Loop Capital downgrades Apple to Hold and cuts its target to $330, saying 13 million cut iPhones will not come backLoop Capital downgrades Apple to Hold and cuts its target to $330, saying 13 million cut iPhones will not come back

Loop Capital analyst Ananda Baruah has downgraded Apple from Buy to Hold and cut his price target from $370 to $330, in a note reported on 20 October.

The reason is a claim about Apple's production plans. Loop says its supply chain checks show Apple has no plan to make up the 13 million iPhones removed from its shipment plans for the second half of 2026. That is an analyst's reading of what suppliers told the firm, with no documents shown, so in the grading we use for leaks it is unverified: nothing outside Loop's own checks corroborates it, and none of the reports we read carries a response from Apple. The cut itself is also Loop's figure, roughly 10 per cent of planned shipments for the September and December quarters, not a number Apple has published.

What made Loop Capital change its mind?

Loop had treated that cut as a supply problem. Investing.com and ZeroHedge both report that the firm first blamed shortages of memory and processors, which meant the phones would simply be built later, and Loop expected Apple to recover many of them through 2027. Its latest checks say otherwise. "This no longer appears to be the case," Baruah wrote, as quoted by Investing.com.

The note also flags a risk to Apple's gross margin, the share of each sale left after the cost of making the product, because memory prices are still rising. ZeroHedge reports Baruah called that secondary to the call. He still likes what he describes as Apple's "longer-term share gain and Services story", Investing.com reports, but says the shares now need "a fundamental catalyst reset" after their recent run.

Loop Capital's new iPhone estimates

Investing.com and ZeroHedge between them report these changes.

The target is 30 times that normalised figure, which Loop says is Apple's median price-to-earnings multiple. Investing.com also reports that Loop raised its 2027 unit forecast to 260 million, without giving the old number.

Do Loop Capital's numbers add up?

We multiplied the note's figures out, and they hold together. 79 million phones at $1,123 each is $88.7 billion, the December-quarter revenue in the table. 260 million at $1,096 comes to $285 billion. Working backwards, the old $315 billion at $1,235 a phone implies about 255 million iPhones, so Loop now expects slightly more iPhones in 2027 than it did, sold at an average price about 11 per cent lower. The whole cut to 2027 iPhone revenue comes from price, not from the number of phones.

Our take

That last point is the most revealing thing in the note, and none of the reports explains it. We read it as a bet on the mix of models. Apple's September launch had no standard iPhone 18, which MacRumors, relaying Nikkei's report, says is now expected in spring 2027 alongside the iPhone 18e. If cheaper models carry more of 2027's sales, more phones at a lower average price is the result. On that reading the 13 million phones cut from the autumn line-up do not come back as Pro models, and some of that demand returns as cheaper ones. That is our inference, not Loop's stated reasoning.

The change of view also closes a gap between two supply chain readings. Loop blamed parts shortages; Nikkei Asia's suppliers, who said Apple had cut October iPhone 18 Pro component orders by at least 15 per cent, blamed buyers put off by the $100 price rise. A shortage delays sales, while weak demand loses them, and phones that are never made up look to us like lost sales. Two separate supply chain accounts pointing the same way is more than either alone, though neither is Apple's word, and Apple's market share can still rise, as Counterpoint found when iPhone reached a record 22 per cent of a shrinking market.

For anyone who owns or is choosing an iPhone, a rating change alters nothing: prices and availability are Apple's decisions, not an analyst's. For anyone holding Apple shares, this is one firm's target sitting close to the average, not a sell call. The useful test comes when Apple reports on 2 November, John Ternus's first results as chief executive. Apple reports iPhone revenue rather than a count of phones, so units will stay a matter of estimates. What can be checked is Apple's outlook for the December quarter and anything Ternus says about iPhone demand. APPDOOK will treat a confident holiday outlook as a sign that Loop's checks are too gloomy, and a cautious one as support for them.