What happened

Shares of Snowflake (SNOW -1.99%) surged on Friday following bullish analyst commentary. As of 3:20 p.m. EDT, the software maker's stock's price was up more than 10%.

So what

Goldman Sachs analyst Kash Rangan boosted his rating on Snowflake's stock from neutral to buy. He sees the enterprise software maker's share price rising roughly 32% to $275.

A miniature gold bull on top of a keyboard button labeled buy.

Snowflake's share owners could enjoy sizable gains, according to Goldman Sachs' analysts. Image source: Getty Images.

Rangan cited Snowflake's leading competitive position within the fast-growing data-warehousing market. He believes Snowflake is poised to benefit as more data and related business processes shift to the cloud in the coming decade.

Thus, Rangan argues that the stock's sharp decline in 2021 -- shares are down more than 50% from their highs back in December -- is now presenting investors with a compelling buying opportunity.

Now what 

Shareholders can expect to receive an update on Snowflake's growth initiatives when it reports its first-quarter results on May 26. Management is also scheduled to share more details about Snowflake's expansion strategy during its investor day event on June 10. 

"We see the potential for the company to introduce a long-term outlook alongside additional details on new capabilities like support for unstructured data," Rangan said.