Report claims Apple expects to sell as many as 100 million iPhone 16 series handsets

An overseas press report says that Apple estimates it will sell 90 million to 100 million units of its upcoming iPhone 16 series. As a result, the world's top contract foundry, TSMC, is expected to manufacture 100 million A18 chipsets. To be sure, there will be two different variants of the A18 SoC, both of which will be built using TSMC's second-generation 3nm process node (N3E). The A18 application processor (AP) will power the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus while the A18 Pro AP will drive the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max.

Apple will obviously make some design changes between the A18 and A18 Pro so that the latter chipset will be more powerful than the former. Since all four iPhone 16 models will support Apple Intelligence, the entire line will be equipped with 8GB of DRAM. You might recall that last month, TF International's well-regarded Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said that for iPhone models to support Apple Intelligence, they must carry at least 8GB of DRAM. 

Kuo said that this is why the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, both of which sport 8GB of DRAM, will work with Apple Intelligence and the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus won't. The non-Pro 2023 iPhone models are equipped with 6GB of DRAM.

Returning to the A18 and A18 Pro APs, there has been talk that the chipsets will feature a larger die size so that the component can carry a larger Neural Engine for AI capabilities. Today's report does mention one drawback. The GPU on the A18 and A18 Pro could continue to feature an unchanged six-core configuration from the A17 Pro chipset which might limit any improvement in graphical performance.

While Apple forecasts demand for as many as 100 million iPhone 16 series handsets, earlier this year Kuo said, "It is expected that Apple will not launch new iPhone models with significant design changes and the more comprehensive/differentiated GenAI ecosystem/applications until 2025 at the earliest. Until then, it will likely harm Apple’s iPhone shipment momentum and ecosystem growth."

Kuo did make that statement before Apple announced Apple Intelligence at WWDC last month so it is possible that he will issue a revised estimate of iPhone 16 series sales as we get closer to the September release.