The move comes as the investment bank said its Key First Look Data (KFLD) data showed that indexed spending fell 17% month-over-month in April, which aligns with the three-year average.

KFLD refers to a proprietary data set used by KeyBanc Capital to provide early insights into economic metrics and trends for financial analysis. KFLD tracks spending from over 1.8 million U.S. KeyBank credit and debit card customers, excluding international transactions.

It filters Apple purchases over $399, representing larger purchases, while indexed spending is measured sequentially and compared to historical averages to assess seasonality.

“Coming off below-average results in March, these results are modestly disappointing,” KeyBanc analysts said in a Tuesday note.

“We think AAPL's guide implies iPhone is down MSD, and new product introductions in Mac (March) and iPad (May) helped create easy comps,” they added.

While Apple stock has rallied on AI optimism, which analysts say they question, their cautious stance focuses on the continued decline in U.S. upgrade rates, competition in China, softening hardware margins, and expectations for growth to rebound in 2025.

They also note that AAPL currently trades at around 20 times their adjusted 2025 EBITDA, which is expensive relative to its historical valuation and peers, especially given its negative hardware growth for five of the past six quarters.