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Rating Summary:
50 Buy, 8 Hold, 1 Sell
Rating Trend: = Flat
Today’s Overall Ratings:
While Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is under heavy pressure early Monday on reports from the Wall Street Journal of component cuts, investors in the know may realize that this information is a month old.
Jefferies analyst Peter Misek picked up on the component order cuts in mid-December. In a December 14th note to clients, Misek said:
“Our checks indicate the builds at the assemblers (Hon Hai, Pegatron, Jabil) have remained constant since then. But in the last 24-48 hours, component suppliers have seen large order cuts as the assembly bottleneck has not improved as much as hoped. We believe assembly is currently ~15M iPhone 5 handsets per month with a target of 20M/month in January. We had thought Apple would be further along the assembly ramp at this point and believe Apple will see extra charges due to the excess component inventory.”
Also 10 days ago, Deutsche Bank’s Japan team noted major component order cuts. In a January 4 note to clients, the analysts noted:
“1Q 2013 (current quarter) production of electronic components and materials for Apple’s mobile products is exposed to major adjustment risk. This is the result of sales to end-2012 having not been as strong as expected. We view 4Q 2012 production and shipments for iPhone 5 as having been slightly under 40m on a finished product basis, and around 45m on a major device basis, close to the upper limit expected one month previously. Value chain movements, however, suggest a QoQ decrease of more than 30% for 1Q 2013 to respective figures of 28-30m and 25-27m.”
A few analysts have already come out in Apple’s defense this morning. More will likely follow.
Shares of Apple last traded at $502.98, down 3.33%.
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