The shortage is already visible to buyers. The Duo, Apple's first foldable phone, launched in September under Ternus and sold out on Apple's website within hours of going on sale, pushing delivery dates into next year. Customers who missed the initial rush are seeing ship times stretch into 2027. Verizon has been apologising to affected customers with gift cards, while Apple is deepening its partnership with titanium supplier Perryman to secure materials for the foldable.

Behind the scenes, Apple is stockpiling components. Its inventory jumped 31.1% quarter over quarter to $14.54 billion in fiscal Q4, up 154.3% from $5.72 billion a year earlier, reflecting a build-up of memory as costs climb. Soaring demand for memory chips from the AI industry has pushed up component prices across the industry, and Ternus called current memory pricing "unprecedented". He expects even higher memory costs in the December quarter, partly offset by recent price increases, which Khan said were made "reluctantly" across a number of products. Apple guided to a 45% to 46% gross margin for the December quarter, down from 47.9% in the September quarter, largely because of memory costs. It also said manufacturing purchase obligations rose by $33 billion from June to the September quarter as it works to improve supply.

Ternus also addressed reports of cracked screens on the Duo, saying that only "a very small percentage" of units were returned for the issue and that Apple is replacing them. Despite the constraints, Apple reported record iPhone revenue of $57.58 billion for the quarter, even without a standard iPhone 18 model.