Mizuho downgrades 8×8 to to Underperform on lack of sales growth

Mizuho analyst Siti Panigrahi downgraded 8×8 (EGHT) to Underperform from Neutral with a price target of $2.50, down from $2.75. While the company has a solid cloud communications platform, it lacks the brand recognition achieved by larger peers, the analyst tells investors in a research note. Given contact center as a service maturity and the leading players increasingly expanding into unified communications as a service, the firm believes it will be difficult for 8×8 to see incremental traction to drive material sales growth in the near-to-medium term. As such, it expects the shares to lag peers.