Apple guidance to miss on weak hardware demand, says Barclays

Barclays sees Apple reporting an in-line March quarter and expects its June quarter guide will miss Street estimates due to softening hardware demand, which would continue a multi-quarter trend. The firm continues to hear of lower iPhone15 builds and an “evolutionary” iPhone 16 cycle with “very limited” artificial intelligence content. Barclays’ latest checks indicate iPhone 15 sell-through in China continues to show double-digit declines on a year-over-year basis over the last few weeks, after being down 20% in Q1, with a higher mix of the base models, leading to negative mix shift and margin headwinds, with likely selling price declines on a year-over-year basis, the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm keeps an Underweight rating on Apple with a $158 price target.