The stock market has enjoyed an impressive 2023 with the benchmark S&P 500 index up by 22%. While some analysts are now expecting a correction, any pullback may prove to be a buy-on-the-dip opportunity for bargain hunters.
Even though it’s quite difficult to time the market with any certainty, investors can benefit in the long run by buying high-quality growth stocks riding robust secular tailwinds. Here’s why Snowflake (SNOW 1.48%), Salesforce (CRM -0.04%), and ServiceNow (NOW 0.53%) fit the bill and can be attractive picks to buy now and hold in 2024 and beyond.
Snowflake
Cloud-native data platform Snowflake helps organizations organize, store, and analyze huge mounds of structured and unstructured data gathered across multiple formats, sources, and systems. Shares of this company have already surged by nearly 40% in 2023. However, there are still many factors that can propel the stock higher in the coming months.
First, Snowflake is benefiting from new enterprises migrating data and workloads from their on-premises legacy systems to its cloud-native data platform. The company is also seeing expansion of workloads by existing customers, indicating that they are expanding usage over time.
Second, these demand trends are helping the company add new high-value clients to its customer base. In the third quarter, Snowflake added 35 new customers who will each contribute over $1 million in annual revenue. That brings the total number of $1 million-plus customers to 436, up 52% year over year.
Third, Snowflake’s ability to handle unstructured data has been a major differentiator for the company. Over 30% of its customers utilized the data platform to process unstructured data. That’s led to a 17-fold year-over-year rise in the consumption of unstructured data in October 2023. Recently, the company introduced a new data streaming feature called Dynamic Tables. Currently, 1,500 customers are using this feature and many more will likely join in the coming quarters.
Finally, Snowflake’s consumption-based pricing model has proved to be a solid positive in the current tumultuous times. Although it introduces some revenue volatility, the flexibility for customers to scale their usage based upon their requirements helps control churn levels.
This demonstrates the core strength of Snowflake’s business model, which makes it a compelling pick for 2024 and beyond.
Salesforce
Cloud software giant Salesforce has emerged as a formidable player in the enterprise software landscape, thanks to its remarkable ability to balance growth with operational efficiency.
In the third quarter of its fiscal 2024 (ended Sept. 30, 2023), the company managed to beat both revenue and earnings consensus estimates, and it has come out with a solid outlook for the rest of 2024. Salesforce’s remaining performance obligations (RPO, a metric to gauge future revenue growth potential) grew 21% year over year to $48.3 billion.
Salesforce is witnessing robust demand for its products such as Data Cloud, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Slack, Tableau, and Mulesoft. The company has also been quite successful in bundling products and simplifying the buying experience — evident from the 80% year-over-year growth in the number of deals raking in $1 million or more in revenue in the third quarter. This approach has also helped in a 30% year-over-year improvement in Salesforce’s account executive productivity in the third quarter.
Salesforce has also been quick to jump on the artificial intelligence (AI) bandwagon, recognized as the No. 1 company globally for AI customer relationship management software. The company is offering an open integrated data and AI platform to its customers in partnership with leading cloud provider Amazon‘s AWS. These capabilities have further helped Salesforce differentiate from other enterprise software players and build a strong customer base across industries and geographies.
This combination of a strong product portfolio, data and AI capabilities, and strategic partnerships has made Salesforce a compelling buy-and-hold pick for 2024 and beyond.
ServiceNow
Business process automation and digital transformation player ServiceNow is helping over 7,700 global enterprises streamline and automate workflows related to technology, workforce, and customer experiences.
The company has also partnered with Nvidia to enhance the speed and intelligence of its Now platform with generative AI capabilities. With 2023 marked by cost-cutting priorities, ServiceNow’s highly customizable and scalable services are proving vital for businesses seeking efficiency and productivity.
ServiceNow’s recent financial performance has been noteworthy. Third-quarter revenue jumped 25% year over year to $2.29 billion. Subscription revenue accounted for nearly 97% of total revenue, which highlights high revenue visibility for the company. ServiceNow’s net income also soared 202% year over year to $242 million. Free cash flow rose 9% year over year to $196 million.
The company has also been acquiring high-value customers at a healthy clip. That includes 83 deals with net new annual contract value (ACV) of $1 million or more in the third quarter, up 20% on a year-over-year basis. ServiceNow also reported a 58% year-over-year jump in customers contributing over $20 million in ACV. It currently boasts a 98% customer renewal rate, showing the stickiness of its Now platform.
ServiceNow is committed to returning value to shareholders in the form of share repurchases. In the third quarter, the company bought back stock worth $282 million, leaving $1.2 billion of the original $1.5 billion in authorized repurchases still pending.
With robust financial and operational metrics, ServiceNow can prove to be a smart buy for 2024 and beyond.
John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Manali Bhade has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Nvidia, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Snowflake. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
