AI And IoT Adoption Will Transform Cloud Infrastructure

Key Takeaways

• Strong demand for cloud-native security and resilient infrastructure, with expanding high-value partnerships and rising adoption of zero-trust, is driving long-term growth and customer retention.
  
• Operational efficiencies, cross-selling, and innovation initiatives are improving profitability and margin outlook while unlocking new, high-margin business opportunities.
  
• Customer concentration, regulatory shifts, margin pressure, competition, and uncertain new monetization threaten earnings stability and long-term growth prospects.

Catalysts

Operates as a cloud services provider that delivers a range of services to businesses worldwide.

• The accelerating adoption of AI, explosion in global web traffic, and proliferation of IoT devices are driving increased demand for fast, secure, and resilient cloud-native infrastructure-Cloudflare's core strength-evidenced by strategic partnerships with major AI companies and record-breaking DDoS mitigation, positioning the company for sustained top-line revenue growth and strengthening customer retention.
  
• Customers' heightened focus on cybersecurity, resilience, and zero-trust architectures-amplified by regulatory pressure and repeated security threats-continues to benefit Cloudflare, as shown by multi-year expansions with financial services and government clients and growing adoption of SASE/Zero Trust offerings, supporting higher average revenue per account and reduced churn.
  
• Ongoing expansion and cross-selling of Cloudflare's platform, especially through high-value pool-of-funds and multi-product deals, have led to increasing penetration into large enterprises, all-time-high net sales productivity, and a rising proportion of revenue from large customers, with these trends likely to accelerate both revenue and earnings growth.
  
• Investments in platform scalability, automation, and operational efficiency are resulting in improved net margins and operating leverage; gross margins remain healthy despite competitive pricing, and continued cost management is reducing operating expenses as a percentage of revenue, supporting long-term profitability improvements.
  
• Cloudflare's early action building strategic positioning around the emerging Agentic Web and "Act 4" initiatives, leveraging its unique reach across 20% of the Internet and broad AI partnerships, offers significant optionality for new high-margin transaction-based business models that could unlock new revenue streams and expand the addressable market.

Cloudflare Future Earnings and Revenue Growth

Assumptions

• Analysts are assuming Cloudflare's revenue will grow by 26.5% annually over the next 3 years.
• Analysts assume that profit margins will increase from -6.2% today to 4.6% in 3 years time.
• Analysts expect earnings to reach $176.4 million (and earnings per share of $0.47) by about September 2028, up from $-117.1 million today.
• In order for the above numbers to justify the analysts price target, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 557.5x on those 2028 earnings, up from -672.7x today. This future PE is greater than the current PE for the US IT industry at 29.3x.
• Analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to grow by 1.54% per year for the next 3 years.
• To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 8.92%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.

Cloudflare Future Earnings Per Share Growth

Risks

• Heavy reliance on large enterprise customers, particularly pool-of-funds deals and variable revenue, increases customer concentration risk; any major client loss, failed renewal, or hyperscaler win could cause outsized swings in revenue, compressing earnings stability.
  
• A steep and broad shift to stricter data privacy regulations (e.g., global data localization, new AI content licensing) or internet fragmentation ("splinternet") could require significant restructuring of Cloudflare's architecture, resulting in higher operational costs and potential limitations on cross-border scalability, impacting both net margins and addressable market size.
  
• Gross margins are showing sequential and year-over-year decline (down 80bps QoQ and 270bps YoY this quarter), and ongoing investments in R&D and network expansion-while needed for growth and product innovation-may persistently pressure net margins and delay meaningful profitability.
  
• Intense competition from hyperscale cloud providers (e.g., AWS, Azure, Google Cloud increasingly bundling networking/security features) and pricing pressure in the CDN and security markets could erode Cloudflare's differentiation, limit the ability to maintain "land and expand" motion, and compress long-term revenue growth.
  
• Lack of clear monetization model and uncertain revenue potential for new "Act 4" and AI-related initiatives introduces execution risk; failure to establish a scalable and defensible business model in the AI/content transaction ecosystem may undermine growth expectations and weaken future earnings streams.

Valuation

• The analysts have a consensus price target of $209.009 for Cloudflare based on their expectations of its future earnings growth, profit margins and other risk factors. However, there is a degree of disagreement amongst analysts, with the most bullish reporting a price target of $255.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just $90.0.
  
• In order for you to agree with the analyst's consensus, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be $3.8 billion, earnings will come to $176.4 million, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 557.5x, assuming you use a discount rate of 8.9%.
  
• Given the current share price of $226.01, the analyst price target of $209.01 is 8.1% lower. The relatively low difference between the current share price and the analyst consensus price target indicates that they believe on average, the company is fairly priced.
  
• We always encourage you to reach your own conclusions though. So sense check these analyst numbers against your own assumptions and expectations based on your understanding of the business and what you believe is probable.