Investing.com — Needham & Company unveiled its 2025 Top Picks list, spotlighting Roku (NASDAQ:ROKU) and Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) as two of several standout names for the coming year.
Needham analysts emphasized Roku’s potential as a top stock pick for 2025, driven by growth in connected TV (CTV) advertising and industry consolidation.
The firm predicts Roku’s installed base will expand to nearly 100 million homes by the end of 2025, reaching approximately 200 million viewers.
Needham, citing data from eMarketer, says industry CTV ad revenues are projected to grow by 16% year-over-year in 2025, hitting $33 billion. Roku stands out, with 100% of its ad revenues coming from the CTV segment, one of the fastest-growing areas in digital advertising.
The firm also highlights Roku’s significant upside potential in data monetization, stating, “Roku’s first-party data is a hidden asset never separately monetized, and LLMs will pay ever more for large 1st-party (permissioned) data sets.”
This is said to position Roku to capitalize on the growing demand for comprehensive CTV advertising and data-driven marketing solutions.
In the enterprise software sector, Salesforce.com has been added to Needham’s Conviction List, with a bullish outlook driven by its new Agentforce (AF) strategy. The analysts point to recent ecosystem checks confirming that AF is actively integrated into nearly half of enterprise customer deals.
Although these deals start as small pilots, Needham notes that they are expected to scale significantly in the second half of the year.
“AI-focused sales rep hiring is moving fast, which should aid 2H bookings,” the firm notes. With a current valuation of 24x FY26 free cash flow, Needham sees attractive upside if Salesforce can successfully execute its strategy. The firm raised its price target for CRM to $400.
