Third-quarter revenue rose 138% to $1.24 billion and adjusted earnings beat by nearly a third. Shares had already fallen 8.7% before the report and slid further after hours before recovering early Friday.
Bloom Energy more than doubled its sales and raised its full-year forecast. Investors, for most of Thursday evening, wanted more.
Revenue rose 138% to $1.24 billion in the third quarter, from $519 million a year earlier and the $1.07 billion analysts expected, according to Zacks. Product revenue nearly tripled, up 179% to $1.07 billion. Adjusted earnings were 94 cents a share, compared with 15 cents a year earlier and the 71 cents expected. On a reported basis, the fuel-cell maker earned 78 cents a share.
Margins expanded sharply. Adjusted operating margin reached 23.1%, up from 8.9% a year earlier, and adjusted EBITDA rose to $299.5 million from $59 million.
Bloom raised its 2026 forecast to revenue of $4.4 billion to $4.6 billion, which the company said implies about 122% growth at the midpoint, and adjusted earnings of $3.10 to $3.40 a share. It is the third time this year the company has raised its full-year outlook.
The reaction
Bloom shares had already fallen 8.7% to $217.77 during Thursday's regular session, when data-center power stocks were among the hardest hit in the AI selloff. They fell another 5% to 7% after the release. By early Friday, they had recovered and were indicated about 1.4% above Thursday's close.
Why a beat-and-raise was not enough
The stock's behavior fits a pattern that showed up repeatedly this week among companies tied to AI infrastructure: strong results and raised forecasts that are met with selling, at least at first. When a stock has been bought on the expectation of rapid growth, beating forecasts is the minimum requirement. Investors may have wanted evidence that growth would accelerate further, or some detail that would ease concern about how long data-center spending lasts.
The sequential numbers give both sides something. Revenue rose 16% from the second quarter, a fast pace for a company of Bloom's size, but slower than the year-over-year rate.
Supplier or proxy
The bullish view is that Bloom has become a significant supplier of on-site power to data centers, and that its margin expansion suggests pricing power as well as volume.
The skeptical view is that the stock is now a proxy for the AI-capex trade. When that trade sells off, as it did on Thursday, the quality of the quarter matters less than the direction of sentiment.
What to watch
Order and backlog commentary for 2027, product margins, and the capital-spending plans of the largest cloud providers, which report next week.