Asymco Bulletin 018 - June 21, 2026
by Horace Dediu
Asymco Bulletin is a digest of all the work we have published for the week ending June 21, 2026.
Asymetric
Asymetric Podcast: Episode 138 — Watershed → Horace on WWDC 2026, John Ternus's timing, what we can learn from the candy bar, and Judd's indifference to origami. Also, World Cup predictions.
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Research
The range of options has run out. When will Apple raise prices?
Tim Cook told the Wall Street Journal that price increases are unavoidable as Apple's range of options on memory costs has run out. WSJ estimates a $270 increase in the next iPhone Pro to maintain margins; another estimate puts it at $140 per average iPhone, which Apple could pass through with lower margins but unchanged cash flow. Either way, smaller vendors face an existential problem at $300 ASPs. This memory crunch is a hundred-year flood driven by AI demand, and the eventual drought will not arrive until at least 2028. →
Nota Bene
TD Cowen and Morgan Stanley increase Price Targets → TD Cowen raised Apple's target to $350 and Morgan Stanley took base to $360 with a $440 bull case, calling WWDC a chance to reframe Apple as an AI winner. The new average target is $305 with 34 published targets and 41 analysts following. In 2018 half of analysts also rated Apple hold or sell at the trillion-dollar milestone, and nothing changed. →
Office Hours
What's a billion between friends? → Bob V asked about the Apple-Google deal for the frontier model. People assumed far more than is actually happening: this is a narrow technology license, Google gets no data, and the contribution is swappable. What's a billion between friends? →
Where is the monetization? Follow the compute → Roger asked where AI monetization comes from beyond hardware. Follow the compute: if it is on-device, Apple bundles it; if it is in the cloud through an app or Siri, the user pays a subscription and Apple takes its usual distribution commission. The Services business does not need new economics, and the App Store may show another kink the way it did when subscriptions became dominant. →
Why is Apple selling hygiene? → Greg asked why Apple spent so much time on child safety at WWDC. Safety is hygiene, like plumbing, only noticed when it fails, and almost never marketable. Apple spending fifteen laborious minutes on it was not aimed at consumers, it was a message to policymakers that the custodian is doing its job. →
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