Loop Capital has downgraded Apple stock to Hold from Buy and lowered its price target to $330 from $370. The firm now expects Apple to leave 13 million cut iPhone shipments unrecovered.
Analyst Ananda Baruah made the call in a note to investors on Tuesday, reported by Investing.com. Apple had reduced September and December quarter iPhone shipments by 10%, and Loop assumed the company could build back many of those units through 2027 because the cuts were tied to memory and processor supply.
Loop Capital no longer expects Apple to recover 13 million iPhones
Baruah told investors that the recovery Loop had counted on is off the table. “This no longer appears to be the case,” Baruah wrote.
Loop’s supply chain checks show Apple has no plans to make up the 13 million iPhone shipments it cut in the second half of 2026. The firm lowered its normalized EPS estimate for Apple to $11 from $12, and the new $330 target applies Apple’s median price-to-earnings multiple of 30 times to that figure.
Loop also flagged gross margin risk as memory costs keep rising. IDC’s latest tracker data puts memory costs up approximately 350% since last year and still climbing, and the firm does not expect a market recovery before 2028.
The $330 target sits below the $343.46 close Apple shares posted on Friday, October 16. It also follows reports from earlier this month that Apple cut orders for the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max by at least 15%.
Loop’s December quarter forecast is 6 million iPhones below Wall Street
Loop now models 79 million iPhone units for the December quarter, compared with 85 million on the Street. It cut its average selling price estimate for the quarter to $1,123 from $1,239, which works out to roughly $88.7 billion in iPhone revenue.
The calendar 2027 changes come mostly from pricing:
- A unit forecast raised to 260 million iPhones
- An average selling price estimate of $1,096, down from $1,235
- iPhone revenue of $285 billion, down from $315 billion
- An EPS estimate of $9.76, down from $10.11
For comparison, GF Securities expects Apple to ship 257 million iPhones in 2026, up 4% from 2025, which would make Apple the only major phone maker growing this year.
Apple’s December quarter carries a split iPhone launch
Loop’s cut lands while Apple’s iPhone lineup is staggered. Apple launched the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max in September, the iPhone Duo goes on sale October 23, and the standard iPhone 18 is expected in spring 2027.
iPhone Duo pre-orders opened on October 16 with prices starting at $1,999, and delivery estimates for every configuration quickly slipped to January 25. JP Morgan had already trimmed its December quarter expectations because of the split launch, and it expects the iPhone Duo to cover part of the gap at about 8.5 million units.
Apple reports fiscal fourth-quarter results on Monday, November 2. The call starts at 2:00 p.m. PT and will be John Ternus’s first as CEO.
