AI
← Earnings Calls
01
02
03
04 05 06
Tone
AI
Capex
A1 A2
FFIV
FY2026 Q1
Raised
F5, Inc. earnings call
Buzzberg read
AI customer wins in Q1 equal all of FY25
F5 reported a strong Q1 FY26 with 7% revenue growth, driven by 11% product growth and robust systems demand, and raised its full-year guidance. The company highlighted accelerating AI adoption, hybrid multi-cloud trends, and the need for converged platforms as key growth drivers, while noting resilience despite a prior security incident. Q1 FY26 revenue grew 7% to $822M, with product revenue up 11% and systems revenue up 37% year-over-year.
Buzzberg read AI customer wins in Q1 equal all of FY25 F5 reported a strong Q1 FY26 with 7% revenue growth, driven by 11% product growth and robust systems demand, and raised its full-year guidance. The company highlighted accelerating AI adoption, hybrid multi-cloud trends, and the need for converged platforms as key growth drivers, while noting resilience despite a prior security incident. Q1 FY26 revenue grew 7% to $822M, with product revenue up 11% and systems revenue up 37% year-over-year. Read full analysisCollapse analysis
F5 reported a strong Q1 FY26 with 7% revenue growth, driven by 11% product growth and robust systems demand, and raised its full-year guidance. The company highlighted accelerating AI adoption, hybrid multi-cloud trends, and the need for converged platforms as key growth drivers, while noting resilience despite a prior security incident. Q1 FY26 revenue grew 7% to $822M, with product revenue up 11% and systems revenue up 37% year-over-year.
- Management raised FY26 revenue growth guidance to 5-6% (from 0-4%) and non-GAAP EPS to $15.65-$16.05 (from $14.50-$15.50).
- AI-related demand is accelerating, with as many new AI customers added in Q1 as in all of FY25, expanding into security and load balancing use cases.
- Systems revenue growth is driven by a strong refresh cycle, AI readiness, and regulatory drivers like digital sovereignty, especially in EMEA.
Revenue$0.8225BReported
EPS$4.45Reported
Gross margin81.55%Reported
Operating margin26.04%Reported
6 grounded callouts
What matters now
The highest-signal changes from the call.
Guidance
FY26 revenue growth outlook raised to 5-6%
Demand
Systems revenue grew 37% in Q1
Show 3 more callouts
Supply
Memory cost increases expected to pressure product COGS
Security
Security incident caused minimal demand disruption
Demand
EMEA delivered exceptional 24% growth
Reported period
Actuals
| Metric | Reported | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $0.8225B | Reported |
| EPS | $4.45 | Reported |
| Gross margin | 81.55% | Reported |
| Operating margin | 26.04% | Reported |
| Free cash flow | $0.1495B | Reported |
| Capex | $0.0097B | Reported |
Forward-looking
Forward guidance
| Metric | Period | Range | Midpoint | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EPS | FY2026 | $15.65–$16.05 | $15.85 | Raised |
| EPS | FY2026 Q2 | $3.34–$3.46 | $3.40 | Guided |
| Gross margin | FY2026 | 82.5%–83.5% | 83% | Lowered |
| Operating margin | FY2026 | 34%–35% | 34.5% | Raised |
| Revenue | FY2026 | $0.05B–$0.06B | $0.055B | Raised |
| Revenue | FY2026 Q2 | 770–790 | 780 | Guided |
AI, capex & demand read
Management read
Confident
Management expressed confidence in their growth drivers and raised FY26 guidance, emphasizing strong execution and durable tailwinds from hybrid multi-cloud, AI, and converged platforms, while acknowledging manageable headwinds like memory costs.
Management AI read
Management highlighted that AI investment is scaling and demand is durable, with F5 winning as many AI customers in Q1 FY26 as in all of FY25, and a shift from training to inference driving demand for data delivery and runtime security. They cited an inflection in enterprise AI adoption and expect AI to be a significant growth driver, with AI guardrails seeing strong early adoption.
Investment and capacity
No explicit capex discussion; however, management mentioned investing in sales capacity, roadmap, and XOPS capabilities to drive future growth. They also highlighted taking actions to mitigate memory cost increases and supply constraints, including extending supplier visibility and qualifying additional suppliers.
all 4 named companies below
Companiesreturns since call
Investees
CALYPSO
Investees
Francois Locodinou
F5's acquisition of Calypso AI strengthens its AI runtime security portfolio, positioning it to capture demand for AI guardrails and threat defense.
Evidence
“With our Q4 acquisition of Calypso AI, we enhanced our runtime security offerings with real-time threat defense, red teaming models, and robust guardrails.”
Supply chain
Supply chain
Cooper Werner
F5 is experiencing rising memory costs impacting product gross margins in the second half of fiscal 2026, and has proactively secured supply and qualified additional suppliers. — Indicates memory price inflation is affecting downstream hardware vendors, potentially benefiting memory manufacturers but pressuring margins for F5 and similar companies.
Evidence
“This reflects a modest reduction to our prior range, accounting for an anticipated impact to product COGS in the second half related to rising memory costs.”
Supply chain
Cooper Werner
Customers are refreshing hardware at a faster pace and higher capacity due to AI workload readiness, leading to stronger systems revenue growth and expansion. — Suggests enterprise networking refresh cycle is being accelerated by AI infrastructure buildouts, potentially impacting competitors in the networking hardware space.
Evidence
“We're seeing a higher ASB at that time of refresh, and then also additional capacities in terms of more units.”
External signals
Supply-chain alpha · 2returns since call
F5 is experiencing rising memory costs impacting product gross margins in the second half of fiscal 2026, and has proactively secured supply and qualified additional suppliers.
Customers are refreshing hardware at a faster pace and higher capacity due to AI workload readiness, leading to stronger systems revenue growth and expansion.
Methodology & coverage
Management-only analysis. All 4 validated company mentions are shown. Reported actuals and forward guidance are kept separate. Public evidence is limited to eight short attributed quotes. AI-generated analysis can be incomplete or wrong; verify important claims against the original source.