Vertiv (VRT) Q3: $4.31B revenue, up 61%, orders up 100%+, guide raised

$VRT printed $4,313M of net sales and $2.21 of adjusted diluted EPS for the third quarter, against a consensus near $3.76B of revenue and $1.83 of EPS, and against its own July guide of $3,650M to $3,850M. Organic orders more than doubled from a year ago, and the full-year guide went up for the second quarter in a row. This recap walks the numbers, what changed in the guide, the read across the Cooling / DC Infra bubble, and the lines to watch next.

The print

$VRT reported the quarter ended September 30, 2026 before the US open on October 28. The consensus figures come from the data feed QA tracks; providers differ slightly.

Where the growth came from:

• By region: the Americas grew 75% (66% organic) to $2,989M, Asia Pacific 50% (48% organic) to $779M, and EMEA 23% (19% organic) to $545M.
• By line: product sales rose 64% to $3,637M; services rose 46% to $676M.
• Acquisitions added about 6 points of growth.

The balance sheet tells the same story from the other side. Deferred revenue, which includes customer prepayments, reached $4,121M at the end of September, from $1,815M at the end of 2025. Liquidity rose to $6.2B, and Vertiv reports a net cash position.

The guide

The release raises the full year on every line it guides:

For the fourth quarter, Vertiv guides $4,313M to $4,513M of net sales, organic growth of 49% to 51%, and adjusted EPS of $2.22 to $2.28. These are company guides, not results. At Tuesday's close of $208.56, the stock traded at about 29 times the new full-year adjusted EPS midpoint.

Cooling / DC Infra read-through

The standing QA thesis on /stocks/vrt is that every new gigawatt of AI compute pulls more Vertiv content per rack: liquid cooling for dense GPU racks, plus the power train behind it. This print supports both halves.

• Demand: organic orders more than doubled, and deferred revenue more than doubled since December. Orders arriving faster than shipments is what lets the company raise a guide this far into the year.
• Margin: adjusted operating margin rose 290 basis points from a year ago, on operating leverage and factory productivity, with mix and growth spending as the offsets.
• Reach: two acquisitions closed this week. UtilityInnovation Group (about $1.45B in upfront cash, plus up to $1.15B tied to EBITDA targets) adds microgrid controls, onsite generation orchestration and behind-the-meter power. King Environmental Services adds liquid-cooling fluid services in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Both push Vertiv further toward the power-constrained sites that AI builds now run into.

Net read: the print confirms the thesis that AI data-center demand keeps arriving faster than capacity. What it cannot settle is how long orders can keep doubling. The year-ago comparison gets much harder from here.

Peer reaction

$VRT's closest correlated names in the QA universe are $ETN (0.75 over 252 days), $NVT (0.70), $AEIS (0.70), $FIX (0.69) and $CAT (0.69). The link is the same data-center capex budget, not identical products.

• ETN and NVT sell electrical and enclosure gear into the same buildings. A Vertiv order surge reads well for the power side of those builds.
• AEIS reads through on power conversion, FIX on the mechanical and electrical contractors who install the equipment, CAT on onsite generation, the market UIG now gives Vertiv a direct line into.
• The competitors named in the QA thesis are Schneider, Eaton and ABB. A doubled order book at Vertiv says the market is still growing faster than any one supplier can serve.

What worked

• Net sales of $4,313M, about $460M above the top of Vertiv's own Q3 guide.
• Adjusted EPS of $2.21, 78% above a year ago and about 21% above consensus.
• Organic orders up more than 100%, and deferred revenue at $4.1B.
• Adjusted operating margin of 25.2%, up 290 basis points.
• A full-year guide raised on sales, margin, EPS and free cash flow.

What broke

• Working capital. Inventories reached $3,288M, from $1,457M in December, and receivables $4,380M, from $3,109M. Free cash flow grew 50%, slower than profit.
• EMEA. Up 19% organically in the quarter, but down 3.3% organically over nine months. Growth is concentrated in the Americas.
• Capex. $139M in the quarter, three times the year-ago $45M, as the company adds capacity. The plan holds full-year capex near 4% of revenue.
• Deal risk. UIG was bought at about 13 times its expected 2027 EBITDA, with an earnout of up to $1.15B on top. Integration and payout terms are now part of the story.
• The tape. Before the print, the stock was 16% lower over a month and up 8% over a year. The pre-market gain reprices part of that, not all of it.

What to watch

• Next earnings. Q4 2026, expected in February on Vertiv's usual cadence (not yet confirmed).
• Orders against sales. Whether organic orders keep growing faster than shipments once the year-ago base is higher.
• The Q4 guide. $4,313M to $4,513M of net sales and 25.3% to 26.3% adjusted margin: the bar for the next print.
• Cash conversion. Whether inventories and receivables come down as the backlog ships.
• UIG. The first quarter it is consolidated, and progress against its EBITDA targets.

The teardown video, the level map and the peer table live on /stocks/vrt. For the business explained from scratch, read Vertiv explained. The desk's full read in one document is the Vertiv Teardown Dossier, included in Pro.

To trade $VRT or its data-center infrastructure peers from a US-retail or LLC account, see /stack/ibkr. Rule-based alerts on the cooling and data-center infrastructure cohort are part of /pro.

Educational research on structural market dynamics. Not investment advice. QuantAbundance positions may change without notice.