F5, Inc. (FFV) Q4 2026 Earnings Report
CH:FFV Q4 2026 EPS Results
- Actual EPS
- CHF 3.66
- Consensus EPS
- CHF 3.52
- Beat/Miss
- Beat by +CHF 0.14
- One Year Ago EPS
- CHF 3.63
CH:FFV Q4 2026 Revenue Results
- Actual Revenue
- CHF 758.96M
- Expected Revenue
- CHF 731.34M
- Beat/Miss
- Beat by +CHF 27.62M
- YoY Revenue Growth
- +13.25%
Earnings Announcement Details
- Quarter
- Q4 2026
- Date
- 10/27/2026
- Time
- After Close
- Conference Call
- Tuesday, October 27, 2026
CH:FFV Upcoming Earnings
F5, Inc.'s next earnings date is estimated for January 26, 2027, based on past reporting schedules.
Q4 2026 Earnings Call Audio
CH:FFV Q4 2026 Earnings Call
0:00 / 0:00
Q4 2026 Earnings Slide Deck
Q4 2026 Earnings Call Summary
Earnings Call Sentiment|Positive
The call was strongly positive, with record Q4 execution, double-digit product growth, broad regional expansion, accelerating AI and security adoption, major competitive wins, improving SaaS and security metrics, and confidence in future demand. The main challenges were a lower fiscal 2027 revenue growth outlook relative to fiscal 2026, expected second-half systems deceleration, higher component costs affecting gross margin, near-term Q1 cash flow effects from inventory and bonus timing, and continued supply chain risk.
Company Guidance
F5 guided to FY 2027 revenue growth of 8% to 9%, including upper single digit systems growth, solid double digit software growth, and low to mid single digit services growth; it expects FY 2027 non GAAP gross margin in a range of 80.5% to 82.5%, non GAAP operating margin in a range of 33% to 35%, non GAAP effective tax rate in a range of 19% to 21%, and non GAAP EPS in a range of $18.00 to $18.30. For Q1, F5 expects revenue in a range of $875 million to $895 million, non GAAP gross margin of approximately 81.5% to 82.5%, non GAAP operating expenses of $420 million to $432 million, share based compensation expense of approximately 70 million to $72 million, and non GAAP EPS in a range of $4.25 to $4.37 per share; it expects full year share repurchases in FY 2027 to represent at least 50% of its annual free cash flow.
- Strong Q4 Revenue and Product GrowthQ4 revenue was $917 million, up 13% year over year and above the top end of guidance. Product revenue grew 23% year over year to $510 million, marking the ninth consecutive quarter of double-digit product revenue growth.
- Solid Full-Year PerformanceFiscal 2026 total revenue reached $3.4 billion, representing 11% annual growth, while product revenue grew 19%.
- Broad Q4 Regional GrowthRevenue grew across all theaters: the Americas increased 5% year over year and represented 53% of revenue, EMEA increased 31% and represented 30%, and APAC increased 14% and represented 17%.
- Systems and Software MomentumQ4 systems revenue was $239 million, up 29% year over year. Software revenue was $271 million, up 19%, including subscription-based software revenue of $229 million, up 16%, and perpetual-license software revenue of $42 million, up 37%.
- High Recurring Revenue ContributionRevenue from recurring sources contributed 68% of Q4 revenue.
- Strong Profitability and EarningsQ4 GAAP gross margin was 82.2% and non-GAAP gross margin was 84%. GAAP operating margin was 23.1% and non-GAAP operating margin was 33.7%. GAAP net income was $186 million, or $3.23 per share, while non-GAAP net income was $255 million, or $4.42 per share.
- Healthy Cash and Share RepurchasesF5 generated $118 million in operating cash flow and $91 million in free cash flow in Q4. Cash and investments totaled $1.62 billion at quarter end. The company repurchased $100 million of shares in Q4 at an average price of $422 per share, bringing fiscal 2026 repurchases to $600 million.
- Deferred Revenue GrowthDeferred revenue was $2.2 billion, up 10% from the year-ago period.
- Software Subscription and SaaS ProgressFiscal 2026 software revenue grew 8% to $870 million, with subscriptions representing 87% of software revenue. Term-based subscriptions increased 14% to $578 million. Total SaaS and managed services ARR was $211 million, up 14%, while core SaaS and managed services ARR grew 24% year over year.
- Security Revenue ExpansionTotal security revenue grew 10% year over year to approximately $1.3 billion. Product security revenue totaled $746 million, up 15%.
- AI-Powered WAF AdoptionWithin six months of its March launch, more than 300 customers were deploying F5's AI-powered WAF capabilities, and more than 75% of those deployments were operating in blocking mode.
- F5 Insight Customer TractionF5 Insight, launched in March, had gained more than 200 customers. The company said its automated fleet management was already reducing upgrade times and operational risk.
- Accelerated Internal Security RemediationF5 was continuously scanning more than 140 million lines of code with internally built AI harnesses and using AI to remediate thousands of vulnerabilities. In the last three months, engineering fixes were implemented that previously would have taken seven years of work, and Q4 included two software updates focused entirely on vulnerability remediation.
- Platform Expansion Among Large CustomersThe percentage of the top 1,000 customers deploying three or more F5 product families increased to 29% from 22% in 2025.
- Large Competitive Wins and ConsolidationF5 won an eight-figure deal with a large regional North American financial institution, consolidating an estate that included two incumbent ADC providers and two separate cloud security and CDN tool sets, displacing all four incumbent vendors. F5 also displaced two application delivery competitors for a central bank technology authority in Asia.
- Strong Security Demand IndicatorsF5 distributed telemetry recorded an 84% year-over-year increase in WAF requests and a 103% surge in API security events during Q4.
- API Security WinsA central bank and financial regulator in APAC selected F5 Distributed Cloud API Security and F5 displaced three security incumbents. The deployment provides automated discovery across public, external, and internal APIs and real-time OWASP API Top 10 threat mitigation.
- Direct AI Use-Case Bookings GrowthDirect AI use-case bookings more than doubled from the first half to well over $100 million in fiscal 2026, up nearly 300% year over year. The active DirectAI customer count grew fourfold to more than 200.
- AI Data Delivery ExpansionCustomers deployed 29.2 Tb of F5-powered AI data delivery capacity in Q4, up nearly 250% year over year. Banking, financial services, and healthcare led adoption.
- AI Runtime Security and Guardrails WinsA global AI infrastructure leader selected F5 AI guardrails as the production safety layer for up to 500 AI models and also selected F5 as a launch partner for its zero-trust AI agent security architecture.
- Sovereign AI and AI Factory WinsIndosat Ooredoo Hutchison selected F5 to power its Indosat Intelligence Suite, while Telenor AI Factory selected F5 BIG-IP Next for Kubernetes for its sovereign AI infrastructure. The deployments address tenant isolation, governance, security, data residency, policy-based traffic control, and GPU-aware load balancing.
- AI Agent Protection DemandAcross F5 Bot Defense deployments, traffic from self-identifying AI agents more than doubled in a single quarter. A large financial institution used F5 Bot Defense to identify and block personal AI agents logging into customer accounts.
- Positive Analyst RecognitionF5 was named a leader in Secure IQ Labs' Cloud WAF Cyber Risk Validation comparative report, named a leader in IDC's worldwide WAF platforms MarketScape, and recognized by Gartner as one of only two market shapers in AI application security.
- FY 2027 Revenue and Product OutlookF5 is guiding to fiscal 2027 revenue growth of 8% to 9% and expects a third consecutive year of double-digit product revenue growth. Systems growth is expected to be in the upper single digits, software growth is expected to be solid double digit, and services growth is expected to be low to mid single digit.
- FY 2027 Earnings OutlookF5 expects fiscal 2027 non-GAAP operating margin of 33% to 35%, a non-GAAP effective tax rate of 19% to 21%, and non-GAAP EPS of $18.00 to $18.30. Q1 revenue is expected to be $875 million to $895 million, with non-GAAP EPS of $4.25 to $4.37.
- Supply Positioning for Future DemandF5 said it had invested aggressively in inventory, particularly memory and storage, and felt well positioned not only for its guidance but also for upside. The company is also investing in supply for its next generation of appliances.
- Expanded AI Go-to-Market InvestmentF5 plans to double its specialist seller headcount for AI security in 2027 and more than double marketing investment in the area. All field sellers will receive incentives to engage customers in AI security conversations.
- Additional Share Repurchase AuthorizationThe board authorized an additional $15 billion for share repurchases. F5 had $322 million remaining on its authorized program at the end of Q4, bringing total authorized repurchases to $1.8 billion. The company expects fiscal 2027 repurchases to represent at least 50% of annual free cash flow.
CH:FFV Earnings History
| Report Date | Fiscal Quarter | Forecast / EPS | Last Year's EPS | EPS YoY Change | Press Release |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 26, 2027 | 2027 (Q1) | 3.58- | 3.68 | ― | ― |
| Oct 27, 2026 | 2026 (Q4) | 3.523.66 | 3.63 | 0.68% (+0.02) | |
| Jul 27, 2026 | 2026 (Q3) | 3.313.91 | 3.44 | 13.70% (+0.47) | |
| Apr 28, 2026 | 2026 (Q2) | 2.863.23 | 2.83 | 14.04% (+0.40) | |
| Jan 27, 2026 | 2026 (Q1) | 3.033.68 | 3.18 | 15.89% (+0.50) | |
| Oct 27, 2025 | 2025 (Q4) | 3.293.63 | 3.04 | 19.62% (+0.60) | |
| Jul 30, 2025 | 2025 (Q3) | 2.903.44 | 2.78 | 23.81% (+0.66) | |
| Apr 28, 2025 | 2025 (Q2) | 2.572.83 | 2.41 | 17.53% (+0.42) | |
| Jan 28, 2025 | 2025 (Q1) | 2.783.18 | 2.84 | 11.95% (+0.34) | |
| Oct 28, 2024 | 2024 (Q4) | 2.853.04 | 2.9 | 4.86% (+0.14) |
The table shows recent earnings report dates and whether the forecast was beat or missed. See the change in forecast and EPS from the previous year.
Beat Missed
