
Memory Price Surge Accelerating IT Hardware Spending, Morgan Stanley Says
Information technology hardware companies in the US will likely benefit from accelerated enterprise spending amid a surge in memory prices that was previously expected to hurt the industry, Morgan Stanley said in a Monday note.Soaring memory chip prices driven by booming artificial intelligence demand is fueling what Morgan Stanley described as "chipflation."The brokerage had projected record component inflation to hit hardware spending, but is now seeing companies accelerate their purchases of personal computers, servers and storage arrays to avoid supply shortages and protect themselves from rising prices.Morgan Stanley upgraded the US IT hardware industry to "in line" from "cautious," saying "this cycle is driven by refresh, pull-forward (and) AI, making this a longer but still predominantly cyclical infrastructure upcycle."Morgan Stanley lifted Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) and Everpure (P) to overweight from equal-weight and NetApp (NTAP) to equal-weight from underweight.The brokerage designated Hewlett Packard as its preferred enterprise hardware play in the US, citing factors including comparable exposure to enterprise infrastructure and an underappreciated networking business.Within peers, Everpure has "the most attractive combination" of storage spending exposure, share gains and attractive valuation, the investment firm said. For NetApp, it pointed to improving storage fundamentals supporting higher earnings estimates.While Dell Technologies (DELL) is set to see positive earnings revisions in the coming months due to its elevated server and storage exposure, its current valuation already reflects that underlying strength, Morgan Stanley said.Morgan Stanley is underweight on HP (HPQ) and Logitech (LOGI) given spending headwinds to PCs. The brokerage downgraded Teradata (TDC) to equal-weight from overweight."We also have to remain tactical, and signs of peaking estimate revisions will be our call to get more cautious again, and ride the other side of this upcycle," according to the research note.