SoundHound AI Inc. (NASDAQ:SOUN) shares falling Friday, a day after reporting third-quarter results, as Cantor Fitzgerald cut its price target even while keeping a bullish rating. Here’s what you should know.
- SoundHound AI stock is among today’s weakest performers. Why is SOUN stock dropping?
SoundHound AI Stock Falls After Earnings and Target Cut
SoundHound AI shares are sliding Friday, a day after the voice AI company posted third-quarter results following Thursday’s close. No source ties the drop to a specific catalyst.
The quarter beat estimates. Sales reached $62.43 million against the $61.71 million analysts expected, up 48.5% from a year earlier, and the adjusted loss of 5 cents a share came in under the 6 cents projected. Adjusted EBITDA showed a $20.7 million shortfall, and SoundHound had $207.6 million of cash on hand at quarter-end.
Guidance came in above estimates for 2026. SoundHound expects revenue between $250 million and $260 million, compared with the $238.04 million analysts projected, and $350 million up to $400 million in 2027.
Cantor Keeps Overweight On SoundHound AI but Cuts Target
Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Thomas Blakey stayed at Overweight but trimmed the price target from $15 down to $10. Software stocks with high growth expectations have seen their valuation multiples shrink, Blakey said, and the new target equals 11.5 times 2027 sales, matching the stock’s one-year median. Blakey wrote, “We see limited downside to shares.”
The growth numbers come with caveats. About $14 million of the quarter’s revenue came from LivePerson, which SoundHound bought on Sept. 4, so sales without it would have grown roughly 15%.
SoundHound is also shifting its large-customer licensing agreements onto hosted plans that book revenue gradually, which shrank upfront revenue to about 10% of sales from about 33% last quarter. It is dropping money-losing contracts as well, and Blakey said both changes absorb about $35 million in the final six months of 2026 and explain the tighter 2026 range.
To lower costs, SoundHound announced a roughly 27% workforce cut that supports about $120 million of yearly savings, with more than $80 million already in place. Blakey praised momentum for the OASYS platform, which has close to 20 enterprise customers deploying it.
Still, Blakey cautioned that the organic picture is hard to read because of customer departures at LivePerson and the change in how license deals are booked, and that reaching the 2027 targets depends on how both play out.
SOUN Shares Are Sliding
SOUN Price Action: SoundHound shares were down 5.40% at $4.02 at the time of publication on Friday. The stock is trading near its 52-week low of $3.88, according to Benzinga Pro.
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