Last Update04 Sep 25Fair value Increased 3.61%
Analysts highlight Oracle's accelerating AI-driven growth, bolstered by major cloud contracts and robust application demand, though some caution over valuation as these positives appear priced in—leaving the consensus price target unchanged at $244.31.
Analyst Commentary
- Bullish analysts point to Oracle's emergence as a structural winner in artificial intelligence, with unique OCI architecture driving a surge in AI-related demand and a pronounced inflection in growth.
- Several large cloud services agreements—including a high-profile $30B+ annual contract with OpenAI/Stargate—are expected to significantly accelerate revenue through FY28+, solidifying Oracle's position as a top-four hyperscaler.
- Improved outlook for fiscal 2026 and upbeat guidance are underpinned by strong double-digit growth in the applications business, database customer cloud migration, and easing headwinds in legacy units such as Data Cloud and Cerner.
- Industry checks and market signals (such as Microsoft's substantially increased capex and positive CIO spending surveys) support robust demand for Oracle’s AI infrastructure, prompting multiple analysts to increase price targets and upgrade ratings.
- Some analysts remain cautious, highlighting that large contract wins may already be factored into forward guidance and raising concerns about profitability and valuation, even while acknowledging increasing cloud demand and positive sentiment.
What's in the News
- Oracle is investing tens of billions to build extremely large data centers, including a $1B-per-year gas-powered megasite in West Texas, supporting projects for xAI, Nvidia, and OpenAI (Bloomberg, 2025-08-20).
- Oracle will partner with SoftBank and OpenAI on the Stargate data center project in Ohio, intended for AI server manufacturing, following SoftBank’s purchase of the Lordstown plant from Foxconn (Bloomberg, 2025-08-11).
- Despite an ambitious $500B Stargate plan, SoftBank and OpenAI have struggled with execution, but OpenAI has separately struck a major data-center deal with Oracle worth over $30B annually (WSJ, 2025-07-21).
- Oracle's backlog has surged to $138B from $40B year-over-year, driven by growth in AI deals, and the company’s stock price has doubled over two years, including a recent 40% surge (WSJ, 2025-07-16).
- Oracle stands to benefit from both government AI spending—having cloud deals with OpenAI and federal agencies—and a possible stake in TikTok's U.S. operations, amid favorable regulatory developments (CNBC, Reuters, Bloomberg; 2025-08-08, 2025-07-20, 2025-06-23).
Valuation Changes
Summary of Valuation Changes for Oracle
- The Consensus Analyst Price Target remained effectively unchanged, at $244.31.
- The Discount Rate for Oracle remained effectively unchanged, at 8.91%.
- The Net Profit Margin for Oracle remained effectively unchanged, at 24.08%.
Key Takeaways
- Strong demand for AI workloads and unique AI-integrated offerings are driving accelerated cloud revenue growth and expanding high-value enterprise adoption.
- Efficient cloud infrastructure deployment and ongoing customer migration boost revenue stability, backlog, and operating margin improvements.
- Heavy dependence on sustained AI infrastructure demand, rising CapEx, and competition expose Oracle to significant revenue, margin, and long-term innovation risks.
Catalysts
About Oracle- Offers products and services that address enterprise information technology environments worldwide.
- Surging demand for AI workloads-both training and especially inferencing-has positioned Oracle as a key provider for major AI companies (e.g., OpenAI, Meta, xAI, NVIDIA), driving a 359% YoY increase in remaining performance obligations (RPO) and a robust acceleration in cloud infrastructure and database revenue. This supports expectations for sustained double-digit revenue growth over multiple years.
- Oracle's unique ability to securely integrate private enterprise data with advanced large language models (LLMs) via its AI-enabled vector database and deep security features has created a differentiated, high-value cloud platform, fueling adoption among enterprise customers and underpinning higher average contract values and margin expansion.
- Accelerated migration of existing database customers to Oracle cloud-especially through offerings like multi-cloud, dedicated regions, and Cloud@Customer-enhances revenue visibility and stability, with a significant multi-year backlog already booked and increasing lifetime value per customer.
- Continued buildout of revenue-generating cloud infrastructure, combined with efficient, asset-light deployment, enables Oracle to rapidly convert RPO into revenue and operating income while leveraging growing scale to drive further operating margin improvements.
- Integration of generative AI capabilities and automated application generators across Oracle's software stack is expected to accelerate customer digital transformation, allow for the launch of new AI-powered products, and enable premium pricing and more resilient net margins.
Oracle Future Earnings and Revenue Growth
Assumptions
How have these above catalysts been quantified?- Analysts are assuming Oracle's revenue will grow by 20.1% annually over the next 3 years.
- Analysts assume that profit margins will increase from 21.7% today to 25.5% in 3 years time.
- Analysts expect earnings to reach $25.3 billion (and earnings per share of $8.15) by about September 2028, up from $12.4 billion today. However, there is a considerable amount of disagreement amongst the analysts with the most bullish expecting $33.4 billion in earnings, and the most bearish expecting $18.4 billion.
- In order for the above numbers to justify the analysts price target, the company would need to trade at a PE ratio of 37.7x on those 2028 earnings, down from 54.5x today. This future PE is greater than the current PE for the US Software industry at 36.2x.
- Analysts expect the number of shares outstanding to grow by 1.37% per year for the next 3 years.
- To value all of this in today's terms, we will use a discount rate of 8.87%, as per the Simply Wall St company report.
Oracle Future Earnings Per Share Growth
Risks
What could happen that would invalidate this narrative?- The extraordinary growth in RPO (remaining performance obligations) and forward revenue guidance are heavily reliant on continued massive AI infrastructure demand from a few high-profile customers; any reduction or delay in AI adoption or shifts in enterprise AI spending could leave the company highly exposed, risking revenue and earnings growth shortfalls.
- Oracle's unprecedented multi-year CapEx ramp (forecasted up to $35B/year) creates sustained pressure on free cash flow (which is currently negative), and any misstep in scaling or overestimation of demand could result in underutilized assets, eroded margins, and reduced earnings.
- The long-term risk of commoditization in AI training and inferencing workloads remains present, as competitive cloud hyperscalers (AWS, Azure, Google Cloud) could erode Oracle's pricing power and market share, pressuring margins and associated profits as the technology matures.
- Oracle's transformation depends on large, enterprise-wide AI and database migration projects; entrenched licensing/perception of complexity, rising preference for open source or cloud-native solutions, and regulatory headwinds or antitrust scrutiny could slow new customer acquisition, limit upsell/cross-sell, and impact long-term revenue.
- The narrative focuses on Oracle's proprietary leadership in enterprise AI/cloud but does not address the potential talent attraction and retention challenge in high-demand AI/cloud specialties; underinvestment or inability to compete with more agile or culturally attractive rivals could hinder Oracle's innovation pipeline, risking future revenue and long-term valuation multiples.
Valuation
How have all the factors above been brought together to estimate a fair value?- The analysts have a consensus price target of $253.129 for Oracle 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 $325.0, and the most bearish reporting a price target of just $183.1.
- In order for you to agree with the analyst's consensus, you'd need to believe that by 2028, revenues will be $99.5 billion, earnings will come to $25.3 billion, and it would be trading on a PE ratio of 37.7x, assuming you use a discount rate of 8.9%.
- Given the current share price of $241.51, the analyst price target of $253.13 is 4.6% higher. 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.
How well do narratives help inform your perspective?
Disclaimer
AnalystConsensusTarget is a tool utilizing a Large Language Model (LLM) that ingests data on consensus price targets, forecasted revenue and earnings figures, as well as the transcripts of earnings calls to produce qualitative analysis. The narratives produced by AnalystConsensusTarget are general in nature and are based solely on analyst data and publicly-available material published by the respective companies. These scenarios are not indicative of the company's future performance and are exploratory in nature. Simply Wall St has no position in the company(s) mentioned. Simply Wall St may provide the securities issuer or related entities with website advertising services for a fee, on an arm's length basis. These relationships have no impact on the way we conduct our business, the content we host, or how our content is served to users. The price targets and estimates used are consensus data, and do not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and they do not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. Note that AnalystConsensusTarget's analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material.