Parcel and cargo delivery company FedEx (NYSE:FDX) announced better-than-expected revenue in Q1 CY2026, with sales up 8.3% year on year to $24 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $5.25 per share was 27% above analysts’ consensus estimates.
FedEx (FDX) Q1 CY2026 Highlights:
- Revenue: $24 billion vs analyst estimates of $23.51 billion (8.3% year-on-year growth, 2.1% beat)
- Adjusted EPS: $5.25 vs analyst estimates of $4.13 (27% beat)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $2.46 billion vs analyst estimates of $2.47 billion (10.3% margin, in line)
- Management raised its full-year Adjusted EPS guidance to $19.70 at the midpoint, a 7.1% increase
- Operating Margin: 5.6%, in line with the same quarter last year
- Free Cash Flow Margin: 4.3%, up from 3.1% in the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $82.23 billion
Company Overview
Sporting one of the largest air cargo fleets in the world, FedEx (NYSE:FDX) is a global provider of parcel and cargo delivery services.
Revenue Growth
Examining a company’s long-term performance can provide clues about its quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but many enduring ones grow for years. Unfortunately, FedEx’s 3.1% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was sluggish. This was below our standard for the industrials sector and is a tough starting point for our analysis.
Long-term growth is the most important, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss new industry trends or demand cycles. FedEx’s annualized revenue growth of 2.5% over the last two years aligns with its five-year trend, suggesting its demand was consistently weak.
This quarter, FedEx reported year-on-year revenue growth of 8.3%, and its $24 billion of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 2.1%.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 4.1% over the next 12 months. While this projection suggests its newer products and services will spur better top-line performance, it is still below average for the sector.
ONE MORE THING: The $21 AI Application Stock Wall Street Forgot. While Wall Street obsesses over who’s building AI, one company is already using it to print money. And nobody’s paying attention.
AI chip stocks trade at ridiculous valuations. This company processes a trillion consumer signals monthly using AI and trades at a third of the price. The gap won’t last. The institutions will figure it out. You need to see this first. Read the FREE Report Before They Notice.
Operating Margin
Operating margin is one of the best measures of profitability because it tells us how much money a company takes home after procuring and manufacturing its products, marketing and selling those products, and most importantly, keeping them relevant through research and development.
FedEx’s operating margin has generally stayed the same over the last 12 months, averaging 6.1% over the last five years. This profitability was paltry for an industrials business and caused by its suboptimal cost structureand low gross margin.
Analyzing the trend in its profitability, FedEx’s operating margin might fluctuated slightly but has generally stayed the same over the last five years. This raises questions about the company’s expense base because its revenue growth should have given it leverage on its fixed costs, resulting in better economies of scale and profitability.
In Q1, FedEx generated an operating margin profit margin of 5.6%, in line with the same quarter last year. This indicates the company’s cost structure has recently been stable.
Earnings Per Share
Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.
FedEx’s unimpressive 4.9% annual EPS growth over the last five years aligns with its revenue performance. This tells us it maintained its per-share profitability as it expanded.
Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a shorter period to see if we are missing a change in the business.
Although it wasn’t great, FedEx’s two-year annual EPS growth of 7.3% topped its 2.5% two-year revenue growth.
We can take a deeper look into FedEx’s earnings to better understand the drivers of its performance. A two-year view shows that FedEx has repurchased its stock, shrinking its share count by 4.4%. This tells us its EPS outperformed its revenue not because of increased operational efficiency but financial engineering, as buybacks boost per share earnings.
Key Takeaways from FedEx’s Q1 Results
It was good to see FedEx beat analysts’ EPS expectations this quarter. We were also glad its full-year EPS guidance trumped Wall Street’s estimates. Zooming out, we think this quarter featured some important positives. The stock traded up 3.8% to $369.46 immediately after reporting.
FedEx may have had a good quarter, but does that mean you should invest right now? When making that decision, it’s important to consider its valuation, business qualities, as well as what has happened in the latest quarter. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here, it’s free.