从Source: Zhithon Finance
Stifel stated that Microsoft and some Software companies are expected to continue their upward trend in 2025 through AI monetization.
Recently, the well-known Wall Street investment bank Stifel released its 2025 stock market outlook, stating that due to the increasingly smooth monetization path of AI and the interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, the USA economy has essentially achieved "possibility of a soft landing,”， $Microsoft (MSFT.US)$ 、$ServiceNow (NOW.US)$And$Datadog (DDOG.US)$A series of software giants with a complete "AI application platform" will thrive in 2025, with stock prices expected to continue on an upward trend.
From$Salesforce (CRM.US)$, ServiceNow,$Palantir (PLTR.US)$And$Applovin (APP.US)$Looking at the AI revenue data and performance outlook of software giants like ServiceNow and others, the investment wave around software stocks is certainly not "mindless speculation". Rather, the market is betting that software companies will achieve performance data in the future that is several times stronger than current figures, serving as a core pillar in the epic AI boom. These software giants' Earnings Reports indicate that AI application software products are rapidly penetrating major enterprise end customers, and this momentum is likely to continue for at least 2-3 years, ultimately enabling AI applications to cover an increasingly large consumer-grade user base.
Unlike generative AI applications similar to AI chatbots, companies like Microsoft, ServiceNow, and Datadog have their own one-stop "AI application platforms" within their software ecosystems, which will undoubtedly benefit significantly from this unprecedented global trend of enterprises adopting AI. They focus on building the ecosystem for B-end and C-end AI application software developers related to generative AI, aiming to comprehensively lower the technical thresholds for non-IT professionals across various industries to develop AI applications and provide based on.$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$AI GPU or self-developed AI Chip cloud-based AI training/inference computing power resources, aiming to greatly simplify the one-stop deployment of AI application software based on large AI models and provide AI inference computing power resources to support AI workloads.
"We have noticed that after a strong 2023, these software companies have accelerated their revenue growth over the past year, reaching up to about 15%. Overall revenue growth in 2024 hit a low of 11.8% in the second quarter but accelerated by 150 basis points in the third quarter to reach 13.3%." The analyst team led by Brad Reback stated in the 2025 software stock deep preview report. "Although current forecasts indicate that growth may slow to about 11% in the fourth quarter, considering normal seasonal spending patterns and management's conservative guidance, we expect these forecasts to be raised by at least about 300 basis points."
"Looking ahead to 2025, we expect the management teams of these software companies to take a more conservative stance in their guidance for the first quarter, but overall, we believe that many of the aforementioned factors (AI boom, economy, and interest rates) provide additional upward momentum for these software companies, and overall revenue growth rates should at least keep pace with the strong performance we witnessed in the second half of 2024," he added.
As a result, Stifel raised the target stock prices for these software companies for the next 12 months in their Research Reports. Specifically, the institution raised Microsoft's stock price forecast from $500 to $525, while ServiceNow's stock price was significantly raised from $990 to $1175. In comparison, Microsoft closed at $437.39 on Wednesday, and ServiceNow closed at $1060.99.
Due to the potential for the generative AI application platform to bring at least a 20% boost in performance growth, Stifel raised Datadog's (DDOG.US) target price from $141 to $165.
Compared to multifunctional cloud computing services platforms like AWS and Azure, Datadog is more suitable as an auxiliary tool for optimizing deployed AI applications. Datadog has launched powerful monitoring features specifically for generative AI applications, helping enterprises monitor and troubleshoot issues in LLM applications, such as performance degradation, model drift, soaring costs, and generative errors (like 'AI hallucinations'), providing real-time monitoring and troubleshooting capabilities. Datadog's Bits AI module offers a natural language interface, allowing users to query quickly for key pointers, logs, and trace cloud data through a conversational interface, and generate professional solutions (such as code repair suggestions and automated testing).
Stifel's outlook on$CyberArk (CYBR.US)$has increased the stock price from $335 to $370, as Stifel believes this Israel-based application software (SaaS) security systems company is expected to maintain a revenue growth forecast of over 20% in the coming years and expand operating margins and free cash flow.
For the cybersecurity company,$Fortinet (FTNT.US)$the target price has been raised from $90 to $103, with Stifel expecting the company to continue achieving double-digit revenue growth rates in 2025 and beyond.
For$Twilio (TWLO.US)$The Target Price has been raised from $80 to $110. Stifel stated that the stock has rebounded from its low in June, and the newly appointed CEO Khozema Shipchandler and his team have the opportunity to provide a mid to long-term framework for revenue growth and operating margin. The company has also established a close partnership with OpenAI, which Stifel believes will prove to be a driving force for the future development of AI technology.
In addition, Stifel's outlook on $Enfusion (ENFN.US)$The stock price has been adjusted from $11 to $13.
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编辑/jayden
