AMD (NASDAQ: AMD) shares are likely to rise as the chip company benefits from promising secular growth technology trends, according to a Wall Street firm.
Cowen initiated coverage on AMD shares with an outperform rating, predicting market share gains for the company's server chips.
"While AMD server sales have taken several quarters to materially ramp, we anticipate an inflection during 2H18 when OEM sales should complement cloud growth," analyst Matthew Ramsay said in a note to clients Thursday.
"We remain confident the impressive roster of cloud and OEM engagements including Dell, HP, Lenovo, Baidu, Microsoft Azure, Tencent, JD.com, Cray, and others will yield strong growth."
Ramsay started his price target from AMD shares at $18.00, representing 40% upside to Thursday's close.
Earlier this week, AMD announced unprecedented adoption of its AMD Ryzen™ PRO processors – including new notebooks and desktops powered by Ryzen PRO processors with built-in Radeon™ Vega graphics now available from the world’s three largest enterprise PC OEMs.
AMD Ryzen PRO APUs for premium commercial desktop and notebooks provide commercial PC buyers with new levels of choice and innovation and enable Dell, HP, and Lenovo to create a range of business systems, from sleek enterprise notebooks to powerful commercial desktops.
Combined, these systems make up the broadest portfolio of AMD processor-based enterprise PCs in the company’s history.
AMD shares began Friday up 36 cents, or 2.8%, to $13.18, within a 52-week trading range of $9.04 to $$15.65
