Evercore ISI Raises Meta Price Target to $870

Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney raised the price target on Meta Platforms Inc.

(NASDAQ: META) to $870 (from $860) while maintaining an Outperform rating.

“We reiterate our Outperform rating and raise our PT from $860 to $870 (23x ’28 EPS of $37.88, implying 22% share price upside) in the wake of Beat & Raise Q3 results.

Revenue of $64.6B (+26% Y/Y ex-FX) came in approx. 2% ahead of ISI/Street, while Operating Income excluding the $9.9B legal charge was $22.9B (35.4% margin), approx. 9%/13% ahead of ISI/Street.

Q4 Revenue guidance of $73–76B bracketed the Street’s ~$73.6B estimate, with the midpoint approx. 1% ahead.

All in, fundamentals remained impressive on the top line and negative on the bottom line — Revenue Growth ex-FX decelerated just 1-pt to 26% on a 3-pt tougher comp (i.e. revenue growth accelerated on a 2-year stack basis), while Operating Margins declining approx.

470 bps Y/Y excluding the legal charge.

What’s Really Key: 1.

Very impressive 26% Y/Y Ad revenue growth — 2x that of the Online Ad industry…Meta continues to take major share…and the company expects to “sustain strong overall revenue growth throughout 2027” (an unusually bold statement by the company); 2.

Robust engagement trends — with Instagram global time spent per user growing double digits Y/Y to an all-time high and Facebook Reels time spent also reaching records and growing double digits globally…AI-driven content recommendations are having a very clear impact; 3.

Muse is jamming — More than 10MM people in the U.S. and Canada set up Muse personal agents in its first six weeks, with ~25% using the product on “any given day”…Shopping is the leading use case, engaging >25% of weekly actives…and management believes Muse U.S.

ARPU can surpass Meta U.S. ARPU, effectively doubling+ from today’s $350-$400 range (our estimate); 4.

Meta has 500MM SMBs on its platform – new disclosure and a lot more than we had estimated…creates a huge opportunity for Meta Business Agents…how else to respond to all those Muse Agent requests?; 5.

UCAN Ad Revenue grew 33% Y/Y – fastest growth in 6 years…Yowza….’ & 6) META is issuing new Class C Common stock — we anticipate a capital raise (debt/equity) in the near term (3-6 months).”

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