Analysts at William Blair began coverage of Amazon with a very bullish take on the stock.
The firm initiated the e-commerce giant's stock with an "outperform" rating and a price target of $820 a share, citing the strength and market share lead of Amazon Web Services. The stock traded near $718 a share on Friday.
"Despite increasingly aggressive competition from Microsoft and Google, our research suggests that Amazon maintains very high win rates. We believe this can be attributed to the company's significantly greater feature depth, geographical footprint, and industry mindshare," they said in a Thursday note to clients. "The infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) market is forecast to grow from $12 billion in 2015 to $62 billion in 2020, and we expect Amazon Web Services (AWS) to maintain its leading market share position over the duration of our forecast."
William Blair also noted Amazon would benefit from higher e-commerce penetration. "We believe e-commerce sales will continue to account for a greater percentage of retail sales, driven by convenience and faster and less expensive delivery.
Amazon's stock has been on fire over the past year, gaining nearly 67 percent, and recently hit a new all-time high.
AMZN 12-month chart
Disclosure: William Blair makes a market maker for Amazon.