Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) has received another price target cut, this time from FBN Securities. Analysts at SocGen, Credit Suisse Group AG (NYSE:CS) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE:JPM) have all cut their price targets for the stock this week.
FBN Securities analyst Shebly Seyrafi said they lowered their price target from $650 to $575 per share but retained their outperform rating on the stock. They said they’re “impressed” by Apple’s new capital allocation plan, which involves spending $58 billion on buying back its shares through the end of 2015. The plan also includes increasing the company’s quarterly dividend to $3.05 per share—a 15 percent increase. However, in spite of being impressed, they highlighted four main “areas of concern.”
Their first concern is that the delivery of the iPhone 5S and low-cost iPhone’s may be pushed back to the late part of the company’s fiscal fourth quarter or even the early part of its first fiscal quarter. As a result, they lowered their September quarter iPhone estimates from 41 million to 27 million units. They said this will be a problem for investors because they have to wait another quarter compared to previous expectations, in order to see catalysts from the new product begin to work.
Second, they pointed out that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) guided below consensus for its June quarterly revenue. Guidance was for revenue to be between $33.5 and $35.5 billion, which is below the consensus of $38.6 to $39.4 billion. As a result, they also lowered their June quarter iPhone estimates to 26 million from 30 million.
Third, they mentioned the ongoing investor concerns about Apple’s gross margins. The company guided for gross margins of 36 to 37 percent, which is just under the consensus of 38.6 percent. However, they called the guidance “reasonable” because of their reduced iPhone sales estimates.
And finally, they said Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s CEO Tim Cook sees many trade-offs to an iPhone with a larger screen and implied that the company might not come up with a product to compete with Samsung’s larger screen mobile devices anytime soon. They said this could just be posturing so the company doesn’t show its cards but that it could be “a big mistake” if Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is serious about it.
In spite of these concerns, they believe Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL)’s stock should be bottoming out now.
