- Apple stock fell Thursday after Bloomberg reported the company is seeing weaker demand for its iPhone 13 lineup.
- The report said Apple has told suppliers about the slowdown taking place for the hard-to-find smartphone.
- Apple previously said sales have been hurt by the ongoing global chip shortage.
Apple stock fell Thursday after a Bloomberg report said the company is telling suppliers it's seeing a slowdown in demand for the iPhone 13 despite the year-end holiday shopping rush.
The new smartphone lineup launched in September, and Apple's warning about weakened demand indicates that some consumers have since decided not to seek out the hard-to-find item.
The company was already expected to slash its 2021 production goal for iPhone 13 by as many as 10 million units, from a target of 90 million, because of a lack of parts, Bloomberg reported in October. There were expectations that supply would improve next year, allowing Apple to make up for the lower production. But now Apple is telling vendors that orders may not materialize, the Bloomberg report said, citing unnamed sources.
A global chip shortage was affecting most of Apple's products, CEO Tim Cook told Reuters in late October. He also said on an October conference call that supply chain issues had cost Apple $6 billion in sales in the fiscal fourth quarter that ended September 15.
The stock was down 2.9% Thursday and had lost as much as 4.2% when it hit $157.80. It was just in the previous session that it reached a record intraday high of $170.30.
But Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a note published Thursday said its iPhone 13 checks "continue to be much stronger than expected." And even with the chip shortage, it foresees Apple selling more than 40 million iPhones during the holiday season.
The "underlying iPhone 13 demand story for Cupertino both domestically and in China is trending well ahead of Street expectations in our opinion," wrote Ives. "We estimate in China alone there are roughly 15 million iPhone 13 upgrades for the December quarter as this key region remains a major source of strength for Apple heading into 2022 and beyond."
Wedbush raised its price target on Apple stock to $200 from $185 and sees the company reaching a $3 trillion market capitalization in 2022.
The stock this year through Wednesday had gained 25%, helped in part by a nine-session winning streak that ended on November 24.