FILE PHOTO: A screen displays the logo and trading information for Oracle Corporation on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., March 30, 2023. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
(Reuters) -Oracle shares pared most of their gains on Friday after spiking nearly 8%, with some analysts expressing reservations about the company's forecast of crossing $100 billion in revenue in fiscal 2029, driven by AI-led demand for cloud services.
The company, which counts AT&T, Lyft and Cognizant among clients, forecast fiscal 2029 revenue of $104 billion at an annual briefing for financial analysts on Thursday.
Businesses are heavily reliant on cloud services provided by companies such as Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon to harness AI capabilities and run day-to-day operations.
However, some analysts said the forecast was ambitious.
Oracle will need to make "significant acquisitions" to achieve these targets, said D.A. Davidson & Co analyst Gil Luria, calling it "highly aspirational".
"The company is extrapolating the rapid rise in demand for renting out GPU (graphics processing unit) capacity well into the future."
Oracle also raised its fiscal 2026 revenue to $66 billion, from $65 billion earlier.
This implies an annual growth rate of 11.7% for the first two years followed by an even higher 16.1% growth rate for the remaining three years, said Michael Ashley Schulman, chief investment officer at Running Point Capital.
Its shares were still up 1.9%. At least nine brokerages raised their target prices on the company.
Brokerage Bernstein said Oracle was "surprisingly well positioned" to capture cloud services market share.
"Even assuming this is aspirational, it sends yet another signal of increasing optimism from a veteran and proven leadership team," brokerage Piper Sandler said in a note.
Its shares have risen more than 50% this year as of Thursday's close, far outpacing those of larger rival cloud providers Microsoft and Amazon.com, which are up about 14% and 23%, respectively.
Oracle trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 24.65, while Microsoft trades at 31.52 and Amazon at 33.73.
(Reporting by Jaspreet Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
