Apple Inc.'s first foldable phone, the iPhone Duo, has exceeded sales expectations since preorders opened on October 16, 2026. Supply constraints have extended delivery times to January 2027, but industry executives said the strength of demand will not become clear until after the first quarter of 2027.
Apple has raised its iPhone Duo shipment target by 44%, from 9.7 million to 14 million units over 12 months, as strong consumer demand for its first foldable iPhone prompts the company to increase orders. Supply chain sources say the move signals confidence in sales, while forecasts for other models remain mixed.
China's smartphone market rebounded in September 2026 after weak July and August shipments, as brands rolled out more new models. Shipments reached 21.86 million units, down nearly 22% from a year earlier but up from a monthly average of about 17 million units over the previous two months, according to China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) data cited by industry channel sources.
Soaring memory prices are intensifying cost pressure across the display industry, prompting some smartphone manufacturers to downgrade panel specifications. Market estimates indicate that memory's share of flagship smartphones' bill of materials (BOM) cost is nearly six times that of displays, raising concerns that smartphone display technology could regress by about five years.
Jio Platforms' initial public offering, the largest in India's history, asks investors to back more than a mobile network. In its prospectus, the operator that built its business on cheap data pitches a home-grown 5G stack and an AI engine it plans to sell to operators abroad, even though telecom still generates almost 90% of its revenue, according to Reuters.
Chief Telecom has begun construction of its new AI data center in the Huwei section of the Central Taiwan Science Park (CTSP), with an investment of NT$3.3 billion (US$101.8 million). Chairman Jerry Shao said the facility's reservation and contract rate has exceeded 50%, with international cloud service providers (CSPs) and fintech companies making up most of the customers.
Samsung Electronics is developing the Exynos 2700 for broader use across its Galaxy S27 lineup in 2027, while Huawei has moved its next-generation Kirin chips into testing. The competing efforts are raising pressure on Samsung to improve application processor (AP) performance, manufacturing yields and cost competitiveness as it seeks to reduce its reliance on Qualcomm and MediaTek.
SpaceX announced on October 8, 2026, that it would acquire US 800MHz low-band spectrum licenses held by Grain Management, covering up to 14MHz of paired bandwidth. The transaction remains subject to approval by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Chunghwa Telecom president Rong-shy Lin said the shift from conversational AI to autonomous AI agents is reshaping enterprise adoption, making data governance, access controls and accountability critical to deployment at scale.
On October 13, Huawei unveiled the detailed architecture of its Kirin 9050 Pro chip for the first time at its Lianqiu Lake research center in Shanghai, outlining advances in LogicFolding and hybrid bonding technologies. Xu Songyu, head of wireless terminal chip product management at Huawei's semiconductor business, said the company now sees a sustainable development path for Kirin processors over the next decade.
Genius Electronic Optical, a leading manufacturer of optical lenses and precision optical components, announced on October 15 that it had formed a strategic partnership with 3M, a global technology and innovation giant, to jointly advance the development, manufacturing, and capacity expansion of optical communications solutions.
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