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In the last month, the Rolls-Royce (LSE: RR) share price surged to yet another all-time high. It’s now up 50% since late 2025. And it’s up 2,115% since 2022. The trajectory of the FTSE 100’s now-fourth-biggest company by market cap looks like a runaway train with a brake fluid problem!
What’s next for the £15 share price? A crash back down to earth? Or more monster gains to come? One answer came to me the other day by way of ChatGPT. My data centre-hungry buddy gave me something of a fright by implying that a £100 share price – nearly seven times the current value – might not be that far away…
Early 2030s?
In short, ChatGPT told me the Rolls-Royce shares price could reach the £100 mark by the “early 2030s”. That would mean a 556% increase in five to seven years. Not bad.
Let’s back up a second. I underlined ‘could’ in the above statement because this was the best-case scenario given. Even if it was within the realms of possibility, the AI chatbot mentioned that it would take an “extraordinary bull run” to get there.
The fallibilities of artificial intelligence enter the conversation here too. ChatGPT has no mind or thought process, never mind what one might call actual ‘intelligence’. Hallucinations are still a problem with these chat interfaces too. That means I’ll want to be doing my own research on how likely a £100 share price is…
A buy?
To start with, a jump huge enough to reach the £100 figure is unlikely to come by an increase in valuation. Rolls-Royce shares are now priced like one of the FTSE 100’s hottest properties. A price-to-earnings ratio of 42 is over double the index’s average. I don’t see that going up by seven times.
Earnings growth is a different matter. The company has multiple possible new revenue streams in the medium term. One is a possible entry into the narrowbody market (planes with a single aisle). At the moment, Rolls specialises is making engines for larger aircraft. A return to the narrowbody jet market (which it exited in 2011) could be fruitful, given these smaller planes make up 60% to 70% of all planes in use.
A wild-card option is the upcoming SMRs, or Small Modular Reactors. These small, factory-built nuclear power plants are a risk proposition – the company hasn’t built one yet – but the possibility of providing nuclear power that’s quick and easy to make must be tantalising for governments like the UK or Czechia, both of which have already signed contracts.
In my view, there’s plenty of reason to think the Rolls-Royce share price could continue to grow at a good clip in the years ahead. It might be one of those stocks that climbs multiple times in value. It might even hit the £100 mark sooner rather than later. I think it’s worth considering.
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John Fieldsend owns shares in Rolls-Royce.
This story originally appeared on Motley Fool
