CrowdStrike upgraded to Buy at BTIG on improved visibility, ARR recovery

Investing.com -- BTIG raised its CrowdStrike (NASDAQ:CRWD) stock rating to Buy from Neutral on Tuesday, pointing to improved forecast visibility and potential for reaccelerated growth.

The company’s shares climbed 1.5% in premarket trading.

CrowdStrike's performance since the significant IT outage last July has provided BTIG with confidence in the company's ability to forecast more accurately.

The firm's analysts highlighted the potential for a 2.5% to 8% upside to current street forecasts for CrowdStrike's fiscal year 2027 (FY27) annual recurring revenue (ARR).

They forecast growth to reaccelerate in the second half of 2026, with CrowdStrike's ARR potentially reaching $6.225 million to $6.579 million in FY27, exceeding street estimates.

“We see CRWD emerging as the cleanest platform play across the security software space,” BTIG analyst Gray Powell said in a note.

“To be clear, we are still skeptical when vendors claim their products can cover multiple pillars and buying centers within security budgets. That said, CRWD has demonstrated its dominance in the core endpoint security target market,” he added.

The upgrade also reflects BTIG's long-term view that CrowdStrike can achieve a $10 billion ARR target earlier than management's previous expectation of the fiscal year 2031.

BTIG's product-level analysis suggests CrowdStrike could grow its total revenue at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of over 25% through the calendar year 2028, which is above the low 20% range expected by the Street consensus.

Powell also highlighted CrowdStrike's dominance in the $16 billion endpoint security market, and its competitive position in the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) market, a $6 billion-plus opportunity.

Additionally, CrowdStrike is recognized within the top vendors in the $7 billion cloud security space and shows rapid momentum in the $2.5 billion vulnerability management market.

As well, BTIG noted that its fieldwork over the past five months indicates that CrowdStrike has improved momentum in the SIEM and vulnerability management markets, where it is expected to gain a significant market share.

This, combined with established categories like endpoint security and emerging fields such as cloud security and identity threat protection, underpins the firm's bullish long-term growth forecasts for CrowdStrike.

This article first appeared in Investing.com