Regular iPhone 18 nears production in large quanties, says obvious leak

Sometimes you don't need inside sources to be a "leaker," you just need a calendar. Right on cue, a leaker is claiming that the iPhone 18 will shortly be produced en masse.

Just as was rumored for a year, Apple split its 2026 iPhone launch in two. The second wave of iPhones features the base iPhone 18 and is expected in spring 2027.

Now leaker Fixed Focus Digital has claimed on the Chinese social media platform Weibo that this model will enter mass manufacturing presently.

"The standard version of [iPhone] 18 is scheduled for production," says the leaker (in machine translation), "and judging by the inventory levels, the stockpile is quite substantial."

It would be. In previous years, it has always been the case that it's the Pro and Pro Max models of the iPhone that are the big sellers from launch up to Christmas. Then the tide shifts in February or so, and the base or regular model becomes the top seller.

This time there is a question over whether buyers who would normally have gone for the base model may have bought the iPhone 18 Pro instead. But it's unlikely to have been a significant percentage, and so Apple can reasonably forecast similar volumes for the iPhone 18 as for the iPhone 17.

Those volumes are huge, too, so obviously the stockpile of components will be large. Then in order to have the iPhone 18 ready for sale in spring 2027, production must start months ahead.

So a report saying that iPhone 18 production is to begin in November and there will be substantial numbers made, is not startling.

But at least it presumably means that manufacturing is on schedule for the new base iPhone.

Note that Fixed Focus Digital has a mixed track record, but they were correct when they said that rumors of an iPhone Duo delay were false.