Apple re-enters top pick, C3.ai stock price raised By Investing.com

Investing.com — Here are the biggest analyst moves in artificial intelligence (AI) this week.

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‘AI-enabled upgrade is coming:’ Apple repeatedly named Top Pick by BofA

Bank of America maintains Apple (NASDAQ:) stock as a top pick and maintains a price target of $230.

In particular, big Wall Street analysts are optimistic about Apple’s transition from smartphones to “intelliphones” and predict a significant multi-year upgrade cycle.

“We believe that the upcoming AI-enabled phones (IntelliPhone) will drive a multi-year upgrade cycle similar to the step-by-step feature improvements driven by smartphone adoption,” it said.

With a massive installed base of over 4 billion smartphones, the BofA team believes that the adoption of AI-enabled IntelliPhone will outpace the rapid proliferation of smartphones and 5G.

IntelliPhone is expected to leverage advanced AI and machine learning for features such as superior personal assistance, language processing, health monitoring, enhanced photography, and AR/VR experiences, among others.

Needham Downgrades UiPath Stock

Needham analysts downgraded UiPath (NYSE:) stock from Buy to Hold on Thursday, citing a variety of factors including macroeconomic headwinds and a change in go-to-market (GTM) strategy.

“We have downgraded PATH stock to Hold due to macro pressures, uncertainty about near-term execution due to CEO change and GTM strategy change, and shrinking margins Y/Y, creating an unfavorable near-term financial profile,” the analysts wrote. .

The investment firm noted that the company’s Q1F25 sales figures were slightly disappointing and that large transactions were facing increasing scrutiny.

The CEO recently changed back to founder Daniel Dines following the departure of Rob Enslin, and the multiple GTM changes are expected to cause a short-term sales disruption.

Both net new annual recurring revenue (ARR) and revenue guidance were lowered. Needham considers this “conservative enough, but we believe it will take several quarters before the GTM changes begin to drive any meaningful uptick in guidance.”

Northland upped C3.ai to a Buy as subscription growth accelerated.

Enterprise AI company C3.ai (NYSE:) had its stock price upgraded from Market Perform to Outperform by Northland analysts during the week, with a price target of $35.

Analysts highlighted the company’s increased subscription growth in the fourth quarter of 2024 as a key factor behind the upward revision.

“C3.ai saw subscription growth accelerate to 41% in Q4 ’24, providing evidence that headwinds from the migration to a usage-based revenue model are waning,” the analysts said.

This is a sign that strong pilot expansion and demand for generative AI (genAI) will continue to see strong growth going forward.

Mizuho raises target price for chip stocks as AI moves to the edge

Japanese investment bank and securities firm Mizuho this week announced that Micron Technology (NASDAQ:), Qualcomm (NASDAQ:), Seagate Technology PLC (NASDAQ:) and western digital (NASDAQ:).

The move comes as Mizuho analysts believe the next catalyst for AI will be at the edge, as original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) push AI on-device features into handsets and PCs.

The company again maintained its buy rating and raised its target prices to $240 for Micron, $155 for Qualcomm, $90 for Seagate, and $110 for Western Digital.

Analysts highlighted Qualcomm’s expansion of AI PCs using the Snapdragon

Additionally, AI PCs requiring 40-80% more DRAM and mobile phones requiring 50-100% more DRAM provide a tailwind for Micron. Western Digital and Micron are also expected to benefit from increased NAND content in AI devices due to price improvements.

Meanwhile, Seagate stands out as PC storage content grows and cloud capital spending increases. Mizuho predicts that 1 billion AI smartphones will be shipped from 2024 to 2027, and that AI PCs will account for up to 60% of the PC market by 2027.

Loop Capital said Dell is a “legitimate GenAI participant.”

In a new note to clients, analysts at Loop Capital reaffirmed their Buy rating on shares of Dell Technologies (NYSE:) and raised their price target from $125 to $185, noting that the tech company could be “a legitimate GenAI participant.” “It is progressing,” he emphasized.

“Dell has continued to show legitimate GenAI progress over the past 90 days that looks poised to advance by CY2025,” Loop analysts said.

The investment bank pointed to Dell’s firm position on its long-term stake in commercial IT budgets, noting the company’s expanding capabilities across infrastructure products, services and financing.

Dell sees $2 to $3 of additional revenue opportunity in services, networking, and storage for every dollar of GenAI server revenue.

“Specifically with regard to storage, our work has suggested that for commercial (non-hyperscale) Gen AI storage, after VAST Data and WEKA, DELL storage may be positioned as well, if not better, than PSTG and NTAP,” the analyst said. said. wrote.

Analysts also highlighted that Dell has pre-purchased more than $7 billion worth of NVIDIA (NASDAQ:) GPUs, boosting its inventory significantly over the past 90 days. Dell expects to have $10 billion to $15 billion worth of GPUs over the next six quarters, aligned with Generative AI sales of $9 billion to $10 billion in 2024 and $15 billion in 2025.

Current guidance for Generative AI server revenue in 2024 is approximately $5 billion. Despite a slight decline in PC shipments and a 200 basis point decline in market share, Dell’s core commercial market exposure is expected to increase in late 2024 and 2025.