Initial production of Apple’s long-awaited foldable iPhone is currently running at only a ‘few hundred’ units a day, largely because of the company’s unusually strict quality control standards, sources familiar with the matter told Nikkei Asia in a report. The dispatch, filed from Taipei by Nikkei’s Cheng Ting-Fang and Lauly Li, indicates Apple and its suppliers are still working to scale up output of the device even as the company’s broader iPhone 18 lineup nears its autumn rollout.
Quality control, not component shortage, behind the slow start
According to the report, the bottleneck is not a shortage of parts but the exacting standards Apple has set for the foldable’s build quality, a constraint that has kept daily output in the low hundreds during this early phase of manufacturing. That marks a sharp contrast with the scale Apple typically commands: the company has told suppliers to prepare for roughly 80 million smartphones in the back half of 2026 alone, covering the iPhone 18 Pro, iPhone 18 Pro Max and the debut foldable model, with full-year production expected to top 220 million units, Nikkei reports.
A rocky road to mass production
The foldable iPhone’s path to market has been bumpy. Nikkei reported in April that Apple had run into engineering setbacks during the device’s test production phase, with one source cautioning at the time that the mass-production timeline was at risk and calling the following weeks ‘extremely critical’. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman pushed back against the severity of those concerns, reporting the device remained on track for a September debut alongside the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max, while cautioning that “the complexity of the new foldable display and materials may limit initial supply by several weeks.” By July, Nikkei reported that Apple had in fact raised its production target for the device to around 10 million units for the year, up from an earlier forecast of 7 to 8 million, even as the broader smartphone industry grappled with a memory-chip shortage that forced rivals such as Xiaomi, Oppo and Vivo to cut their own annual output targets. Apple’s first foldable iPhone is expected to feature a book-style design with roughly a 7.8-inch inner display and a 5.5-inch cover screen, built around a Liquidmetal hinge mechanism, the A20 chip and Apple’s in-house C2 modem, with a Touch ID power button replacing Face ID. Samsung Display is expected to be the exclusive supplier of the foldable panel. Analysts have pointed to a premium price tag, with estimates ranging from roughly $2,000 to as high as $3,000 depending on configuration.
