{"id":561875,"date":"2026-08-07T14:48:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:48:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/561875\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T14:48:18","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T14:48:18","slug":"cloudflare-shares-jump-after-forecast-raise-on-higher-ai-driven-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/561875\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloudflare shares jump after forecast raise on higher AI-driven spending"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aug 7 (Reuters) – Cloudflare shares rose 16% before the bell on Friday after the cloud services firm raised its annual forecasts, \u200cbetting that growing enterprise spending on AI infrastructure would drive demand \u200cfor its networking and security products. <\/p>\n

The results, reported after markets closed on Thursday, add to signs \u200bthat higher AI adoption is boosting demand beyond chipmakers to companies providing the software and infrastructure used to build and run AI applications. <\/p>\n

The earnings follow Amazon.com’s strongest cloud growth in more than four years. Amazon company noted that \u200cit won’t have enough capacity \u2060to meet all demand this year. <\/p>\n

Analysts at TD Cowen said that Cloudflare is “well-positioned to play a lead role as \u2060AI<\/a> unfolds.” <\/p>\n

Cloudflare now expects full-year revenue of $2.86 billion to $2.87 billion, up from its prior expectation of $2.805 billion to $2.813 billion. It also lifted its adjusted earnings per share \u200bforecast \u200bto a range of $1.25 to $1.26 from its \u200bearlier estimate of $1.19 to $1.20. <\/p>\n

The company \u200cadded about 2 million developers in the second quarter alone, surpassing the 1.5 million it added last year. <\/p>\n

Analysts at Morgan Stanley said Cloudflare’s Workers developer platform was its fastest-growing segment, amid a shift toward a usage-based model, expecting the company to exceed its outlook. <\/p>\n

San Francisco-based Cloudflare’s security business could also \u200cbenefit as companies look to protect AI-powered \u200bapplications and workers from increasingly sophisticated cyber \u200bthreats. <\/p>\n

Shares of the company have \u200bgained over 44% so far this year, compared with a \u200cnear-77% rise in rival CrowdStrike and \u200ba 95% jump in \u200bPalo Alto Networks. The stock trades at over 190 times its forward price-to-earnings ratio, compared with over 145 for CrowdStrike, according to \u200bLSEG-compiled data. <\/p>\n

The company “has multiple, \u200cdurable avenues to AI monetization over the long-to-medium term that warrants \u200ba premium valuation,” RBC Capital Markets analysts noted. <\/p>\n

(Reporting by Purvi Agarwal \u200bin Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Aug 7 (Reuters) – Cloudflare shares rose 16% before the bell on Friday after the cloud services firm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,8187,16068,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-561875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-cloud-services","tag-cloudflare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}