CRM
Pre-earnings, but make it complicated
Salesforce is heading into its Wednesday earnings report with the market doing what the market does best: squinting at mixed signals and calling it analysis. BTIG’s Allan Verkhovski kept a Buy rating and slapped a $255 price target on the stock, but the vibe is less “victory lap” and more “show me the second half.”
The good, the bad, and the AI budget fight
On the upbeat side, the analyst said channel checks show:
- More customers putting Agentforce into production
- Some renewed interest in core Sales Cloud deals
- Green shoots in Sales, Service, and Slack
- A big utilities deal that moved to an unlimited credit license
But there’s also the stuff that makes investors arch an eyebrow. Microsoft said Dynamics saw longer sales cycles, HubSpot called out softer demand and budget sensitivity, and Salesforce’s Tableau business is still facing headwinds. In other words: enterprise software is still fighting the same old battle for budget dollars, and AI is the shiny object eating the room.
Why investors care
The numbers to watch are pretty straightforward:
- cRPO growth of at least 13.5% in constant currency, vs. 13.0% consensus
- Total revenue growth of 10.0%, roughly in line with guidance
- Q3 revenue growth guidance of about 11%
- Q3 cRPO growth guidance of about 13%
The real tension here is that investors are skeptical Salesforce can actually re-accelerate in the second half. That makes this print less about one quarter and more about whether CRM can prove it still has a gear Wall Street hasn’t priced in yet.
Big picture
Salesforce doesn’t need to wow everyone — it just needs to show the AI story is turning into actual usage, not PowerPoint glitter. If it does, the stock gets to dream a little bigger. If not, the market will keep treating “second-half acceleration” like a fun rumor from a friend who’s always late.