Microsoft Corporation MSFT shares closed up over 4 percent in a weak Friday session following an earnings report that Bank of America describes as strong “across the board.”
Analyst Kash Rangan is particularly impressed by Microsoft’s cloud numbers and management commentary. According to Rangan, the cloud business could soon start becoming even more profitable.
“Management comments also confirmed our view that cloud services is likely to see a significant inflection in profitability going forward as incremental capex growth levels off,” Rangan explained.
While cloud growth is accelerating, Bank of America also sees opportunity for Windows 10.
“We also believe a Win 10 enterprise cycle is likely, reinforced by 96 percent of enterprise customers testing Win 10, 3x growth in enterprise deployments of Win 10, and 3x jump in number of developers writing apps for the OS,” Rangan wrote.
Following the report, Bank of America reiterated its Buy rating for Microsoft, but raised its price target for the stock from $65 to $68.
Rangan noted that the higher price target reflects the company’s underappreciated cash flow, including an estimated $3 per share in fiscal 2017.
In addition to the price target change, Bank of America also changed its 2017 EPS and revenue estimates for Microsoft from $3.01 and $92.175 billion to $3.10 and$89.246 billion.
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