Salesforce shares climbed after the cloud software giant unveiled new long-term financial targets, projecting revenue of more than US$60 billion by 2030 — exceeding analyst expectations. The company also forecast organic growth above 10 per cent annually from 2026 through 2030 and reaffirmed plans to expand margins and repurchase shares.
BNN Bloomberg spoke with Gil Luria, head of technology research at D. A. Davidson, about Salesforce’s 2030 ambitions and what the outlook signals for the broader software sector. He also discussed where investors may find stronger growth opportunities among other tech names, including Snowflake, Datadog, JFrog and Monday.com.
Key Takeaways
- Salesforce expects to generate more than US$60 billion in revenue by 2030, topping analyst forecasts.
- The company projects organic revenue growth above 10 per cent annually from 2026 through 2030.
- Analyst Gil Luria called the targets ambitious, noting Salesforce must reinvest in its core cloud businesses.
- Margin expansion and share buybacks were seen as key positives for investors.
- Luria favours infrastructure software firms such as Snowflake, Datadog and JFrog, and application leader Monday.com for stronger near-term growth.
Read the full transcript below:
LINDSAY: Shares of Salesforce are trading higher after the cloud-based software company issued new financial targets for the next few years, saying it now expects to generate more than US$60 billion in revenue by 2030. For more on this, I’m joined by Gil Luria, head of technology research at D. A. Davidson. Good to have you with us, and thanks for taking the time.
GIL: Thanks for having me.
LINDSAY: Salesforce has called for an organic year-over-year revenue growth rate above 10 per cent from 2026 through 2030. Given that growth has been under 10 per cent since mid-2024, how realistic do you think this is?
GIL: It’s worth trying. Salesforce shares have underperformed for a year as the company’s growth has slowed to the high single digits, down from nearly double that rate a year or two ago. What investors were encouraged by is that the company still has aspirations to get back to double-digit growth. They said it would take 12 to 18 months to reach that inflection point, so it’s still a way off. It’s somewhat wishful thinking, but investors were encouraged that the company has those aspirations, that it’s also looking at margin expansion, and that it intends to buy back more stock — which, at current multiples, isn’t a bad idea.
LINDSAY: Do those plans counter the reasons Salesforce has underperformed in recent years? What’s been behind the weakness?
GIL: Its core businesses have deteriorated, especially last year. For a while, Salesforce was very focused on Agentforce — its AI platform — and pushing that product to customers. But that came at the expense of its core businesses like Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud and some earlier acquisitions. Those businesses decelerated as the focus shifted to Agentforce. Agentforce is doing well, but it’s still small, only a couple of per cent of the overall business, and it’s not yet ready for prime time. Agentic AI is promising technology, but most large companies aren’t ready to fully implement it yet. Until that happens, Salesforce needs to reinvest in its core businesses to accelerate growth, and hopefully that’s what it’s doing now.
LINDSAY: Right, Agentforce is the AI platform from Salesforce. So, aside from refocusing on its core businesses, what else does the company need to do to reaccelerate growth?
GIL: It needs to return to expanding margins. When activist investors got involved three years ago, Salesforce made big progress in improving operating margins. But recently, that progress has slowed — this year, margin expansion will be minimal. There’s still opportunity. Adobe, which is actually a smaller company, has operating margins about 10 per cent higher and is still expanding them. What was encouraging about Salesforce’s latest message is that it seems to be returning to that focus on margin expansion. Accelerating revenue growth will be hard, but boosting margins is something they can do to increase earnings for shareholders.
LINDSAY: We’ve seen Salesforce shares climb today — almost five per cent at last check. Is this just hype from the announcement, or do investors really believe the company can turn things around?
GIL: The message was encouraging. Investors liked that Salesforce plans to accelerate growth, commit to higher margins and increase its buyback. The ambition itself was enough to lift sentiment after a year of underperformance.
LINDSAY: You’ve also pointed to other software companies that are showing stronger growth. Let’s start with Snowflake.
GIL: Yes, the theme is that while some software companies are struggling as customers delay spending until the AI picture becomes clearer, others are accelerating. The infrastructure software firms are the ones seeing that growth because AI creates more data and workloads — not less. Snowflake helps manage and organize that data so AI tools can use it. Datadog monitors and observes that data and the applications it powers. JFrog helps create and manage the code. All three are seeing accelerating growth. That’s where we’re focused — the part of the software sector that’s benefiting most from AI adoption.
LINDSAY: And the last name you mentioned was Monday.com. Tell us about that one, and do you have a favourite among the four?
GIL: Monday.com is a great work collaboration platform, but more importantly, it manages the data schema for its small-business customers. That lets it offer other software packages around customer management and operations. The company’s revenue is still growing more than 25 per cent, but it reported earnings just after GPT-5 was released — when investors were panicking about software — and the stock dropped despite only a minor miss. Now we have a company growing 25 per cent trading at 25 times cash flow. You don’t see that often, which is why Monday.com tops our list right now.
LINDSAY: Very interesting. Gil Luria, head of technology research at D. A. Davidson, thanks so much for joining us.
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This BNN Bloomberg summary and transcript of the Oct. 16, 2025 interview with Gil Luria are published with the assistance of AI. Original research, interview questions and added context was created by BNN Bloomberg journalists. An editor also reviewed this material before it was published to ensure its accuracy and adherence with BNN Bloomberg editorial policies and standards.
