Shares of AI-powered cybersecurity innovator CrowdStrike Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:CRWD) rallied on Thursday, after the company on Wednesday reported upbeat first-quarter results.
• CrowdStrike Holdings shares are retreating from recent levels. Why are CRWD shares down?
Here are some key analyst takeaways:
- Wedbush analyst Dan Ives maintained an Outperform rating, while raising the price target from $700 to $720.
- Benchmark analyst Yi Fu Lee reiterated a Buy rating, while lifting the price target from $700 to $780.
- Needham analyst Mike Cikos reaffirmed a Buy rating, while taking the price target higher from $475 to $780.
- Rosenblatt Securities analyst Catharine Trebnick maintained a Buy rating, while raising the price target from $640 to $825.
- DA Davidson analyst Rudy Kessinger reiterated a Buy rating, while lifting the price target from $455 to $765.
- Scotiabank analyst Patrick Colville reaffirmed a Sector Outperform rating, while taking the price target higher from $475 to $805.
- Citizens JMP Securities analyst Rustam Kanga maintained a Market Outperform rating, while raising the price target from $550 to $780.
- Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Jonathan Ruykhaver reiterated an Overweight rating, while lifting the price target from $700 to $725.
- BTIG analyst Gray Powell reaffirmed a Buy rating and price target of $764.
Check out other analyst stock ratings.
Wedbush: CrowdStrike reported its first quarter results for fiscal 2027 with marginal beats across the board, Ives said in a note. Total ARR (annual recurring revenues) rose 24% year-on-year to $5.51 billion, coming above the consensus estimate of $5.50 billion, he added.
The company's NNARR (net new annual recurring revenues) grew 32% year-on-year to $255.8 million, with AI products continuing to gain traction, the analyst stated. Management raised its fiscal 2027 guidance slightly, "as the company continues to see an expansive pipeline for its cyber-AI product portfolio, which remains a significant driver of its bookings pipeline," he further wrote.
Benchmark: CrowdStrike delivered a record start, with ARR, revenues, operating margin and free cash flows "comfortably" exceeding consensus estimates, Lee said.
More important than the "clean" beat-and-raise quarter was that the results showed "early signs of a structural demand inflection driven by AI adoption," he wrote.
AI adoption in the security landscape is "no longer constrained by use case but by an enterprise's ability to secure it," which is shifting cybersecurity "from a defensive function to a strategic enabler of AI deployment," the analyst wrote. CrowdStrike's Falcon platform is uniquely positioned to benefit from this inflection, he further stated.
Needham: CrowdStrike raised its fiscal 2027 NNARR guidance by more than 500 basis points (bps) at the mid-point, from 22.5% to 27.7%, implying an acceleration from the 25.5% growth reported in fiscal 2026, Cikos said.
CrowdStrike is being increasingly viewed as "critical infrastructure" for organizations looking to deploy AI, the analyst stated. The company has a record pipeline for the second quarter, with more than 250% sequential growth in pipeline in its AIDR, Flex and re Flex accounts, and management’s outlook for Endpoint acceleration, he added.
Rosenblatt Securities: CrowdStrike delivered an "outstanding" performance across key metrics, Trebnick said. Total revenues grew, making this the fourth straight quarter of sequential acceleration in revenue growth, she added.
The results highlight "a monumental industry inflection point," termed the "Mythos moment," which is the "intersection of frontier AI models and cybersecurity," the analyst wrote. This has positioned CrowdStrike's Falcon platform as critical AI infrastructure, she further stated.
DA Davidson: CrowdStrike reported strong quarterly results, with revenues of $1.386 billion, profit of $325.7 million and earnings of $1.10 per share, topping consensus estimates of $1.363 billion, $310.6 million and $1.07 per share, respectively, Kessinger said.
While the company's NNARR of $256 million outperformed the consensus estimate, the size of the beat was "much smaller than typical" and fell short of investor expectations, the analyst stated.
Flex ARR almost doubled to surpass $1.9 billion and now represents around 34% of total ARR, while re-Flex transactions "continue to impress," he added.
Scotiabank: CrowdStrike reported a decent ARR for the first quarter but announced "a big juicy bump-up" to its full-year ARR guidance, Colville said. With the stock climbing nearly 100% over the past three months, investors were likely hoping for a larger ARR beat, he added.
New frontier models, such as Claude Mythos and GPT-5.5-Cyber, can "find and exploit vulnerabilities at a much faster speed and scale," the analyst wrote. Management's fiscal 2027 guidance reflects that the changes resulting from these new frontier models will be "a big tailwind for platform defenders such as CrowdStrike," he further stated.
Citizens JMP Securities: CrowdStrike's quarterly results were modestly higher than expected, ahead of expectations, Kanga said. AI Detection and Response ARR grew sequentially by more than 250%, he added.
The second-quarter pipeline has already exceeded $50 million after less than two quarters of AI Detection and Response being in the market, the analyst stated. CEO George Kurtz indicated that NNARR growth could accelerate in fiscal 2027, he further noted.
Cantor Fitzgerald: CrowdStrike's revenue beat was lighter than the magnitude delivered in recent quarters, Ruykhaver said. He added, however, that management paired this with a substantial increase in guidance.
The analyst highlighted the performance of the company's emerging product solutions:
- Next-Gen SIEM ARR exceeded $600 million
- Next-Gen Identity NNARR growth accelerated sequentially
- ARR from Next-Gen SIEM and Cloud, Next-Gen Identity surpassed $2 billion
BTIG: While CrowdStrike reported solid results, the "thin" beat versus elevated investor expectations drove the stock down 11% in after-hours trading, Powell said.
Management raised the fiscal 2027 guidance by $53 million, compared to a beat of $5.6 million in the first quarter, he added.
AI is becoming "a more tangible growth driver," contributing directly to the company's pipeline build, the analyst stated. "Existing emerging products (Cloud Security, Identity, and NG SIEM) continue to show outsized growth and should see incremental demand from AI," he further wrote.
CRWD Price Action: Shares of CrowdStrike had declined by 5.47% to $706.72 at the time of publication on Thursday.
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