By Eric J. Savitz
Arista Networks’ shares experienced an uptick on Thursday following a positive rating from Citi analyst Atif Malik. Malik raised his rating on Arista stock to Buy from Neutral, setting a new target price of $220, up from $177.
Pre-market trading showed Arista shares up by 2.9% to $192.56.
Arista Positioned as “Best House in Networking Neighborhood”
According to Malik’s research note, Arista Networks remains the leader in the networking industry, with over 40% of its customer base dedicated to the cloud. This concentration is significantly higher than its competitors, Cisco and Juniper. Additionally, Arista continues to thrive in the data center switch market and is well-positioned to capitalize on the growth of the generative AI networking hardware market.
Mixed Results from Arista’s Largest Customers
The capital spending results from Arista’s two largest customers, Microsoft and Meta Platforms, were a mixed bag in the June quarter. While Microsoft exceeded expectations, Meta reduced its capital spending plans for the year. However, Malik believes that despite these mixed results, Wall Street and Arista management were prepared for worse outcomes. He now views his previous caution regarding Arista’s growth outlook as overly pessimistic.
As Arista Networks garners praise from analysts and demonstrates strength in key markets, investors can look forward to potential future growth and developments.