Sticking With This Apple Price Target After Foldable iPhone Duo Reveal

Apple (AAPL) has concluded its “Surprise and Shine” event and, as widely expected. the company unveiled its latest iPhone Pro models, new Air Pod 5 configurations, the new Apple Watch 12 and… the foldable iPhone, dubbed iPhone Duo.

All in all, it was pretty much what the rumors and innuendos suggested we would see today. Some of the products, like the iPhone Pro and Pro Max, will be available on September 18, which means a modest contribution to the current quarters. Others, like the iPhone Duo, won’t hit shelves unit late October, which means their presence and uptake will be felt in the final calendar quarter of the year. Said another way, the Duo will be shipping in time for the year-end holiday shopping season.

As we suspected it would, when discussing the new price points for the iPhone 18 Pro models, Apple trotted out its new Apple Upgrade program, the one that is partnered with Klarna (KLAR). What’s interesting is the base iPhone 18 Pro model starts at $1,199 or $34.99 through the Apple Upgrade program. The Duo, which offers a larger inner display of 7.6” and is 80% larger than the iPhone Pro, starts at $1,999 or $83.99 per month for 24 months under Apple Upgrade. Arguably still pricey, but not too pricey to prevent the Apple faithful from buying it.

We will say that Apple not only showed off the updated Apple Intelligence and Siri AI with the new iPhone and Apple Watch products, but the iPhone Duo presentation was slick in how it showcased the foldable design and multiscreen capabilities. In our view, those demonstrations, not the technical specification presentations, paired with the Apple Upgrade program are likely to kick start the iPhone upgrade cycle.

Estimates suggest that roughly 2.5 billion of the more than 3 billion iPhone sold are not capable of running Apple Intelligence. For some context, in 2025 Apple sold, depending on the source, between 241 million and 247 million iPhones. That’s quite a bit of pent up demand.

With the average age between three and a half and four years for an iPhone to be upgraded, and the focus Apple is putting on its Apple Upgrade program, the time for the next Apple upgrade cycle looks pretty good. We’ll have greater confirmation of that once these new models hit shelves and initial reviews are in hand, but color us cautiously optimistic. As that happens, we’ll be looking to tear down analysis of these new models, which should help ballpark Apple’s margins.

For now, we’ll maintain our $350 AAPL price target, but as we gauge the response of the new models in the wild, we’ll look to revisit that target. Between now and then, if AAPL shares retreat near $305 and data points are favorable, that would give us ample room to consider upgrading the shares to a One rating.

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At the time of publication, TheStreet Pro Portfolio was long AAPL.