Wedbush Securities said on Friday that iPhone shortages have gotten worse in the past week, as protests continue at Foxconn, which builds smart phones for Apple Inc.
Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives said on Friday that he has an outperform rating and $200 price target on Apple AAPL but said that his analysis of iPhone 14 Pro shortages and longer wait times for devices shows very low inventories across the board.
Many Apple Stores now have iPhone 14 Pro shortages based on model color storage of up to 25% -- 30% below normal heading into December, which is not a good sign for Cupertino, Ives said.
Apple's shares fell 2.2% on Friday as the worst performer among the 30 stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, which rose about - 0.5%.
China locks down despite criticism of COVID cases as COVID cases rise.
There were protests at Foxconn's main iPhone production site in Zhengzhou, with wait times now up to 40 days for a new iPhone 14 Pro.
Wedbush believes that Apple will sell eight million iPhones over the Black Friday weekend, which would be down from 10 million last year.
Ives believes that production challenges could affect about 5% of iPhone 14 units out of the supply chain, and hand Apple a major shortage in December.
If Zhengzhou remains at lower capacity for the next few weeks and continues to see the unrest build with workers, this would cause major iPhone Pro shortages in the U.S. Ives said.
The latest developments on the Foxconn worker unrest story are not particularly encouraging, however.
An unnamed source said in November the flagship iPhone plant in Zhengzhou is facing a further drop in November shipments of more than 30%, compared to an earlier estimate of up to 30%.
Best Buy Co. Inc., BBY, projected short supply of high-end iPhone at stores during the current shopping season.
Apple and Foxconn didn't make a statement, Reuters reported.