Shares of Marvell Technology advanced before the opening bell on Thursday after an analyst team hiked its price target by 48%, based on the belief that Marvell's optical-networking opportunity will continue to bear fruit.
KeyBanc Capital Markets analysts, led by John Vinh, late Wednesday raised their Marvell stock price target by 48% to $385 from $260 and reaffirmed an Overweight rating. The new price target is 33% higher than Wednesday's closing price of $289.54.
Marvell stock rose 6.4% to $308.60 in premarket trading on Thursday. Shares also were getting a boost from President Donald Trump saying Intel had won a chip-manufacturing deal with Apple. Intel rose 9.3%.
Marvell stock has advanced 51% in June, part of a 263% gain this year, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
The price target hike came a couple weeks after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he believes that Marvell can achieve a market value of more than $1 trillion.
While Marvell remains well below that level, with a current market capitalization of $27.1 billion, KeyBanc's 48% price target hike is certainly a good sign for investors.
Marvell would need a stock price of $1,143.12 to reach the $1 trillion market value level, according to Dow Jones Market Data.
After hosting an investor meeting with Marvell, KeyBanc is more optimistic around the company's optical-networking opportunity and believes it could be more "durable" than Marvell's custom artificial-intelligence chip business.
Vinh added that Marvell's optical-networking business is likely to be the focus of attention for investors moving forward.
Marvell's business designing custom AI chips -- called application-specific integrated circuits, or ASICS -- has long been what investors were interested in. However, what has catapulted the stock 341% over the past 12 months has been excitement around Marvell's networking products.
Ever-larger AI data centers require optical transceivers to more efficiently transfer data by converting electrical signals into light and Marvell makes the digital signal processors within those transceivers.
"Networking represents the most significant and durable growth opportunity," Vinh wrote Wednesday, adding that the total addressable market by 2030 could be around $30 billion. Vinh wrote that Marvell is well positioned to grab a large portion of market share.
The analyst added that Marvell's custom AI chips also remain a bright spot for the company. Vinh noted that despite less long-term durability in demand, Marvell has a "clear line of sight" to $10 billion in revenue by 2030 for its AI chips, with Amazon.com-owned AWS and Microsoft underpinning sales.
In recent months Marvell has announced the acquisitions of optical-networking company Celestial AI for $3.25 billion and interconnect technology company XConn for $540 million.
Nvidia has also invested $2 billion in Marvell as part of a collaboration that will allow customers to use components from both companies to develop semi-custom AI infrastructure.