Apple (AAPL) Poised to Dominate Humanoid Robot Market—Morgan Stanley Predicts $133B Annual Windfall

Robots are coming for your jobs—and Apple might be holding the leash. Morgan Stanley just slapped a $133 billion-a-year price tag on Apple's potential humanoid robotics play.

Why this isn't science fiction

The same supply chain that pumps out iPhones could pivot to bipedal bots overnight. Tim Cook's army of Foxconn assemblers wouldn't even need new lunch breaks.

The cynical take

Wall Street's latest 'next big thing' conveniently ignores that most humanoids still trip over door thresholds. But when did reality ever stop a good revenue projection? Remember when metaverse consulting was a $1 trillion market?

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Consumer Expertise

A research report from investment bank Morgan Stanley (MS) claims that Apple’s current baby steps approach to humanoids could lead to quite the payback in future years when the technology has fully grown up.

“Leveraging Apple’s market share across a number of leading consumer products today, as well as considering the opportunity to monetize both products and services, we conservatively estimate Apple’s Robotics revenue can reach $130 billion by 2040 in our ‘median case,’ which assumes 9% market share, 15 years from now,” the analysts, including Apple expert Erik Woodring, said.

This WOULD help further diversify Apple’s current revenue stream – see below:

Apple has already reportedly developed technology necessary for robotics, including as part of its now-defunct self-driving car effort. It is understood that it is working on a tabletop robotic arm attached to an iPad-like display that can turn toward you when you’re speaking to it.

“By 2040, we estimate 415,000 annual and 1.6 million cumulative US household humanoid units are adopted, representing a 1.65% household penetration rate,” Woodring wrote. “By this time, we estimate the average selling price of a humanoid at ~$30K, which likely will continue to decline over time.”

According to the analysts, Apple has a number of weapons in its arsenal that could make it a major player in the humanoid robotics space, including its $130 billion in cash and equivalents and a massive install base of 2.3 billion devices.

Humanoids Race

Apple’s Californian buddies are also developing their own humanoid friends, notably Tesla (TSLA) and its Optimus humanoid robot.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, who won his mega pay package battle yesterday, has claimed that about 80% of Tesla’s long-term value will come from Optimus.

Musk has said that Optimus units are already doing simple work in Tesla facilities. He has projected production of 5,000 robots in 2025, scaling to 1 million per year by 2029.

Foxconn is also planning to deploy humanoid robots at its Nvidia (NVDA) AI server plant in the U.S., based on Nvidia’s own robotic technology.

China is also rapidly developing humanoids through companies such as Unitree, XPeng (XPEV) and JD.com (JD).

All are seeking to lead the race in a market which, according to Morgan Stanley will see the number of robots that resemble and act like humans likely to reach nearly 1 billion by 2050.

It added that the humanoids market could surpass $5 trillion by 2050, including sales from supply chains and networks for repair, maintenance, and support.

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