Raymond James increased its price target on Flex Ltd (NASDAQ:FLEX) to $80.00 from $75.00 and kept an Outperform rating following the company’s December-quarter report. At the time of the update, Flex shares were trading at $56.20 and the company had a market capitalization of $20.73 billion, implying notable upside from prevailing market levels.
The analyst move arrives despite a portion of the investor community characterizing Flex’s reported results and its guidance as somewhat underwhelming. Some market participants had anticipated that management would boost the datacenter business’s full-year revenue guidance to $6.5 billion, rather than reiterating the existing target that implies 35% year-over-year growth. Even with that perception, InvestingPro data shows three analysts recently raised their earnings forecasts for the coming period.
In its analysis, Raymond James highlighted that upside to fiscal third-quarter results was driven by high-performance networking and communications activity, gains that are recorded in Flex’s CEC segment rather than directly within the company’s datacenter guidance. Those contributions helped produce total revenue of $26.33 billion for Flex over the last twelve months. The firm also noted Flex’s relatively thin gross profit margins, which stood at 9.14%.
Raymond James indicated it expects additional transparency on cloud and artificial intelligence growth vectors when Flex restates its reporting segments alongside the fiscal 2027 outlook. The analyst firm suggested that such a restatement could act as a longer-term catalyst for the shares if it better isolates cloud/AI exposure.
Investors will have another near-term opportunity for management commentary at an investor meeting scheduled for May 13. Raymond James said it believes management may provide a formal guidance update at that event, and the firm is modeling some upside to the datacenter growth target for the fiscal fourth quarter.
Alongside the analyst coverage of Flex, the article also recounted developments at Nextpower. A newly formed joint venture, Nextpower Arabia - created by Nextpower and Abunayyan Holding - has secured a contract to supply 2.25 gigawatts of solar tracking systems for the Bisha Solar project in Saudi Arabia. That project is part of Saudi Arabia’s National Renewable Energy Program and represents the first major contract for the joint venture.
The partners have completed incorporation of Nextpower Arabia and announced plans for a manufacturing facility in Jeddah, which is expected to open in 2026. Nextpower has also expanded its U.S. footprint in Nashville, Tennessee, by doubling its solar tracker production capacity and increasing its workforce.
Nextpower has rebranded from Nextracker as it broadens into power conversion systems, with first shipments for that product line anticipated in 2026. These operational milestones at Nextpower and the formalization of the Nextpower Arabia joint venture underscore moves in the renewable energy and solar manufacturing space.
Separately noted within the reporting, Raymond James upgraded Flex from Market Perform to Outperform with a price target of $75.00, a move the firm attributed to the company’s growth potential in cloud and AI infrastructure. This item appears alongside the firm’s more recent revision lifting the target to $80.00.
Overall, the combination of near-term analyst optimism, segment-level performance in high-performance networking and communications, and forthcoming corporate events - the May 13 investor meeting and the fiscal 2027 segment restatement - frame the current narrative for Flex’s valuation and future guidance trajectory.