UiPath gets upgraded to overweight at Morgan Stanley, $74 PT
Dec. 03, 2021 7:36 AM ETUiPath Inc. (PATH)MSFT, CRM, NOW, SNOWBy: Chris Ciaccia, SA News Editor13 Comments
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- UiPath (NYSE:PATH) shares are being upgraded to overweight at Morgan Stanley after the stock has pulled back 30% over the past three months.
- UiPath (PATH) shares are up nearly 5% in early Friday trading to $45.29.
- Analyst Keith Weiss said investors are worrying about recent entrants into the Robotic Process Automation - RPA - market like Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) and ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW), but these concerns overlook how large the RPA market could be in the near-term and "completely dismiss UiPath’s strong positioning for a broader Enterprise Automation platform opportunity longer-term."
- Weiss notes that the RPA market is roughly $2 billion currently, but it could reach as much as $56 billion. Weiss also points out that UiPath (PATH) has an opportunity in the Enterprise Automation Platform market, which is valued at greater than $15 billion and could be worth more than $40 billion in 2025.
- UiPath (PATH) is the "market leader" in the RPA market, Morgan Stanley added, noting it has 32% market share, citing data from IDC. Chief Information Officers also prefer UiPath (PATH) software, as Morgan Stanley's own CIO survey found that the company has a 30% market share and it is viewed "as the top platform for automation consolidation among CIOs who are likely to standardize."
- There may be some concerns about "short-term lumpiness" for revenue, pricing pressure and how durable the RPA market is, Weiss said these risks are "well priced" into UiPath (PATH) shares and strong performance from the company "should drive shares higher from here."
- In October, UiPath (PATH) announced it had signed a deal with Snowflake (NYSE:SNOW) to integrate UiPath Insights with Snowflake’s platform.