CrowdStrike's Fal.Con Event: AI Takes Center Stage, 6 Analysts Dive Deeper Into Tradeshow

CrowdStrike Holdings Inc CRWD Tuesday announced the launch of cybersecurity's first zero-code application development platform.

• Needham analyst Alex Henderson maintained a Buy rating, while raising the price target from $200 to $215.
• Mizuho Securities analyst Gregg Moskowitz reiterated a Buy rating, while lifting the price target from $180 to $195.
• Truist Securities analyst Joel Fishbein reaffirmed a Buy rating, while raising the price target from $175 to $200.
• Wedbush analyst Taz Koujalgi maintained an Outperform rating, while lifting the price target from $170 to $200.
• BMO Capital Markets analyst Keith Bachman reiterated an Outperform rating and price target of $167.
• Stifel analyst Brad Reback reaffirmed a Hold rating on the stock.

Check out other analyst stock ratings.

Needham: At the Fal.Con Tradeshow, CrowdStrike highlighted the importance of platform versus products, Henderson said. “Customers uniformly told us they value the breadth, simplicity, and efficacy of the platform."

The Austin, Texas-based company “demonstrated the strength of its new capabilities, which include Charlotte AI, IT Infrastructure asset management, Foundry for programming of custom apps, and Cloud Security API (acquired via Bionic),” the analyst added.

Mizuho: CrowdStrike projected a TAM (total addressable market) of $225 billion by 2028, significantly higher than its prior estimate of a TAM of $158 billion by 2026, Moskowitz said. “Separately, we believe that attendance at this week's Fal.con user conference was up a robust 50%+ Y/Y,” he added.

While the company expects to reach ARR (average recurring revenues) of $10 billion in five to seven years, it also “raised its longer-term (3-5 year) gross margin, operating margin, and FCF margin guidance to 82-85%, 28-32% and 34-38% vs. 77-82%, 20-22%+ and 30-32%+."

Truist: “The company is transforming from being just an endpoint player into a platform provider for an enterprise's security needs,” Fishbein wrote in a note.

“We continue to be impressed with the company's pace of innovation and believe it is set up well to benefit from continued tailwinds of digital transformation, increasing cloud adoption, and a heightened threat environment,” he stated.

Wedbush: CrowdStrike provided an updated target operating model that it expects to achieve in the next three to five years, with free cash flow margins higher than current Street expectations, Koujalgi said.

“For their traditional endpoint offering, CRWD still sees substantial room for expansion with 48% of the market still using legacy AV based solutions from providers like Trend Micro and Symantec,” the analyst added.

BMO: “Management outlined that CRWD has solid growth potential in endpoint (share of global 2k, SMB, government, and international) and emerging markets (cloud, identity, and SIEM) to sustain 20% ARR growth over the next 5-7 years,” Bachman wrote.

He added that the company’s margin expansion target should “somewhat help mitigate investor concerns on legacy endpoint pricing.”

Stifel: CrowdStrike achieved its previous long-term target model in the fiscal second quarter and management delivered a new model, “which calls for 82%-85% Sub GM, 28%-32% OM and 34%-38% FCF margin,” Reback said.

“Overall, we view these targets as achievable, and with the ability to remove dependencies within the platform with Falcon LogScale, we see upside to management's model,” he added.

CRWD Price Action: Shares of CrowdStrike had declined by 0.61% to $162.89 at the time of publication Thursday.

Image: CrowdStrike