Shares of Marvell Technology (MRVL) surged about 10% premarket on Friday after fourth-quarter results and outlook beat estimates, drawing bullish reactions from analysts.
BofA upgraded Marvell’s rating to Buy from Neutral and raised the price target on the stock to $110 from $90.
“MRVL’s earnings call gives us greater confidence in: 1) company’s solid leverage to AI optical connectivity, 2) potential for success in upcoming Microsoft (MSFT) custom chip (XPU) program, and 3) turning the corner on Amazon (AMZN) XPU transition year,” said analysts led by Vivek Arya.
J.P. Morgan reiterated its Overweight rating on Marvell and increased the price target to $135 from $130. The firm said the company raised the calendar year 2026 and 2027 revenue growth outlook on accelerating AI data center demand. The firm noted that adding optical Digital Signal Processor, or DSP, strength and multiple AI custom application-specific integrated circuit, or ASIC, program ramps are unfolding.
“Marvell delivered solid January quarter results, driven by accelerating data center demand—with growth across all key product lines—and continued gradual recovery in Communications and Other segments. Building off a slightly higher January quarter revenue base, the team guided revenues up 8% Q/Q to $2.40B (versus consensus at $2.28B), reflecting sustained strong data center growth (up 10% Q/Q despite a decline in on-premise data center) and a continued modest recovery in Communications and Other,” said analysts led by Harlan Sur.
The analysts added that in total, Marvell now expects Data Center revenue to grow 40% year-over-year (versus prior expectations of 25%+) while Communications and Other are expected to grow 10% year-over-year in fiscal year 2027, which should drive total revenue closer to $11B (versus the consensus at $10B).
The analysts said that the positive growth revision in Data Center is mainly due to strong demand for Marvell’s optical DSP products, now expected to grow 50% year-over-year versus prior expectations of 30%. This, according to the analysts, reflects the strong capital expenditure, or capex, spending environment and continued strong market share.
“Overall, we are impressed with the strong multi-year revenue outlook and the diversity of customer program ramps, and we see a solid setup for CY26,” said Sur and his team.
Jefferies kept its Buy rating and $120 price target on Marvell’s stock.
“Defying the skeptics yet again with continued confidence in custom ASIC ramp and line of sight to >$15B in revenue and well over $5 in EPS in C27. The bulk of the upside this year is from interconnect (largely DSPs), where they now see 50% growth vs previous 30% in C26,” said analyst Blayne Curtis and his team.
Evercore maintained its Outperform rating and raised the price target to $155 from $133.
Analysts led by Mark Lipacis said that Marvell increased its fiscal 2027 outlook for Data Center revenues to 40% (from less than 25%), accelerating to 50% year-over-year in fiscal 2028 and growing at similar levels in fiscal 2029 to $18.8B levels laid out at its June 2025 Custom AI event.
“We view this outlook as yet another proof point of our thesis that 1) parabolic demand for AI tokens should sustain as agentic AI means demand for compute is no longer limited by human-to-human interactions, but rather by potentially limitless AI agents interacting with one another, and 2) accelerating growth in AI CapEx is justified and funded by AI-driven efficiencies gained from $60Trn in Global OpEx – a zero-sum spending game,” said Lipacis and his team.
Related stocks: Broadcom (AVGO) fell about 2%, while Cisco Systems (CSCO) and Qualcomm (QCOM) dipped nearly 1% each premarket on Friday.