plan over 12 or 24 months, which suggests Apple expects many buyers to spread the cost.

Apple also compares the Duo directly with the iPhone 18 Pro Max on its page, showing the two side by side. That sets the Duo up as an extra tier above the standard flagship rather than a replacement for it. The Verge’s podcast team argued the Duo should have been an iPad, a sign that the category’s value is still contested.

China is a harder market than most. The SCMP reported that Apple is aiming at Huawei and Xiaomi, which already sell foldables there. We have not seen their current prices in the sources we read, so a direct price comparison is not possible here.

What the sources do not settle

Apple’s page confirms specifications, but no price, regional availability or shipment volume. The Chinese retail price and the stock levels per store come only from news reports, and the scalper offers come from a headline we could not read in full. Independent battery and durability tests of the hinge are also missing from what we have seen.

Apple has been pushing AI features across its line. The page shows a Siri AI app on the inner display, and says Apple Intelligence supports Simplified and Traditional Chinese. Our earlier piece on Samsung’s plans to reinvent phones for the AI age covers the rival approach, and the Duo is the first test of how much buyers will pay for a larger screen to run such features.