- Celsius Holdings shares popped after Truist upgraded the stock, citing its strong placement with women consumers.
- The stock hit levels on Monday not seen since early September.
Celsius Holdings shares jumped to multimonth highs on Monday after Truist highlighted the energy drink maker’s strong position with women shoppers.
The stock climbed more than 7% in the session. With that jump, the stock was trading at levels not seen since early September and is now up more than 37% in 2025.
Monday’s pop comes after Truist analyst Bill Chappell upgraded the stock to buy from hold and raised his price target by $10 to $45. Chappell’s new target implies the stock can surge more than 33% above where it finished last week.
With his upgrade, Chappell joined the majority on Wall Street with buy-equivalent ratings, per LSEG.
Chappell said his upgrade came on the back of Celsius’ plans to buy the Alani Nu brand, which was announced last month, for $1.65 billion in cash and stock. He expects the deal will help investors look past challenges in 2024 and the start of 2025, Chappell said.
Celsius sales are down nearly 6% over the past few months. One factor has been that Alani Nu has been “cannibalizing” Celsius sales, but that will become a nonissue once Celsius owns the brand, he said.
The two brands have a 16% combined market share in the U.S. energy drink category, according to Nielsen. However, Chappell said both are “highly indexed” to women and likely make up nearly half of the share when looking at just this gender.
The market “is starting to focus on the long term benefits of the Alani Nu acquisition, which in our opinion provides the company with an extremely strong position in the women’s segment of the [U.S.] energy drink category,” Chappell said, adding Celsius can “corner” this segment of the market.
While women are estimated to make up less than 30% of the category’s sales, it’s a growing portion, Chappell said. He expects the men’s segment will either be flat or decline, while women generate at least 110% of category growth in the future.
Also, Monster and Red Bull are likely to remain promotional, which has made Chappell wary about the energy drink category this year. However, he said these efforts will likely have less sway with women shoppers given that the brands “have been built to focus on male consumers” for more than two decades.
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