An overwhelming number of analysts still rate Nvidia a buy, and they expect a significant gain for the stock over the next year
Nvidia Corp. dominates coverage of the semiconductor manufacturing space, and rightly so. But many other chip makers are expected to put up impressive numbers over the next two years.
Nvidia $(NVDA)$ has commanded the market for graphics processing units being deployed by data centers to support their corporate clients' development of artificial-intelligence technology. The company has been showing dramatic increases in revenue for the past five reported fiscal quarters. Nvidia's market capitalization has increased to $2.61 trillion from $358 billion two years ago. The company's stock now makes up 5.7% of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust SPY, the oldest and largest exchange-traded fund tracking the S&P 500 SPX. Only Apple Inc. $(AAPL)$ and Microsoft Corp. $(MSFT)$ are weighted more heavily in the index.
Nvidia more than doubled sales last calendar year, and it's expected to do the same this year. The company likely won't be able to keep up that rapid rate of growth going forward, but it's still expected to be a relatively fast grower within its sector.
Analysts on average model a nearly 33% compound annual growth rate for Nvidia's revenue through calendar 2026. That's notable as some investors have started to get worried about Nvidia's growth potential for calendar 2026, especially in light of a less dramatic revenue beat in the latest quarter and swirling questions about the return on investment for AI spending. If big cloud customers and others don't see enough AI revenue to justify their investments, they may be less inclined to pour more money into AI hardware.
Screening semiconductor stocks
When a company essentially creates a large and lucrative new market, the competition can be expected to up its game and take a share eventually. Or maybe in the case of Nvidia, there will be a breather for GPU implementation as companies investing so much in new hardware feel pressure to derive profits from AI-related related products and services.
So this is a good time to look ahead. We can do this by calculating expected compound growth rates for semiconductor-industry players' revenue over the next two years.
For this screen we started with the 30 components of the iShares Semiconductor ETF SOXX, which tracks the PHLX Semiconductor Index SOX. Then we added the 31 additional companies in the S&P 1500 Composite Index that are in the semiconductor industry, as determined by FactSet, or in the Semiconductors and Semiconductor Equipment Global Industry Classification Standard group, as per companies' filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The S&P Composite 1500 Index is made up of the S&P 500 SPX, the S&P MidCap 400 Index MID and the S&P Small Cap 600 Index SML.
Then we looked at calendar-year revenue estimates through 2026 among analysts polled by FactSet to see which companies are expected to show the highest two-year sales CAGR. We used estimates for calendar years, as adjusted by FactSet, because many companies confuse investors with fiscal years that don't match the calendar. For example, on Aug. 28, Nvidia announced results for the second quarter of its fiscal 2025.
Among the 61 companies in our initial group of manufacturers and designers of semiconductors and related equipment, consensus sales estimates were available through calendar 2026 for 53 companies.
Among the 53 remaining companies, there are the 17 for which sales are expected to increase at an annualized pace of more than 20% from calendar 2024 through calendar 2026. Calendar-year sales estimates are in millions.
To put these expected revenue growth rates into perspective, the two-year estimated sales CAGR through 2026 for the PHLX Semiconductor Index is 17.1%. This index has a modified market-cap weighting with an 8% maximum when the underlying index is rebalanced quarterly.
Shares of SolarEdge Technologies Inc. $(SEDG)$, which leads the list, have had a brutal year, falling more than 80% over the course of 2024 to date. The company makes technology for solar-power generation, and it's been hurt by a weak solar market and general sector pressure.
Despite analysts' projections for fast sales growth going forward, the company faces financial challenges elsewhere. In launching coverage of SolarEdge shares with a hold rating earlier this month, Jefferies analyst Julien Dumoulin-Smith said that "the path forward is opaque with continued negative [free cash flow]." SolarEdge has also become a popular short play, with short interest amounting to more than 30% of the float, according to FactSet data.
Other solar plays, including Enphase Energy Inc. (ENPH), place among the top projected sales growers as well. "We recognize the re-acceleration in growth ahead but ultimately see the recovery and upside from domestic content priced-in with execution risk ahead," Dumoulin-Smith wrote in taking up coverage of Enphase shares, also with a hold rating.
Wolfspeed Inc. (WOLF) ranks second on the list for expected sales CAGR through 2026. The company specializes in making electronic components using silicon carbide for electric vehicles. It also provides components for charging and power storage equipment. The company isn't expected to show a quarterly profit for at least two more years, according to FactSet's consensus estimates. Most analysts have neutral ratings for Wolfspeed's stock. In a note to clients on Aug. 22, following the company's most recent quarterly report, Oppenheimer analyst Colin Rusch wrote that some of investors' concerns about the company's financial health were being addressed by a cut in planned capital expenditures and the expectations of federal funding through the CHIPS Act.
Next up is Silicon Laboratories Inc. $(SLAB)$, an analog and mixed-signal chip company that is expected to post its second calendar year in a row of declining sales in 2024 before rebounding big through 2026.
That hits on a general trend in the semiconductor sector. If you focus just on the AI craze, you might think the chip sector is universally hot, but many areas of the market including automotive and industrial semiconductors have faced recent pressure. That sets companies up for big potential revenue recoveries if their end markets turn around.
The issue of Nvidia's forecast moving through calendar 2026 is especially topical as investors think about AI returns. Mizuho desk-based analyst Jordan Klein wrote ahead of Nvidia's late-August earnings report that the top question on the buy side concerns the growth outlook for cloud capital spending in calendar 2026 versus calendar 2025.
"Nobody really knows," he wrote. "Investors feel good about this year and 2025 for sure, but in 6-8 months, [Nvidia's stock] will trade off [calendar-year 2026 estimates] and those will rely heavily on biggest GPU and AI compute buyers, or the cloud hyperscalers (vs sovereigns, enterprise, edge devices)."
Meanwhile, rival Advanced Micro Devices Inc. sits just outside the top 10 in terms of expected CAGR through 2026. The company seeks to claw into Nvidia’s dominant market share in AI GPUs, and it also could benefit if some of its non-AI businesses recover. For instance, AMD’s gaming business saw a 61% revenue decline in the latest quarter and is expected to post sharp declines in the next two as well, before getting back into positive growth territory.
On AI, there’s plenty of market opportunity for AMD in the near term, but its rival certainly isn’t sitting still. Nvidia is targeting a one-year product cadence for new offerings, which should keep AMD on its heels.
Leaving the group in the same order, here is a summary of opinion for these stocks among analysts working for brokerage firms polled by FactSet:
