AAPL
Apple’s next party trick
Apple already sells the world’s most expensive status symbol, and now one analyst thinks it’s about to add a foldable version to the menu. Rothschild & Co’s Timm Schulze-Melander upgraded AAPL to Buy from Neutral and pushed his price target all the way up to $400, saying the market is underestimating how much Apple’s product roadmap could matter.
Why Wall Street cares
The big pitch here isn’t just “cool new phone.” It’s that an ultra-premium foldable iPhone could nudge Apple’s average selling prices higher by 2027, which is Wall Street-speak for: same customer, fatter wallet hit.
Schulze-Melander thinks:
- Apple could sell 14 million foldable iPhone units in fiscal 2027
- ASPs could rise about 11% by June 2027
- Cannibalization from regular iPhones would be relatively small at around 2%
In other words, this isn’t framed as Apple eating its own lunch so much as moving the lunch into a pricier restaurant.
The market might be late to the party
There’s already been chatter from Counterpoint and Ming-Chi Kuo about Apple’s foldable plans and possible supply constraints, which tells you this thing is still more rumor cloud than product launch. But markets love a storyline, and Apple’s storyline is basically a Marvel sequel at this point: new category, premium pricing, and a lot of investor imagination.
The stock was down 0.11% on Monday to $305.59, but it’s still up about 12.76% year to date. So if the foldable thesis keeps building, the question isn’t whether Apple can sell another fancy gadget. It’s whether it can convince investors that the gadget changes the whole profit engine.
Big picture: Apple doesn’t need a blockbuster new category to win — but if it gets one, the market may suddenly decide this “slow-growth” giant has a lot more juice left than it looked like last week.