Apple rises even as Barclays notes December likely to see lower supply, 'waning demand'
grinvalds

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares rose fractionally in premarket trading on Monday as Barclays said December revenue figures from from its Taiwanese suppliers are likely to continue the weakness seen in November, citing continued supply disruptions and "waning demand."
Analyst Tim Long, who has an equal-weight rating and $144 price target on Apple (AAPL), noted that demand for iPhone is likely to be "perishable," given the supply chain disruptions at Foxconn's Zhengzhou, China plant, where the vast majority of iPhone production is believed to occur. Long, unlike many analysts does not believe the demand moves to Apple's (AAPL) fiscal second-quarter.
"Based on our channel check conversations, Zhengzhou plant utilization reached about 30% last week, after exiting November at a 20% utilization rate," Long wrote in a note to clients.
"We estimate the utilization could be 50% by late December and our base case is that utilization wonât return to normal until sometime late January, at the earliest." 
As such, Long estimated that the Wall Street estimate of 78M iPhones shipped in the current quarter could wind up missing by as many as 15M to 20M, as Foxconn is unable to ramp as fast as previously expected. 
"Recent lackluster sell-through data out of China (we have heard of declines of 20%-50% [year-over-year] recently), especially with notable [iPhone 14] and [iPhone 14] Plus demand weakness, also confirms our negative bias in the near term," Long added.
Last week, Apple (AAPL) and Ericsson (ERIC) signed a global patent cross-license agreement for the latter's patented cellular standard -essential technologies.