Lukewarm orders for iPhone 18 Pro, says analyst, but it doesn't mean much

A high-profile analyst has said that demand for the iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max appears “lukewarm” based on pre-order wait times.

Jeff Pu notes that most iPhone 18 Pro configurations are available for immediate delivery and that the longest wait for the most popular iPhone 18 Pro Max extends only to three to four weeks …

Pu says that there’s no delay with most iPhone 18 Pro configs, while availability varies for the Pro Max:

Assuming consistent supply levels, this would indicate that the iPhone 18 Pro is less popular than most of its predecessors. However, there are so many caveats to this that our take is longer than reporting the data …

Actual sales data for Apple products is, of course, extremely commercially sensitive, and the company long stopped revealing unit sales even in earnings reports. There are a number of ways analysts and market intelligence companies can try to get a steer on approximate numbers, however.

The most obvious of these is to look at estimated shipping times for new products. This is a very crude metric as what it actually measures is the gap between supply and demand. A million people wanting a new device and a million devices being stockpiled would still equal immediate delivery, while demand for 100,000 units with only 10,000 in stock would mean lengthy wait times.

Market intelligence companies do use other methods to supplement this. A common one is to use pre-recruited consumer panels who have consented to their inboxes being scanned for order emails. Consumer surveys are also sometimes used. A combination of methods can improve reliability, but ultimately it all amounts to educated guesses.

The huge variable this time around, as Pu himself acknowledges, is that we are still waiting for pre-orders to open for the iPhone Duo. An unknown number of those who would otherwise have ordered one of the iPhone 18 Pro models will be waiting for that instead. “Lukewarm” demand for the iPhone 18 Pro could potentially point to higher than expected demand for the iPhone Duo.

Things will get even more complicated once pre-orders do open for the Duo, since reporting has suggested that production yields have been relatively low, meaning that even modest demand could see lengthy waits for shipping.