Fiscal 2026 revenue guidance raised to $5.7-6.1B, ~24% growth
Ciena reported record Q4 and FY25 revenue, driven by massive AI-driven demand from cloud providers and a recovery in service provider spending. The company raised its FY26 revenue guidance significantly to 24% growth (from 17%) and raised its operating margin target to 17%+, citing record backlog and accelerating demand. The call highlighted new design wins with multiple hyperscalers for AI data center scale-across architectures and DCOM, and described the company as supply-constrained rather than demand-constrained. Raised FY26 revenue guidance to $5.7-6.1 billion (~24% YoY growth at midpoint), up from the 17% growth guided in September.
Buzzberg readFiscal 2026 revenue guidance raised to $5.7-6.1B, ~24% growthCiena reported record Q4 and FY25 revenue, driven by massive AI-driven demand from cloud providers and a recovery in service provider spending. The company raised its FY26 revenue guidance significantly to 24% growth (from 17%) and raised its operating margin target to 17%+, citing record backlog and accelerating demand. The call highlighted new design wins with multiple hyperscalers for AI data center scale-across architectures and DCOM, and described the company as supply-constrained rather than demand-constrained. Raised FY26 revenue guidance to $5.7-6.1 billion (~24% YoY growth at midpoint), up from the 17% growth guided in September.Read full analysisCollapse analysis
Ciena reported record Q4 and FY25 revenue, driven by massive AI-driven demand from cloud providers and a recovery in service provider spending. The company raised its FY26 revenue guidance significantly to 24% growth (from 17%) and raised its operating margin target to 17%+, citing record backlog and accelerating demand. The call highlighted new design wins with multiple hyperscalers for AI data center scale-across architectures and DCOM, and described the company as supply-constrained rather than demand-constrained. Raised FY26 revenue guidance to $5.7-6.1 billion (~24% YoY growth at midpoint), up from the 17% growth guided in September.
Raised FY26 operating margin guidance to ~17%, driven by revenue acceleration and flat OpEx.
Record backlog of ~$5 billion entering FY26 provides exceptional visibility.
Cloud provider demand is accelerating dramatically, with 'in and around the data center' opportunities growing threefold in FY25 and expected to represent low-double-digit percent of FY26 revenue.
Revenue$1.352B
reported
EPS$0.91
reported
Gross margin42.69%
reported
Op margin8.76%
reported
What changed this quarter
01
Guidance
Fiscal 2026 revenue guidance raised to $5.7-6.1B, ~24% growth
Guidance · revenue to $5.9B
02
AI
Three hyperscalers selected Ciena for scale-across AI training backbones
Management highlighted accelerating demand from cloud providers and hyperscalers for AI-driven network scaling, citing new use cases like scale-across AI backbones and out-of-band network management (DCOM), with wins at multiple hyperscalers and expectations for revenue in…
03
AI
In-and-around data center revenue tripling as % of sales
Management highlighted accelerating demand from cloud providers and hyperscalers for AI-driven network scaling, citing new use cases like scale-across AI backbones and out-of-band network management (DCOM), with wins at multiple hyperscalers and expectations for revenue in…
04
AI
DCOM business with Meta expanded, other hyperscalers in discussions
Management highlighted accelerating demand from cloud providers and hyperscalers for AI-driven network scaling, citing new use cases like scale-across AI backbones and out-of-band network management (DCOM), with wins at multiple hyperscalers and expectations for revenue in…
AI, capex & demand read
AI
Platform & monetization
Management highlighted accelerating demand from cloud providers and hyperscalers for AI-driven network scaling, citing new use cases like scale-across AI backbones and out-of-band network management (DCOM), with wins at multiple hyperscalers and expectations for revenue in fiscal 2026.
Demand
Bookings & conversion
Record fiscal 2025 orders of $7.8B and backlog ~$5B. Management repeatedly expressed high confidence and conviction in durable demand, citing record orders, backlog, and accelerated growth guidance.
Capex
Investment and capacity
Ciena is stepping up capital expenditures to support robust demand, raising fiscal 2026 capex to $250-275 million (up ~50% year-over-year), primarily to expand capacity and fund NPI (e.g., three nanometer mask sets).
Tone · Upbeat
Management repeatedly expressed high confidence and conviction in durable demand, citing record orders, backlog, and accelerated growth guidance.
Supply-chain alpha
A1
Ciena's optical supply chain is constrained primarily by photonics and optical component availability, and they are increasing capex by ~50% to secure capacity for late 2026 and 2027 demand.
Ciena's 'scale across' AI data center architecture is being adopted by multiple major hyperscalers, creating a multi-year, multi-hundred-million-dollar revenue opportunity, but it is currently U.S.-centric.
“we've had two other hyperscalers now adopt our architecture... they are clearly hundreds of millions each... all U.S.-centric around the training models”
Great. Thanks for taking the question. Yeah, I wanted to maybe expand a bit on the scale across Outlook in particular. So you've gotten these two additionals that's certainly earlier than we were expecting. I want to see if you can give us maybe a timeline of when you would expect those two other hyperscalers to really kick into the numbers, how imminent that is. And then maybe you could talk about sort of a longer-term cadence of scale across activity because I think when you first disclosed it, you talked about the initial customer perhaps having opportunities of, you know, eight or nine kind of projects. So now that we see additional hyperscalers entering the fray, how would you look at…
Yeah, so Simon, let me hit your second question. The three plus 10% customers that we had in Q4, One was AT&T. You'll see that in the cave. The other two, we're not being specific on who they were, but collectively for Q4, those three covered just under 44% of Q4's revenue. And then for the full year, it was one cloud provider and one service provider that collectively, and it was AT&T as the service provider, collectively for the year, they covered about 28% of our revenue.
Meta is expanding its deployment of Ciena's DCOM solution to multiple new data centers, indicating a deepening and expanding customer relationship and growing revenue stream.
“our DCOM business with Meta has expanded as they plan to deploy in multiple new data centers”
… now extending this architecture to more locations. Additionally, I am pleased to announce that two more major hyperscalers have chosen our optical solutions for their ScalarCross training applications as well. The second use case is out-of-band network management. Ciena's unique DCOM solution leverages our XGS PON and other routing and switching products and was initially designed with Meta to meet hyperscale requirements. Today, I'm pleased to announce that our DCOM business with Meta has expanded as they plan to deploy in multiple new data centers. Also, we're engaged in advanced technical discussions with additional hyperscalers to deploy this DCOM solution in their data centers. I'd like to briefly acknowledge here that the scale across and DCOM wins are just the most recent AI-related use cases to materialize for us in recent months. They are great examples of how we co-create and productize with market-leading solutions to address critical customer scaling requirements. And we fully anticipate continuing to develop additional innovative solutions with our customers as they monetize AI across the various architectures. Before I turn it over to Mark... I really want to …
Corning is a key fiber supplier whose tight relationship with cloud and service providers is critical to supporting the massive network buildout for AI infrastructure.
“the relationship with the fiber providers, people at Corning, et cetera, is very tight amongst the cloud players and the service providers”
Really helpful. And just a quick follow-up, if I could, just around growth limiters outside of your control as it relates to fiber supply, permitting, labor, and really putting these lanes in the ground. What kind of supply constraints are you seeing for the industry for your cloud customers?
You know, I think... A large, you know, the relationship with the fiber providers, people at Corning, et cetera, is very tight amongst the cloud players and the service providers, you know, particularly the wholesalers, people like Lumen, you know, who publicly talked about that. I think, you know, there's a lot of commitment to scale capacity. So, you know, we're seeing that, you know, we are seeing that happen. The other thing I would say is it's a real opportunity for us because we have the largest optical support and services organization in the world. And we are increasingly engaged with the deployment of these. In fact, our largest... service customer last year was a cloud provider for the first time. And we're now providing multiple services across the hyperscalers, and we see that as an area of tremendous growth to help, to your point, facilitate the delivery of this infrastructure.
Ciena's optical supply chain is constrained primarily by photonics and optical component availability, and they are increasing capex by ~50% to secure capacity for late 2026 and 2027 demand.
Ciena's 'scale across' AI data center architecture is being adopted by multiple major hyperscalers, creating a multi-year, multi-hundred-million-dollar revenue opportunity, but it is currently U.S.-centric.