Stifel analyst sees another 30% upside in Amazon stock

Shares of Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ: AMZN) remain attractive even though they have already gained close to 60% year-to-date, says Mark Kelley. He’s a Senior Analyst at Stifel.

Amazon stock could climb to $173

Kelley assumed coverage of the tech behemoth this morning with a “buy” rating this morning. His $173 price target suggests another 30% upside from here.

The analyst is bullish on Amazon stock due to its sheer scale in eCommerce and potential for margin improvement.

While scale matters for its core retail business, it is also the foundation upon which its related businesses have been built.

The Nasdaq-listed firm is scheduled to report its Q3 results next week. Consensus is for it to earn 58 cents a share this quarter versus 20 cents per share a year ago.

Kelley is bullish on Amazon’s ads business

Mark Kelley likes Amazon stock also for the company’s digital advertising business that he expects will bring in $64 billion in 2025 versus only $38 billion in 2022.

Last month, the tech titan said its Prime Video platform will start to show “limited” ads in early 2024. The multinational also became an advertising partner for Pinterest in April of 2023.

Amazon recently hosted its bi-annual Prime Day event – sales at which surpassed the sales at the same event last year. The Stifel analyst is also convinced that AMZN can weather the slowdown in discretionary spending.

Amazon to launch in South Africa in 2024 👨🏿‍💻

Independent sellers and small business owners can register their businesses on Amazon from today. https://t.co/Moy7XHYWNw

— Mashudu Modau (@Mashstartup) October 17, 2023

In September, FTC teamed up with 17 states to sue Amazon (find out more). Its shares are currently down about 30% versus their all-time high.