We prove that a map germ $$f:(\mathbb {C}^n,S)\rightarrow (\mathbb {C}^{n+1},0)$$
f
:
(
C
n
,
S
)
→
(
C
n
+
1
,
0
)
with isolated instability is stable if and only if $$\mu _I(f)=0$$
μ
I
(
f
)
=
0
, where $$\mu _I(f)$$
μ
I
(
f
)
is the image Milnor number defined by Mond. In a previous paper we proved this result with the additional assumption that f has corank one. The proof here is also valid for corank $$\ge 2$$
≥
2
, provided that $$(n,n+1)$$
(
n
,
n
+
1
)
are nice dimensions in Mather’s sense (so $$\mu _I(f)$$
μ
I
(
f
)
is well defined). Our result can be seen as a weak version of a conjecture by Mond, which says that the $$\mathscr {A}_e$$
A
e
-codimension of f is $$\le \mu _I(f)$$
≤
μ
I
(
f
)
, with equality if f is weighted homogeneous. As an application, we deduce that the bifurcation set of a versal unfolding of f is a hypersurface.