Best of the Week: The Duo, the debut, and Apple's ₹3 lakh phone launch

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Apple's "Surprise and Shine" event on 9 September delivered exactly what its name promised, a phone that folds like a passport, a new chief executive stepping into the spotlight for the first time, and pricing that will make even loyal Apple fans pause before pulling out their wallets. This was the biggest design shift in the iPhone's history, and it landed at a moment when Apple desperately needed a headline-grabbing moment.

Let's start with the star of the show, the iPhone Duo. This is Apple's first foldable phone, and its first genuinely new hardware category since the Vision Pro headset in 2024. Unfold it, and you get a spacious 7.6-inch display, practically iPad Mini territory. Folded shut, you're looking at a 5.4-inch outer screen, similar in size to the iPhone Air. It's built with titanium, runs on the new A20 Pro chip with serious thermal management to prevent overheating during folds, and packs a dual 48MP Fusion camera system. Storage goes all the way up to 2TB, for anyone who genuinely needs that much space.

In India, the Duo starts at ₹2.99 lakh. That's not a typo. Nearly three lakh rupees for Apple's entry-level foldable configuration, making it the most expensive iPhone Apple has ever sold in the country. Pre-orders open 16 October, with the phone hitting shelves on 23 October, both in India and the US.

Will Indians actually buy it? Analysts think so, cautiously. Counterpoint Research and IDC estimate India’s foldable smartphone market will reach 1.2 million units by 2027, with the Duo alone potentially accounting for up to 200,000 of those, or roughly a fifth of the market, in its first year. That would be a strong showing for a first-generation product. But as IDC’s Navkendar Singh points out, even Apple’s loyal users may wait to see how the Duo performs in the real world before committing to that kind of spend. Fair enough.

Beyond the fold, Apple also refreshed its bread-and-butter Pro lineup. The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max now run on that same A20 Pro chip, built on a cutting-edge 2nm process, and bring a new variable-aperture 48MP Fusion camera capable of opening up to f/1.48 for genuinely better low-light shots. The vapour-chamber cooling system triples in surface area, and the new C2 modem promises 15% better energy efficiency alongside faster uploads. These will be available in India from September 18, priced at ₹1,64,900 for the Pro and ₹1,79,900 for the Pro Max.

There's no base iPhone 18 this cycle, a genuine first for Apple. Industry sources suggest a standard model might arrive at a separate event in March, though Apple hasn't confirmed anything.

On the wearables side, the Apple Watch Series 12 brings what Apple calls its most accurate heart-rate sensing system yet, while the rugged Ultra 4 is built for extreme conditions. And the new AirPods 5 finally bring Active Noise Cancellation to Apple's open-ear design, making them the most accessible product from the entire keynote.

Apple also showed off upgraded Siri AI capabilities, a not-so-subtle nod to catching up with OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic in the generative AI race.

But perhaps the real story here isn't the hardware at all, it's the man who presented it. This was John Ternus's first major keynote as CEO, having taken over from Tim Cook on 1 September. Cook's fifteen-year run transformed Apple from a $350 billion company into one worth nearly $4.7 trillion, and India was arguably his most personal long-term bet.

He once told an interviewer Apple was "in India for the next thousand years," and the numbers back that patience. India now produces roughly 55 million iPhones a year, about a quarter of Apple's global output, while contributing meaningfully to a market where Apple, despite low unit share, commands 28% of value.

So Ternus inherits a company at an inflection point. Reliant on the iPhone, playing catch-up on AI, and still untangling itself from China even as India's role keeps growing. The Duo is his opening statement. Whether it becomes Apple's next big category, or an expensive experiment few can afford, will say a lot about where Ternus wants to take the company next.

On to the best of Mint’s journalism from this week:

More retail investors bought HDFC Bank, but the stock barely moved

HDFC Bank's retail shareholder base has more than tripled since Sashidhar Jagdishan became CEO in October 2020, from 1.27 million to 4.41 million. Yet the stock has gained just 18% through 4 September. What's going on? Part of the answer is the 2023 HDFC Ltd merger, which automatically handed bank shares to Housing Finance shareholders, no fresh buying decision required. That single event added over 1.8 million shareholders across two quarters.

But even stripping that out, HDFC Bank still added 1.01 million retail investors pre-merger, and the base has kept growing since, adding 868,576 more in just the first half of 2026. While shareholder count exploded, actual retail ownership crept up by barely a percentage point, from 9.19% to 10.32%. Everyone's buying small.

A missing email reopens the Tata Sons wealth-advisory case

Tata Sons cleared aide Suprakash Mukhopadhyay of serious wrongdoing last year. But a newly reviewed email suggests the probe may have missed something important.

Trustee Darius Khambata, it turns out, was one of the people solicited by Mukhopadhyay’s family firm, Divinion Advisory. Mukhopadhyay’s daughter approached Khambata about investing without disclosing the family connection. Khambata invested, later learnt of the connection and redeemed his units, then flagged the episode to fellow trustees, urging that chairman N. Chandrasekaran be questioned directly.

Did the internal panel that cleared Mukhopadhyay ever see the email? It’s unclear. The three-member committee never contacted Khambata. The panel found “lapses” but no “intentional breach”. Legal experts aren’t convinced that’s good enough.

How a bad report card toppled Coforge's Chairman

O.P. Bhatt's 27-month run as Coforge chairman ended abruptly on 8 September, and the real story is messier than a simple resignation. Just weeks after a board committee, including Advent International's own nominee, approved his second term, Advent flipped and voted no, denying Bhatt the 75% shareholder approval needed. The reason traces back to KPMG's internal audit. It found Bhatt had received the lowest rating in his own board evaluation report, yet never disclosed this to the board. Coforge's board sought an explanation; Bhatt resigned instead, at 3am, then went silent.

Are India's board evaluations actually rigorous, or just a box-ticking exercise? Marico's Harsh Mariwala rates Indian boards at just 2-2.5 out of 5 on effectiveness, calling the current Sebi-format process due for an overhaul. Governance experts agree Bhatt deserved more time, but also that a second term shouldn't have happened if findings were real. Coforge stock fell to a three-week low, though analysts remain unfazed.

Brics' growing clout, shrinking unity

The 18th Brics Summit lands in Delhi on 12-13 September at a genuinely tricky moment. The bloc has grown from five nations to 11, now commanding 29.1% of global GDP, up sharply from 19.7% in 2009, and closing the gap with the G7. Impressive numbers, but does a bigger table mean more disagreement too? It seems to. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Iran, split by the ongoing West Asia war, couldn't even agree on a joint statement at May's foreign ministers' meeting in Delhi, forcing India to settle for a chair's statement instead. Add India-China rivalry to the mix, and consensus looks harder than ever.

Intra-bloc trade has tripled since 2009, outpacing the G20 and EU, and de-dollarization efforts, however uneven, are quietly gaining ground. Still, India's own ties with Brics remain lopsided, far more imports than exports.

Also read: Delhi hotel rates soar to ₹2 lakh a night in Brics bookings rush

The gap between India's GDP and its ground reality

India posted 7.8% growth in the April-June quarter of fiscal year 2027 (FY27), and the government celebrated. But look closer, and two very different stories emerge, one about whether growth is being measured accurately, and another about whether it's actually being felt.

Start with the numbers. India shifted to a new GDP methodology this year, meant to fix long-standing data quality issues the International Monetary Fund (IMF) had flagged. This made the economy smaller than previously estimated, an unusual outcome, since most countries see upward revisions after such updates. Adding to the confusion, the latest quarter's deflator came in at just 2.3%, even as retail inflation ran at 3.9% and wholesale inflation hit 9.4%.

Experts say this reflects a shift to double deflation, a more accurate method, but former chief statistician Pronab Sen questions how quickly the Producer Price Index got folded in without much transparency.

Honda wants a comeback. India may not wait

Honda Cars India is mounting an ambitious comeback, but its new boss Toshiyuki Yanagisawa has little time to make it work. The company’s market share has plunged from 4.2% in FY20 to just 1.3% in FY26 after it missed India’s diesel and SUV shifts and shrank its lineup.

Now Honda is planning more than 10 launches by 2030, including hybrids and EVs, while setting up a captive finance arm to woo buyers. The catch? Its first India-specific models are due only in 2028, leaving rivals plenty of time to strengthen their lead. For Honda, the next few years could decide whether it makes a comeback or remains a niche player.

Adani Power has found a formula for distressed assets

Adani Power has turned India’s bankruptcy law into a powerful growth engine, using the insolvency process to acquire stranded power plants cheaply and revive them. Its proposed ₹5,725-crore takeover of GVK Energy would be its eighth such acquisition, taking total capacity added through the route to 6.1GW. A third of its 18.3GW operational capacity now comes from these distressed assets. The strategy is about more than bargain hunting.

Adani Power has also improved utilization and profitability at acquired plants, with Mahan Energen’s Ebitda rising to ₹1,600 crore in FY26 from ₹550 crore in 2021. The company plans to expand capacity to 42GW by FY32.

Argentina wants to be India’s next lithium lifeline

Argentina is pitching itself as a reliable supplier of lithium, copper and oil and gas as India tries to diversify critical-mineral and energy supplies. The South American nation, part of the lithium-rich triangle with Bolivia and Chile, is seeking greater Indian investment while reducing its own dependence on China as a lithium buyer. India’s lithium imports from Argentina rose 31% to $46.91 million in FY26, while crude imports nearly doubled to $110 million. State-owned KABIL has already begun exploring five lithium-bearing blocks in Catamarca.

Experts say India should go beyond extraction and invest in processing, batteries and other value-added products to reduce dependence on China.

India’s power demand is rising. Coal stocks are falling

India’s power demand has surged above 255GW in early September, pushing electricity shortages above 20 million units and leaving 58 thermal plants with critically low coal stocks. A weaker monsoon is driving the squeeze on both sides. Farmers are using more groundwater pumps to irrigate paddy fields, while hotter, more humid weather is boosting air-conditioner use. At the same time, weaker rainfall has cut hydropower generation, while monsoon disruptions slowed coal production and transport.

Coal supplies are now being ramped up, with miners increasing output and railway shipments. The situation is not yet a full-blown power crisis, but shortages and load shedding could persist through September.

Small caps are hot. Investors are chasing

Investors are moving towards riskier small- and mid-cap mutual funds, lured by their recent outperformance, while large-cap funds face renewed withdrawals. Large-cap schemes saw ₹1,147 crore of net outflows in August, following ₹1,322 crore in July. Meanwhile, small-cap funds attracted a two-year-high ₹7,973 crore, while mid-cap funds drew ₹6,989 crore. Since April, the Nifty Smallcap 250 and Midcap 250 have gained 25% and 15.7%, respectively, far ahead of the Nifty 50’s 3.3%.

Fund managers warn this could be performance-chasing as valuations look stretched. Investors should favour SIPs and maintain a seven-year horizon rather than chase recent returns.

That’s all from us this week. Subscribe to our newsletters and the website for what’s in the news and beyond it. Write to us at newsletters@livemint.com.