Marvell Technology (MRVL) Stock Jumps on AI Connectivity Bets: Latest News, Earnings and Analyst Targets as of December 10, 2025

Marvell Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRVL) finds itself right in the middle of the AI-infrastructure arms race – and the stock is reacting accordingly.

On Wednesday, December 10, 2025, Marvell shares traded around the low-$90s, up roughly 3% intraday, recovering from a sharp pullback earlier in the week after worries about losing Amazon AI chip designs. ^[1]

Despite the bounce, the stock is still down about 19–22% year-to-date, even after a roughly 32% gain over the last three months, leaving many investors asking whether the latest AI announcements, acquisitions and analyst calls finally justify a fresh look at MRVL. ^[2]

Below is a detailed, news-driven rundown of what’s happening with Marvell stock as of December 10, 2025, and what the latest forecasts and analyses are saying.

Marvell Stock Today: A Bounce After a Brutal Stretch

• Price action: Intraday data show Marvell trading near $91–92 on December 10, up just over 3% from Tuesday’s close around $88.90. ^[3]
• Recent volatility:
  • Dec 3–5: a big post‑earnings pop sent the stock over $100 at one point. ^[4]
  • Dec 8–9: shares slid about 7% and then another ~3%, closing at $88.90, as markets digested reports that Amazon may move next‑gen Trainium chips to another supplier and as Benchmark downgraded the stock. ^[5]
• Year-to-date: MarketBeat’s performance data pegs YTD total return at about ‑19.5% and 1‑year performance at about ‑16.7% as of December 10, even after the recent rally. ^[6]
• 52‑week range: MRVL has traded between roughly $47 and $127.48 over the last year, with the high set in January 2025. ^[7]

A trading piece from StocksToTrade notes that MRVL is “trading up by about 3%” today, attributing the move to strong Q3 results, a high-profile acquisition and upbeat analyst commentary. ^[8] AskTraders, meanwhile, stresses that the stock is still down more than 20% YTD and is testing technical support near $88, highlighting the tug-of-war between AI optimism and contract-loss fears. ^[9]

Earnings Recap: Record Q3 FY 2026 With AI Data Center in the Driver’s Seat

Marvell’s latest results – its third quarter of fiscal 2026, reported December 2 – are the fundamental backbone of the current debate.

Headline numbers

According to the company’s official release: ^[10]

• Q3 FY26 revenue:$2.075 billion, a record and about +37% year-on-year, modestly ahead of guidance.
• GAAP EPS:$2.20 per diluted share, boosted by a one-off gain.
• Non‑GAAP EPS:$0.76, about 3% above analyst expectations. ^[11]
• Gross margin: 51.6% GAAP, 59.7% non‑GAAP. ^[12]
• Q4 FY26 guidance:
  • Revenue: $2.2 billion ±5%
  • Non‑GAAP EPS: $0.79 ±$0.05 – slightly ahead of consensus. ^[13]
• Management now expects full‑year revenue growth to exceed 40%. ^[14]

A breakdown from StockStory highlights similar figures and notes that revenue growth of 36.8% year-on-year and an EPS beat, while modest, still show meaningful operating leverage. ^[15]

AI-heavy revenue mix

A separate analysis notes that data center products now account for roughly 73% of Marvell’s total revenue, underlining how fully the company has pivoted into AI and cloud infrastructure. ^[16]

Zacks/Nasdaq commentary on earlier quarters already flagged that the data center segment was growing 60–70% year-on-year, driven by custom AI accelerators, networking and high-bandwidth memory attach. ^[17]

One-time gains muddy the GAAP picture

It’s important to understand why GAAP earnings look so spectacular:

• In August 2025, Marvell sold its automotive Ethernet business to Infineon for $2.5 billion in cash, recording a pre-tax gain of about $1.8 billion, which flows into the GAAP profit line. ^[18]
• Simply Wall St points out that this “unusual item” accounts for a large share of the last 12 months’ statutory profit, and argues that investors should not treat the boosted GAAP EPS as sustainable “earnings power.” ^[19]

Bottom line: operating performance is improving, but GAAP numbers are flattered by one-offs. Non‑GAAP EPS and cash flow are more representative of the underlying business.

Celestial AI Deal: A $5.5 Billion Bet on Optical Scale-Up Fabrics

The biggest strategic headline this month is Marvell’s move to acquire Celestial AI, a photonics startup focused on “scale‑up” optical fabrics inside AI data centers.

Transaction details

Per Marvell’s December 2 press release: ^[20]

• Upfront consideration: About $3.25 billion (roughly $1.0B in cash + $2.25B in Marvell stock).
• Earn‑out: Up to an additional $2.25 billion in stock if Celestial hits aggressive revenue milestones by fiscal 2029.
• Maximum deal size:$5.5 billion.
• Timing: Expected to close in Q1 2026, subject to approvals.

Celestial AI’s Photonic Fabric is designed to replace copper with optical interconnects inside and between racks, with claimed benefits of more than double the power efficiency of copper, much longer reach and significantly higher bandwidth. It can be co‑packaged directly with AI accelerators and switches in a 3D package, freeing up die edge for more HBM. ^[21]

Strategic rationale

• Marvell sees AI systems evolving into multi‑rack clusters of hundreds of XPUs connected by scale‑up fabrics like UALink, where optical, not copper, will dominate. ^[22]
• With Celestial’s 16‑Tbps optical chiplets and its own switching portfolio, Marvell aims to offer one of the most complete connectivity stacks in AI data centers, from chip‑to‑chip to campus and DCI. ^[23]

The deal is not just about technology optics (pun intended); it comes with concrete financial targets:

• Marvell expects meaningful revenue from Celestial AI in the second half of fiscal 2028, reaching an annualized run rate of $500 million by Q4 FY28, and $1 billion by Q4 FY29. ^[24]

Tom’s Hardware describes the acquisition as “among the most aggressive acquisitions any mid‑tier silicon vendor has made in the current AI cycle,” positioning Marvell more directly against Nvidia, AMD and Broadcom in the AI interconnect arena. ^[25]

Golden Cable Initiative: Doubling Down on Copper AECs for AI Racks

Complementing its optical bet, Marvell is also pushing deeper into active electrical cables (AECs) for short‑reach AI connections.

A Benzinga report published early on December 10 reveals that Marvell has launched its “Golden Cable” initiative, designed to: ^[26]

• Provide validated AEC designs, firmware and engineering support to ecosystem partners.
• Help hyperscalers build high‑bandwidth, low‑latency copper links for 1.6T connections between GPUs/XPUs within AI racks.
• Ensure interoperability across leading platforms via an open architecture.

Partners such as Foxconn Interconnect Technology and Luxshare Technology say the program shortens design cycles and speeds adoption of next‑gen AECs. Market research firm 650 Group expects the AEC market to grow from about $644 million in 2025 to $1.4 billion by 2029, largely on the back of AI cluster build‑outs. ^[27]

AskTraders frames Golden Cable and the Celestial AI acquisition as part of a coordinated strategy to own both copper-based scale‑up and optical scale‑up segments of AI interconnects. ^[28]

Custom AI Silicon: XPUs, 2nm SRAM and a Massive Pipeline

Connectivity isn’t Marvell’s only AI lever. It is also investing heavily in custom AI accelerators (“XPUs”) and associated silicon.

A Zacks/Nasdaq analysis from November outlines the scale of this effort: ^[29]

• Marvell now has 18 XPU/XPU‑attach sockets and over 50 pipeline opportunities, representing an estimated $75 billion of lifetime revenue potential, based on its latest disclosures.
• It has built a 2.5D advanced packaging platform in‑house for custom XPUs, aiming to reduce power and cost for hyperscalers.
• The company introduced a 64 Gbps/wire bi‑directional die‑to‑die interface in 2nm, offering more than 3× UCIe bandwidth density while using only 15% of the die area of alternatives.
• In June 2025, Marvell also unveiled a 2nm custom SRAM offering up to 6 Gbit of high‑speed memory with lower power and die area, targeting next‑generation AI infrastructure silicon. ^[30]

This custom silicon pipeline, plus the XPU attach opportunity tied to Celestial’s Photonic Fabric, is central to many of the bullish analyst models.

Analyst Calls on December 10, 2025: Consensus “Buy,” But With New Caution

Street-wide consensus

Different aggregators line up broadly in the same ballpark:

• MarketBeat:
  • 38 analysts over the last 12 months.
  • Consensus rating: “Moderate Buy”, with 0 Sells, 14 Holds, 24 Buys (including 4 Strong Buys).
  • Average 12‑month price target: $111.56 (high $156, low $66), implying about 22% upside from a current price around $91–92. ^[31]
• StockAnalysis:
  • 31 analysts currently cover MRVL.
  • Consensus rating: “Buy”.
  • Average price target: $110.03 (low $67, high $156), implying roughly 20% upside.
  • Revenue forecast: $8.32B this year (+44% YoY) and $9.66B next year (+16%); EPS projected to increase from 2.87 to 3.44. ^[32]
• Quiver Quantitative:
  • 27 analysts in the last six months, with a median target of $120.
  • Recent targets include $114 (Citigroup), $120 (Susquehanna & Rosenblatt), $130 (B. Riley & JPMorgan), $135 (Roth Capital). ^[33]

WallStreetZen lists Marvell as a “B (Buy)” Zen Rating name with a maximum 1‑year forecast of $156, noting strong growth grades and positioning it among the higher‑rated semiconductor stocks they track. ^[34]

Fresh notes today: Stifel’s Buy and the optics story

The most notable new sell-side commentary on December 10 comes from Stifel, highlighted by Investing.com: ^[35]

• Stifel reiterated a Buy rating with a $114 price target, calling Marvell one of the only vendors with a vertically integrated AI connectivity stack.
• The note emphasizes Marvell’s portfolio from:
  • On‑board VSR electrical links and AECs (Golden Cable),
  • PAM4 DSPs (800G–1.6T) for rack‑to‑rack links,
  • To coherent-lite and ZR pluggables for inter‑building and campus‑scale optical connectivity.
• Stifel explicitly pushes back on rumors that Marvell has definitively lost key AI sockets, arguing that concerns about losing an XPU program are “overdone” and highlighting JPMorgan’s reaffirmed Overweight rating. ^[36]

Other recent upgrades and target hikes

Recent positive actions include: ^[37]

• Roth Capital (Suji Desilva): Raised target from $105 to $135, reiterating Buy, citing:
  • Q3 beat,
  • Celestial AI acquisition,
  • Expectations that custom XPU revenue could roughly double by FY28 as a second Tier‑1 hyperscaler ramps, with 18 custom XPU and 15 XPU‑attach design wins in the pipeline.
• B. Riley (Craig Ellis): Strong Buy, target $130, highlighting accelerating revenue growth and robust end‑market demand.
• Jefferies (Blayne Curtis): Strong Buy, target raised to $120. ^[38]
• Citigroup (Atif Malik): Initiated with Strong Buy and a $114 target. ^[39]

Signs of caution: Benchmark and others step back

Not all the news is bullish:

• Benchmark recently downgraded Marvell from Buy/Strong Buy to Hold, citing a “high degree of conviction” that Amazon’s Trainium 3 and 4 custom chip designs have moved to a competitor (Alchip) and warning of slower growth if that loss is confirmed. ^[40]
• Barclays maintains a Hold rating even after lifting its target to $105.
• Goldman Sachs also sits at Hold, nudging its target from $80 to $90. ^[41]

In short: consensus is still firmly positive, but risk flags are rising, especially around large hyperscaler contracts.

Risk Spotlight: Amazon, Microsoft and the Quality of AI Growth

Hyperscaler contract risks

Several pieces published over the last few days hammer on one theme: concentration risk.

• Benzinga’s Golden Cable article notes that Marvell shares came under renewed pressure Monday after Benchmark’s downgrade tied to losing Amazon’s Trainium 3 and 4 designs. ^[42]
• AskTraders similarly highlights that the stock fell about 7.5% on December 8 on those concerns, calling out the risk of losing major custom chip contracts. ^[43]
• QuiverQuant’s sentiment tracker captures chatter on X (Twitter) worrying about Microsoft potentially shifting some custom chip business to Broadcom and fears about Marvell’s Amazon relationship, even as bullish voices praise the Celestial AI deal. ^[44]
• A Barron’s snippet notes that MRVL shares had dropped 7% one day and another 3.4% the next on reports of possible custom chip losses to other vendors, even as some analysts urged investors to “block out the noise” and focus on long‑term AI fundamentals. ^[45]

Marvell has tried to calm nerves, telling investors that major engagements with both Amazon and Microsoft remain on track for meaningful ramps starting in 2026, and projecting a path to around $2 billion in annual XPU attach revenue by 2028. ^[46]

Earnings quality and cyclicality

Beyond contract risk, analysts are flagging structural issues:

• Earnings quality: As noted earlier, the big $1.8B gain from the auto Ethernet sale massively inflates GAAP profit; Simply Wall St warns that statutory earnings are a “poor guide” to underlying profitability and could give an overly positive impression. ^[47]
• Volatile history:
  • MRVL shares fell roughly 18% in late August after earlier data center revenue disappointed versus AI hype. ^[48]
  • An AskTraders recap points to a tepid revenue forecast back in March 2025, which triggered a double‑digit one‑day drop and raised questions about the pacing of AI infrastructure spending. ^[49]
• Industry competition: Zacks contrasts Marvell’s efforts with those of Broadcom and AMD, both of which also offer custom AI silicon and advanced packaging. While Marvell’s deep ties with Nvidia and hyperscalers are an advantage, the competitive bar is high. ^[50]

Ownership, Buybacks and Insider Activity

Institutional and insider flows help show how “smart money” is reacting.

Institutions

MarketBeat’s 13F-driven coverage and Quiver’s dashboards indicate: ^[51]

• About 83.5% of MRVL’s float is held by institutions and hedge funds.
• Recent notable moves:
  • WINTON GROUP Ltd opened a new stake of ~25,800 shares (~$2 million). ^[52]
  • Federated Hermes trimmed its position by about 31%, selling nearly 196,000 shares in Q2. ^[53]
  • Quiver notes significant portfolio rotations:
    • Vanguard added ~15.2M shares in Q3 2025 (+23.5%),
    • T. Rowe Price Investment Management exited its position, selling over 17M shares,
    • Several other large managers either added or cut positions materially. ^[54]

Insiders and buybacks

• Marvell’s board authorized a $5.0 billion share repurchase plan, equal to roughly 7.8% of shares outstanding, signaling management’s view that the stock is undervalued. ^[55]
• Insider buying has been net positive in recent months:
  • CEO Matt Murphy, COO Chris Koopmans, CFO Willem Meintjes and Data Center President Sandeep Bharathi all bought shares around the high‑$70s, with combined purchases of over 27,000 shares in the last 90 days. ^[56]

The mix of large institutional churn, a big buyback authorization and insider buying matches the overall narrative: the story is risky and controversial, but management and a subset of long-term investors clearly still believe in it.

How the Latest News Shapes Marvell’s Outlook

Putting it all together, here’s how the December 10 news flow reshapes the Marvell thesis.

Bullish elements

1. AI data center growth is real and accelerating
   • Q3 revenue growth of ~37%, Q4 guidance ahead of expectations and full‑year revenue growth above 40% show that Marvell is one of the clearest AI beneficiaries outside of Nvidia. ^[57]
2. Optical scale-up and Golden Cable deepen moats
   • Celestial AI gives Marvell a credible shot at dominating optical scale‑up interconnects in next‑gen AI clusters.
   • Golden Cable and Marvell’s PAM4/coherent platforms give it broad exposure to every layer of AI data center plumbing, a key point in Stifel’s bullish note. ^[58]
3. Custom XPU pipeline and 2nm technology
   • The combination of 18+ XPU sockets, 50+ opportunities and 2nm SRAM/die‑to‑die IP gives Marvell a multi‑year runway in bespoke AI silicon, with tens of billions of dollars in potential lifetime revenue if even a fraction of the pipeline hits. ^[59]
4. Analyst support remains broadly positive
   • Average targets between $110–120 and a consensus Buy/Moderate Buy rating show that most of Wall Street sees double‑digit upside from today’s price, with several top‑ranked analysts calling the stock a high‑conviction AI pick. ^[60]
5. Capital return and insider conviction
   • The $5B buyback and insider purchases at lower prices are tangible signals that management views the current valuation as attractive. ^[61]

Bearish elements

1. Customer concentration and contract risk
   • The potential loss of Amazon’s Trainium 3 and 4 designs and the possibility of Microsoft diversifying its custom chip vendors could materially impact future revenue growth if not offset by other wins. ^[62]
2. Earnings quality and one-offs
   • The first impression from GAAP EPS is misleading because of the $1.8B gain on the auto Ethernet sale. Underlying profitability, while improving, remains far less dramatic than the statutory numbers suggest. ^[63]
3. Stock performance vs. hype
   • Even with AI tailwinds, MRVL is still down around 20% YTD and has seen multiple double‑digit drawdowns when guidance or contract headlines disappoint. ^[64]
4. Rich expectations baked in
   • Earlier in the year, Zacks highlighted that Marvell traded at a premium forward price‑to‑sales multiple versus the semiconductor industry, reflecting high expectations. With consensus now calling for high‑teens revenue growth and nearly 20% EPS growth next year, any slowdown could hit the multiple. ^[65]

What to Watch Next

For investors and traders following MRVL, the key upcoming catalysts include:

1. Closing of the Celestial AI acquisition (expected in Q1 2026) and any new design‑win disclosures with hyperscalers using Photonic Fabric. ^[66]
2. Q4 FY26 earnings and FY27 guidance, particularly:
   • Updated trajectories for data center revenue,
   • Clarification on Amazon and Microsoft program ramps,
   • Early revenue color from Golden Cable and new AI chip wins. ^[67]
3. Analyst revisions as more detail emerges on any lost or re‑won hyperscaler sockets. The recent Benchmark downgrade shows how quickly sentiment can flip. ^[68]
4. Macro tone for AI infrastructure capex, especially from the largest cloud providers – a recurring worry since at least March 2025. ^[69]

Final thought (not investment advice)

As of December 10, 2025, Marvell Technology sits at the intersection of genuine AI infrastructure growth and meaningful execution risk. The latest earnings, Celestial AI acquisition and Golden Cable initiative strengthen the long‑term bull case built around optical and electrical connectivity plus custom AI silicon. At the same time, the stock’s volatility, heavy reliance on a handful of cloud giants and the distortion from one‑off gains mean that MRVL is not a “set‑and‑forget” story.

Anyone considering the stock should evaluate their risk tolerance, time horizon and diversification carefully and, ideally, combine this news-driven snapshot with their own fundamental and technical analysis. This article is for information only and is not financial advice.

References

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