UPDATE: Stifel Nicolaus Raises PT on Ciena Following Management Meetings

In a report published Friday, Stifel Nicolaus analyst Sanjiv Wadhwani reiterated a Buy rating on Ciena (NASDAQ: CIEN), and raised the price target from $22.00 to $24.00.

In the report, Stifel Nicolaus noted, “We hosted Ciena CFO Jim Moylan and SVP Corporate Communications Tom Mock at investor meetings in Southern California and San Francisco. The big change compared to 6-12 months ago is the confidence the company has not only in the near-term momentum but also the longevity of the cycle. Carriers are looking beyond simple 100G capacity upgrades and making more architectural decisions, where OTN switching, mesh networks, intelligence and Ethernet switches are also being deployed. Ciena has been engaged for the last two years with multiple carriers on these architectural decisions and many of those engagements are resulting in orders currently. As a result, the company's backlog has gone from $500m two years ago to $900m exiting the October 2012 quarter. Backlog is skewed toward the international market, because revenue recognition tends to be more stringent outside the U.S.”

Ciena closed on Thursday at $20.52.