Citizens JMP analyst Andrew Boone raised the price target on Instacart (NASDAQ: CART) to $55.00 (from $51.00) while maintaining a Market Outperform rating.

The analyst commented, “While 1Q25 GTV guidance came in marginally above consensus, 1Q25 EBITDA guidance was ~5% below consensus. The question this begs is whether Instacart is pushing more aggressively into marketing, promotions, and incentives to drive demand, suggesting the company’s 1Q24 8-10% GTV growth is lower quality.”

Also, “We push back on this as the company described existing cohorts as stable with increased frequency and spend per user, while new user cohorts are above pre-pandemic levels, creating traditional stacked user growth. While we acknowledge the competitive nature of digital grocery, we believe the $1T+ grocery market can support multiple winners, while Instacart is leaning into its scale to support unique, new use cases, such as fulfilling from another store when items are out of stock. With digital grocery still early, runway to gain additional CPG ad budgets, and valuation not challenging at 9.2x 2026E EBITDA, we continue to be buyers, especially on any pullback.”