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FORTUNE — In September 2012, when Apple (AAPL) was selling for over $700 a share, more than half the analysts we track had price targets in the $750 to $900 range.
By Friday, only two were still at $700 or higher, and on Monday, one of them — Needham’s Charlie Wolf — lowered his Apple target from $700 to $595 (That left Topeka’s Brian White all alone at $888, down from his all-time Street high of $1,111.)
Wolf is not your typical Apple analyst. Some of his colleagues change their price targets with every shift in the prevailing wind and never offer more than a sentence or two by way of explanation.
Not Charlie Wolf. He reviews his Apple price target only twice a year, in February and August, and if he changes it — as he did on Monday to reflect what he calls a “more hostile competitive environment” — he tells you exactly why. His chart-heavy note to clients Monday runs more than 4,380 words long and breaks down his valuation by product line (see his Figure 1 above).
The key bullet points: (I quote)
- The largest percentage decline — 42.3% — was in the Mac segment as the negative impact of tablets on PC sales became increasingly apparent in the first half of the calendar year.
- The iPad experienced the next largest decline — 37.2% — to reflect the decline in the average selling price of iPads as buyers shifted from the 10 inch to the lower margin 8-inch model.
- The value of the iPhone declined 15.4%, reflecting a more competitive global environment. Expectations for the iPhone are in a sense binary. If Apple continues with a single high-end model, the iPhone’s market share is likely to decline further. In the event that Apple introduces a less expensive and/or larger iPhone targeting emerging markets, the phone’s share would likely increase. But a decline in the iPhone’s gross margin that would accompany such a move could offset much of the growth in unit sales.
- iTunes, software and services and accessories experienced a nominal decline in value, reflecting a shift in the mix of revenues from high margin software to lower margin content and services.
Below: The analysts’ individual price targets. Eleven months ago the median target was $770. Today it’s $530.
