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Here's How Much a $1000 Investment in Arista Networks Made 10 Years Ago Would Be Worth Today

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For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. This factor can impact your investment portfolio as well as help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.

Another thing that can drive investing is the fear of missing out, or FOMO. This particularly applies to tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.

What if you'd invested in Arista Networks (ANET - Free Report) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to ANET for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?

Arista Networks' Business In-Depth

With that in mind, let's take a look at Arista Networks' main business drivers.

Santa Clara, CA-based Arista Networks, Inc. is engaged in providing cloud networking solutions for data centers and cloud computing environments. The company offers 10/25/40/50/100 Gigabit Ethernet switches and routers optimized for next generation data center networks.

Arista uses multiple silicon architectures across its products. At the core of the company’s cloud networking solutions is the Linux-based Extensible Operating System (EOS), which was architected to be fully programmable and highly modular.

EOS supports leading cloud and virtualization solutions, including Microsoft System Center, OpenStack and other cloud management frameworks. The company co-authored the Virtual Extensible LAN (VXLAN) protocol specification with VMware and was the first to demonstrate VXLAN integration. Moreover, it has now expanded VXLAN routing and integration.

In 2015, Arista introduced CloudVision, a network-wide approach for workload orchestration and workflow automation delivering a turnkey solution for cloud networking. In 2019, Arista introduced 10 new 400G platforms. In the Leaf/Spine High Network Radix category, it offers two new fixed 32 port 400G switches, and a 128 port 100G/32 port 400G modular switch. For the Universal Leaf and Spine category of switching, the company introduced R3 series 100G and 400G products supporting up to 2.5M routes on its 7280R3 series fixed and 7500R3 series modular platforms.

Arista introduced a modular family called the 7800R3, a high density 100G and 400G platform supporting up to 460 Tbps of system throughput. Also, it launched the 720XP Series of fixed Power over Ethernet (PoE) leaf switches with 60W PoE, enabling it to offer a complete end-to-end solution for cognitive campus Ethernet as well as the introduction of WiFi-6 wireless Access Points (APs).

The company serves five verticals namely – cloud titans (customers that deploy more than one million servers), cloud specialty providers, service providers, financial services and rest of enterprise. Arista’s customers include six of the largest cloud service providers based on annual revenues. In 2023, total revenues were $5.86 billion.

Bottom Line

Anyone can invest, but building a successful investment portfolio requires research, patience, and a little bit of risk. So, if you had invested in Arista Networks ten years ago, you're likely feeling pretty good about your investment today.

A $1000 investment made in July 2014 would be worth $22,206.17, or a gain of 2,120.62%, as of July 17, 2024, according to our calculations. This return excludes dividends but includes price appreciation.

Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 186% and gold's return of 79.63% over the same time frame.

Analysts are forecasting more upside for ANET too.

Arista is benefiting from solid net sales growth driven by strong momentum in the cloud networking vertical and data center business. It provides routing and switching platforms with industry-leading capacity, low latency, port density and power efficiency. It expects a healthy improvement in gross margin, owing to the optimization of manufacturing output and diligent execution of operational plans. Easing supply chain woes is a tailwind. However, Arista continues to derive a substantial portion of its revenue from a limited number of large customers. Any change in demand patterns of these clients can significantly affect the top line. Moderation in customer spending primarily from cloud titan customers is a headwind. A rise in headcount, new product introduction costs and higher variable compensation expenditures are straining margins.

The stock is up 5.26% over the past four weeks, and no earnings estimate has gone lower in the past two months, compared to 2 higher, for fiscal 2024. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.

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