Bank of America has slightly trimmed its stock target for Apple from $325 to $320, due to Apple shifting its iPhone release schedule to delay the non-Pro iPhone 18 into early 2027.

Bank of America has a generally favorable view of Apple, after shooting its price target up from $270 to $320 in October 2025 over its long-term strategy. Expectations are being curtailed slightly in a recent note to investors from BoA, but only by a very small amount.

Tuesday's note from BoA is a minimal lowering of the share price target that it had raised in November, from a price target of $320 to $325. Now, the analysts have reduced Apple's price target back down to $320.

Despite the reduction, Apple is still given a "Buy" rating by Bank of America.

Schedule and price target tweaks

In explaining the trimmed price target, the note discusses Apple's release schedule for its future baseline iPhone models.

Apple is expected to bring out the iPhone Fold in the fall, with analyst Wamsi Mohan's checks in Asia indicating that the model will "likely" arrive in 2026. Supply chain sources point to Apple launching the iPhone Fold alongside the Pro models during the usual September timeframe.

The initial demand for the iPhone Fold will be strong, the note adds, with expectations of shipments in the range of 10 million to 20 million units.

To make way and to prevent the fall launches being cluttered with models, BoA believes in rumors that Apple will be shifting its release schedule to compensate. The base iPhone model, the next version of the iPhone Air, and the "e" model will instead launch in the first half of 2027.

The change shifts expectations of unit shipments from the September and December timeframe to the March quarter. This is a significant change in seasonality for Apple's finances, which usually centers around a high year's-end quarter.

The result is for a push out of revenue for the 2026 fiscal year. That means lower units and revenues for that period.

It's this staggered launch and associated gross margin changes that has led to the refreshed price target. In BoA's calculation, it's using a $9.94 EPS forecast for 2027 and a multiple of 32.

A little off the top

While the lowering of a price target by an analyst is usually viewed as reduced confidence in a company, it's not as bad as it normally seems in this instance.

The typical fluctuations of analyst expectations tend to be about strategy changes. As in October's significant increase, BoA forecast AI as being a major growth driver for Apple, strengthening its long-term value.

Here, the drop is less about confidence in the company and product strategy gut checks. Instead, it's a seemingly more reasoned expectation of what Apple's plans will do to its finances.

In short, shifting the iPhone 18 release into early 2027 will affect fall 2026 sales by shifting some shipments by two quarters. Apple's holiday quarter of iPhone sales is dominated by the Pro models, and not the core model. It's not clear why this isn't addressed by Bank of America.

This will ultimately cut into Apple's usually stratospheric Q1 revenue, but investors will see it displaced into Q2 or Q3 instead.

The note is less a story about product expectations, but more accepting the reality that Apple's finances will take some adjustment.