AMAT
AI isn’t cooling off, apparently
Applied Materials just got another vote of confidence from JPMorgan, which kept an Overweight rating on the stock and slapped on a $660 price target. That’s the kind of Wall Street message that says, “Yes, the AI party is still going — and the equipment guys are still selling the shovels.”
The numbers behind the hype
According to the company’s investor relations team, its Semiconductor Systems business could grow about 40% year over year this year. Not too shabby. Demand has also improved over the last 13 weeks, though there’s a catch: some customers are running into cleanroom space limits, which could cap how much more business can ramp near term.
Big capacity, bigger expectations
Applied Materials also says it plans to expand manufacturing capacity so it can eventually support up to twice its recent systems output by 2028. That’s not a forecast, the company was careful to say — more like making sure it doesn’t show up to a feast without enough plates.
And the AI angle? Still doing a lot of the heavy lifting. The company says AI-related markets like leading-edge logic, DRAM, and advanced packaging are driving about 80% of wafer fabrication equipment growth this year, and it expects a similar mix in 2027.
Why investors should care
This isn’t a dramatic one-day moonshot story; shares were actually down 0.67% at the time of publication. But the bigger signal is that Applied Materials sounds increasingly confident about a longer cycle, with customer forecasts stretching into 2028 and even some conversations out to 2030.
Big picture: if AI infrastructure keeps eating the world, Applied Materials wants to be the company selling the picks and shovels — at scale.