Buy Cloudflare Or Sell? Analysts Vary Over Sales Acceleration And Business Momentum

Wall Street analysts rerated Cloudflare, Inc NET after the company released its fourth-quarterly print Thursday.

Cloudflare reported EPS of 19 cents, which beat the analyst estimate of 18 cents. Quarterly revenue was $459.9 million (up from $362.47 million a year ago), which beat the consensus estimate of $452.09 million.

Cloudflare expects first-quarter adjusted EPS of 16 cents and revenue of $468 million-$469 million.

Also Read: MSG Entertainment Q2 Earnings: Strong Holiday Ticket Sales, Beats Revenue Estimates Despite Concert Decline

JMP Securities analyst Trevor Walsh maintained Cloudflare with a Market Outperform and raised the price target from $135 to $180.

Guggenheim analyst John Difucci reiterated Cloudflare with a Sell and raised the price target from $57 to $68.

Needham analyst Mike Cikos maintained Cloudflare with a Buy and raised the price target from $160 to $185.

JMP Securities: Walsh always viewed Cloudflare somewhat differently in the context of his broader cybersecurity coverage, given its platform vision, distinctive architecture, and developer-minded product capabilities.

In support of this view, the company’s emerging story around AI opportunities is equally singular, and the analyst noted that it should offer longer-term tailwinds for the stock. Co-founder and CEO Matthew Prince identified four opportunities where Cloudflare could capitalize on AI, including internal efficiency gains using AI systems, performance, and security products to become “smarter for customers” with AI, Cloudflare Workers as the “killer application for AI inferences and agentic workflows and serving as the intermediary between AI companies and content creators/providers.

Given these opportunities, Walsh noted Cloudflare as the most diversified player within his coverage to take advantage of AI momentum. Furthermore, the adaptability of the platform and its agnostic position within the cloud ecosystem also makes Cloudflare relatively resistant to AI system shocks, such as the recent DeepSeek R1 launch.

Also Read: Nvidia Stock Remains Analyst’s Top Pick: ‘DeepSeek Selloff Is A Buying Opportunity’

Guggenheim: Difucci noted Cloudflare has a strong, visionary leader and has bolstered the leadership team. Also, the fourth-quarter results were better than the consensus numbers. However, New ARR growth was lower than our Plausible Scenario, and business momentum moderated (as measured by a 2-year stack of New ARR growth) from the third quarter.

The first-quarter guidance was below the Street; while 2025 revenue guidance was 60 bps ($12 million) above the consensus estimate of $2.081 billion, operating profit and EPS were below.

Finally, management acknowledged that gradually improved business momentum throughout 2025 was required to hit annual revenue numbers. If Difucci’s assessment of the general IT spending environment holds at what has been referred to as a new normal (of modest growth), that means that the majority of Cloudflare business momentum improvement would have to come almost entirely from company-specific drivers – more salespeople, better sales productivity, the enterprise-hardening of some products to adapt the more stringent requirements of that demanding cohort. Again, the leadership team now seems to be in place.

Needham: Cloudflare reported an impressive quarter, with a striking volume and caliber of customers, presenting investors with additional data that the go-to-market turnaround is taking hold.

The company added a record number of paying customers, and annual growth accelerated for the fourth consecutive quarter. Greater than 50% of Cloudflare’s $1 million-plus new logos in calendar 2024 were added during the December quarter.

Sales rep productivity increased by a double-digit percentage for the fifth consecutive quarter, and management noted that ramped rep capacity would likely inflect meaningfully higher in the second quarter of 2025. Furthermore, Pool of Funds deals should drive more significant revenue in the second half of 2025, leading to more substantial seasonal weighting in the back half of the year.

Price Action: NET stock is up 19.7% at $169.35 at last check Friday.

Also Read:

• Warner Music Sees Lower Profit Margins, Signs Multi-Year Spotify Deal

Photo via T. Schneider/Shutterstock.com.