UBS analyst Timothy Arcuri lowered his estimates for Apple (AAPL) citing cuts in the company’s supply chain. The analyst believes Apple in the past week has cut 6M-7M out of the original 63M build for new iPhone models, with the cut evenly split between the XS Max and XR models. On a net basis, however, this cut is slightly offset by a few million more older phones, Arcuri tells investors in a research note.
The analyst’s overall calendar Q4 estimate for iPhone units for sell-in go from 75M to 73.5M along with a slight reduction in average selling price. He also dropped his calendar Q1 unit estimate to 46.7M from 53.3M and Q2 estimate to 37.5M from 41.7M. The analyst notes that these cuts are “significantly” less than Lumentum’s (LITE) negative preannouncement would imply and still a little less than the 10M implied by Qorvo (QRVO). Nonetheless, Arcuri thinks there is an “inventory component that is still negatively affecting the supply chain.”
The analyst dropped his price target for Apple to $225 from $240 while keeping a Buy rating on the shares. The iPhone maker closed yesterday down $1.94 to $192.23.
