An extremum method is presented to predict the wrinkling characteristics of the inflated cone in bending. The wrinkling factor is firstly defined so as to obtain the wrinkling condition. The initial wrinkling location is then determined by searching the maximum of the wrinkling factor. The critical wrinkling load is finally obtained by determining the ratio of the wrinkling moment versus the initial wrinkling location. The extremum method is proposed based on the assumption of membrane material of beam wall, and it is extended to consider beam wall with thin-shell material in the end. The nondimensional analyses show that the initial wrinkling location is closely related to the taper ratio. When the taper ratio is higher than the critical value, the initial wrinkles will be initiated at a different location. The nondimensional critical wrinkling load nonlinearly increases as the taper ratio increases firstly, and then linearly increases after the critical taper ratio. The critical taper ratio reflects the highest load-carrying efficiency of the inflated cone in bending, and it can be regarded as a measure to optimize the geometry of the inflated cone. The comparative analysis shows fairly good agreement between analytical and numerical results. Over the whole range of the comparison, the mean differences are lower than 3%. This gives confidence to use extremum method for bending-wrinkling analysis of inflated conical cantilever beam.