More bad news from Asian smartphone supply chains has triggered two rounds of cuts in Wall Street’s price targets for Apple, one in December and another this week.
Below: Excerpts from the sell-side analysts’ notes I’ve seen.
Tim Long, BMO: More iPhone Ripple Effects. We are lowering numbers on Apple and the supply chain stocks. We had cut numbers when we went to Asia last month, but clearly we did not go low enough. For AAPL (AAPL), we see the unit weakness as more a function of tough comparisons than a change to secular growth. We reiterate our Outperform rating on the stock. Went to $133 from $142. Outperform.
Timothy Arcuri, Cowen. Roses Do Have Thorns, After All. Post close, two major suppliers (QRVO and CRUS) both negatively priced Dec Q with CRUS indicating weakness “escalated over the last few weeks of December”. QRVO guided CQ1 flat and CRUS did not provide CQ1 guidance, but indicated the weakness is expected to “continue to significantly impact revenue in March Q”. QRVO supplies two chips for 6S/6S+ (power amp module and RF antenna switch), while CRUS supplies two audio applications. In both cases, these are sole sourced and are the same chips globally. While we can’t be sure the miss is wholly attributable to iPhone, AAPL was 41% and 62% customer for QRVO and CRUS respectively in Sept Q. To $125 from $130. Market perform.
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Andy Hargreaves, Pacific Crest: Stop Me If You’ve Heard This; Lowering iPhone Estimates. We are reducing our F2016 iPhone unit estimate to 213 million from 236 million. This suggests a lower trough during the 6s cycle and drives our price target to $132 from $142. Despite the reduction, we continue to view the risk/reward on AAPL positively as we anticipate growth in the 7 cycle, which should drive stock appreciation through 2016. Overweight.
T. Michael Walkley, Canaccord Genuity. Lowering Price Target. With only 31% of the iPhone installed base having upgraded to the iPhone 6/6 Plus devices…, we anticipate solid long-term iPhone sales following potentially down year-over-year sales during 1H/ C2016. We believe the iPhone installed base of roughly 500M exiting C2015 should drive strong future iPhone replacement sales, earnings, as well as cash flow generation to fund strong long-term capital returns programs. We reiterate our BUY rating, but lower our price target. To $146 from $160. Buy.
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Amit Daryanani, RBC. All You Need to Know. While we recognize that the “noise” surrounding AAPL will keep the stock range-bound until we are done with Mar-qtr, we maintain our Outperform rating on AAPL, as we expect demand to recover and y/y growth to resume in Jun-qtr (accelerating) in H2:16. To $130 from $140. Outperform. (Lowered three weeks ago to $140 from $150.)
Alex Gauna, JMP: Investment Highlights. These adjustments are something of a “catch up” move as adverse data points have been accumulating around iPhone demand trends since early December 2015, and with the stock now trading within 5% of 52-week lows, we believe the bad news is now baked into the share price and that investors should consider buying the stock. To $150 from $165. Market outperform.
More as they come in.