Apple's Foldable Could Lift iPhone Prices 11%, Redburn Says

GuruFocus··US·Read original
3▲2 ▼1Impact / 5
Summary · why it matters

Apple drew an upgrade to Buy from Neutral at Rothschild & Co Redburn, which raised its price target to $400 from $260. Analysts led by Timm Schulze-Melander forecast 14 million units of the foldable iPhone Ultra in fiscal 2027, with only 4 million taken from existing iPhone sales, at a price of $2,199. That's an 83% premium to the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and Redburn expects it to lift iPhone average selling prices 11% by June 2027. Its iPhone revenue forecasts run 3% to 14% above consensus through fiscal 2030. Redburn says Apple Intelligence has disappointed, leaving Apple reliant on a custom Alphabet Gemini model to power Siri at a cost of roughly $1 billion a year, paid to the same company that sends Apple $27.5 billion annually for search placement. The suggested fix is adopting open-source models, possibly with Nvidia, whose Nemotron models Redburn says matches closed, frontier model performance. Risks flagged include production delays, display crease visibility and hinge durability.

Impact on assets 4

Artificial Intelligence± Mixed · 4 stocks
Apple Inc.
AAPL
▲ PositiveCapitalrelevance

Upgrade to Buy with price target raised to $400, citing foldable iPhone potential to lift ASPs.

Alphabet Inc Class C
GOOG
▼ NegativeDemandrelevance

Apple's reliance on Alphabet's Gemini model for Siri, with $1B annual cost, highlights dependency but also potential revenue from AI services.

NVIDIA Corporation
NVDA
▲ PositiveTechnologyrelevance

Redburn suggests Apple adopt Nvidia's open-source Nemotron models, potentially creating partnership opportunity.

Theme Impact 2

Off-coverage companies 1

Rothschild & Co RedburnPrivate± Mixed
relevance

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