We recently published a list of Analysts are Recommending These 10 AI Stocks. Since Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) ranks 7th on the list, it deserves a deeper look.
The past several months of market activity and tech innovation has proved that the AI trends that started with the launch of ChatGPT are here to stay and all of this was not something that’d fizzle out after making headlines for some time. Companies are investing billions in AI and they expect to see the results of their investments in the coming months and years. Analysts at UBS said in a report earlier this year that if the launch of ChatGPT was the “iPhone moment” for the AI industry, apps like Copilot signify the “App Store moment.”
UBS also increased its revenue estimates for the AI industry in the report by 40%. The firm said at the time that it now expects revenue in the AI industry to increase from $28 billion in 2022 to $420 billion in 2027. This would represent a CAGR of over 70%.
UBS justified its growth projections by drawing an analogy from the past growth cycles of mainframes, smartphones and PCs.
“Annual shipments for mainframes were only about 1mn units until the 1980s, when they ballooned to around 10mn as microcomputers became mainstream computing devices. This was followed by a sharp increase during the PC era, when annual PC shipments shot up to more than 100mn units, with PC shipments eventually reaching an annual run-rate of nearly 300mn. Smart devices, which include smartphones and tablet PCs, crossed 1bn shipments during the mid2010s. Currently, annual shipments are close to 1.5bn units. With AI, we expect this 10x growth trend to continue, with annual AI chatbots and applications potentially crossing 10bn units.”
For this article we took a look at the latest analyst rating actions around AI stocks and picked the 10 most important AI companies that recently received positive comments or ratings from notable Wall Street analysts. With each stock we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).
Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM)
Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 117
Jefferies analyst Brent Thill recently reiterated his Buy rating on Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) and set a $350 price target on the stock.
BofA Securities believes Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) is one of the best beaten-down tech stocks presenting an attractive entry point following the latest selloff.
According to Yahoo Finance data, Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) is expected to see earnings growth of about 16% on a per-annum basis over the next five years. Data also shows the company is expected to deliver double-digit YoY EPS growth in the next ten out of eleven quarters.
While Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) is primarily a customer relationship software company, with notable tools and platforms like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Tableau, MuleSoft, and Slack, its most promising platform is Data Cloud when it comes to AI and software. The platform has 90% year-over-year growth and clocking in $400 million in FY2024. What does this platform do? It helps organizations process data from various departments and third-party cloud solutions. Powered by an AI-driven data engine, it analyzes metadata in real time to provide valuable insights, supporting sales, marketing, and customer service workflows.
As of the end of Q1 Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) had $17.7 billion in cash and low financial leverage.
Mar Vista Focus strategy stated the following regarding Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:
“Salesforce, Inc.’s (NYSE:CRM) stock came under pressure in Q2 as the company modestly missed Street expectations for software bookings and reduced its FY2025 subscription revenue guidance to “around 10%” year-to-year growth from “greater than 10%.” We believe Salesforce is experiencing cyclical pressures as software demand across the industry is pressured at the margin. This has led to longer sales cycles; smaller deal sizes and budgets being allocated away from enterprise software to emerging areas like generative AI. We continue to believe that Salesforce will see a tailwind to demand from its generative AI offerings as many AI use cases are found in front office software like customer relationship management. This, coupled with Salesforce’s treasure trove of customer data, positions it well to exploit the evolution of next-generation AI offerings.”
Overall, Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) ranks 7th on Insider Monkey’s list titled Analysts are Recommending These 10 AI Stocks. While we acknowledge the potential of Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM), our conviction lies in the belief that AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CRM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.
