BTIG upgraded Datadog, Inc. (NASDAQ:DDOG) to Buy from Neutral, introducing a price target of $143 per share in a note Thursday, citing strong checks and an "underappreciated Splunk displacement opportunity."
Analysts at BTIG see DDOG as a top player in the observability market, poised for substantial growth with new products and features such as Flex Logs, LLM Monitoring, and Bits AI, offering growth potential.
" In short, we see DDOG as the best play in the observability market with a large opportunity to gain share," they declare. "We also think new products and features (such as Flex Logs, LLM Monitoring, Bits AI, etc) create a compelling long-term growth opportunity."
The firm explained that recent fieldwork involving discussions with ten partners, five of which skewed towards large enterprises, led BTIG to a few key conclusions.
Firstly, cloud cost optimization initiatives related to the broader macroeconomic environment appear mostly complete, which is positive for observability spending.
BTIG noted that, despite Microsoft's mild cloud growth disappointment, the overall trend indicates improving growth at the top three hyperscale cloud IaaS providers, suggesting a favorable outlook for observability spending.
BTIG believes that DDOG is well-positioned to gain incremental market share from Splunk following its acquisition by Cisco. Although this displacement is not expected to significantly impact 2024, it is said to represents a substantial opportunity over the next three to four years.
BTIG estimates that DDOG could capture approximately $270 million in incremental annual revenue from Splunk, adding around 300 basis points per year to DDOG's growth rate through 2027.
Positive Q2 2024 field checks support BTIG's confidence in DDOG's forecasts.
Analysts expect DDOG to post strong Q2 revenue, potentially reaching $644 million, a 26.4% year-over-year increase in an upside scenario compared to the street estimate of $625 million. For the full year, BTIG projects a 25% year-over-year revenue growth for DDOG, surpassing the street's 23% estimate.