Technology

How Analysts Are Rating Amazon, Google, Microsoft After Strong Earnings

Amazon.com had many analysts chime in with much higher price targets after the report.

Canaccord Genuity raised Amazon’s price target to $380 from $330. The analyst said:

With solid growth momentum and the most optimistic margin guidance in recent memory, we believe the debate in the stock may shift more towards valuation, wherein investors may need to value the company based on normalized margins to justify meaningful upside for the stock in the short term.

Credit Suisse reiterated its Outperform rating and the price target was raised up to $480.00 from $412. The firm said:

As anticipated, Amazon provided incremental disclosure for its AWS business which was previously included in Other revenue. Given greater clarity, we increase our long-term FCF and price target.”

Oppenheimer has an Outperform rating and said that its $415 price target was under review. It said:

While AMZN reported better 1Q15 results, and weaker 2Q guidance, the company followed through on its pledge to provide more detail on AWS, disclosing revenue, EBITDA and EBIT, back to 2013. As result, the company also provided similar metrics for US and Intl eCommerce segments. While our model and estimates are under review as this will result in an entirely new way to model AMZN financial results, we think AWS’s historical results prove the merits of the initial large capital allocation that so many investors objected to.

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Wells Fargo said that Amazon was “Maybe Not A True ‘Harvest Period’ But Solid Nonetheless.” The company’s valuation range went from $387 to $408 up to $421 to $450.

Cantor Fitzgerald reiterated Buy and raised its target price to $460 from $385.

Citigroup reiterated its Buy rating and raised its target price to $460 from $430.

Deutsche Bank reiterated its Buy rating and raised its target to $500 from $410.

Goldman Sachs reiterated its Buy rating and raised its target to $510 from $450.

JPMorgan raised its rating to Overweight from Neutral and raised its target to $535 from $375.

RBC Capital Markets reiterated its Buy rating and raised its target to $500 from $400.

Google

Google reported its first-quarter earnings for 2015. Our earnings preview showed that Google’s stock was at a critical juncture going into earnings, and that options traders were not calling for a big move. Earnings came in at $6.57 per share, while revenues grew 12% gross to $17.258 billion. Google’s ex-TAC revenue was $13.913 billion, versus $12.188 billion a year ago. Google was expected to report $6.60 in EPS and $17.52 billion in revenue. This compares to $6.27 EPS a year ago, and it would have been a revenue gain of more than 13%.

With the earnings report, we highlighted the following points about Google’s quarter:

  • Total ad revenue was $15.508 billion, up 11% from a year ago but down 5% sequentially.
  • Google’s own websites had revenue of $11.932 billion, up 14% from a year ago but down 4% sequentially.
  • Network member websites had revenue of $3.576 billion, up 1% from a year ago but down 8% sequentially.
  • Google’s “other” revenue was $1.75 billion, up 23% from a year ago and down 2% sequentially.
  • Aggregate paid clicks were up 13% from a year ago but down 1% sequentially.
  • Paid clicks on Google websites were up 25% from a year ago but down 3% sequentially.
  • Paid clicks on Google Network Members’ websites were down 12% from a year ago, but they were up 4% sequentially.
  • The aggregate cost-per-click was down 7% from a year ago and down 5% sequentially.
  • Cost-per-click on Google websites was down 13% from a year ago and down 3% from a year ago.
  • Operating expenses (other than cost of revenues) were 37% or $6.455 billion, versus $5.344 billion or 35% a year ago.
  • Total headcount was 55,419, up from 46,710 a year ago.

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Google is perhaps the least known for big public quotes around earnings and guidance. Patrick Pichette, the chief financial officer, said:

Google’s first quarter revenue was $17.3 billion, up 12% year on year. Excluding the net impact of foreign currency headwinds, revenue grew a healthy 17% year on year. We continue to see great momentum in our mobile advertising business and opportunities with brand advertisers.

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