Revenue grew 139.8% from a year earlier in 2026Q3. It was a record quarter, but a slower growth rate than the quarter before. Operating margin reached 18.3%. The shares still lagged their two-peer basket on the day of the release.
Record sales, slower growth
Bloom Energy makes fuel cells that turn gas into electricity on a customer's own site. In 2026Q3 revenue set a new high for the quarters shown in the chart. Revenue also rose 16.1% from the prior quarter. Over the three years to 2026Q3, revenue compounded at 47.5% a year. My reading: demand for power built next to the customer is what fills those tall bars.
Data table
| period | revenue | yoy |
|---|---|---|
| 2023Q4 | $341.3m | -23.6% |
| 2024Q1 | $226.1m | -12.6% |
| 2024Q2 | $326.5m | 14.4% |
| 2024Q3 | $321.8m | -16.1% |
| 2024Q4 | $567.0m | 66.1% |
| 2025Q1 | $319.3m | 41.2% |
| 2025Q2 | $396.3m | 21.4% |
| 2025Q3 | $513.3m | 59.5% |
| 2025Q4 | $772.8m | 36.3% |
| 2026Q1 | $746.4m | 133.8% |
| 2026Q2 | $1.1bn | 167.7% |
| 2026Q3 | $1.2bn | 139.8% |
Here is the part a headline misses. Revenue grew 139.8% from a year earlier in 2026Q3, and in 2026Q2 that growth rate was 167.7%. So the company is bigger than it has ever been, while the growth rate is coming off its peak. Both things are true at once, and the chart shows them side by side.
Costs, not just sales, turned the profit
Profit did not turn on revenue alone. Gross margin was 33.9% of revenue in 2026Q3, which is 0.4 pp Short for percentage point. It is the plain gap between two percentages, used so nobody confuses a change in a margin with a percentage change. better than the quarter before. The cost ratio moved -0.8 pp, so overheads took a smaller bite out of every dollar of sales. Together they lifted operating margin The share of each dollar of sales left after both direct costs and running costs such as research and salaries. by 1.1 pp, to 18.3%.
Glossary
- gross margin
- The share of each dollar of sales left after the direct cost of building and installing the product. Higher means more room to cover everything else.
- operating margin
- The share of each dollar of sales left after both direct costs and running costs such as research and salaries.
- pp
- Short for percentage point. It is the plain gap between two percentages, used so nobody confuses a change in a margin with a percentage change.
- Capital spending
- Money spent on factories, tools and equipment rather than on day-to-day running costs.
Data table
| order | category | amount | kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 2026Q2 operating margin | 17.2% | total |
| 1 | Gross margin change | 0.4% | delta |
| 2 | Opex ratio change | 0.8% | delta |
| 3 | 2026Q3 operating margin | 18.3% | total |
The bigger story is the gap against last year. My reading: scale is doing the heavy lifting, because the same factories and the same head office are spread over far more revenue. Capital spending Money spent on factories, tools and equipment rather than on day-to-day running costs. equalled 12.5% of revenue in 2026Q3, so the building is not finished. These figures run through 2026Q3, the latest quarter in the data.
How much has Bloom Energy's operating margin changed since the same quarter a year earlier?
Actual16.8 pp
The operating margin is 16.8 pp higher than a year earlier, a swing from barely breaking even to a solid profit. Margins rarely move that far in four quarters, which is why one quarter alone is a thin base for judging a company.
Show answer
16.8 pp The operating margin is 16.8 pp higher than a year earlier, a swing from barely breaking even to a solid profit. Margins rarely move that far in four quarters, which is why one quarter alone is a thin base for judging a company.
The shares went the other way
Now the share price. In the five trading days before the release, the stock was already 5.5% ahead of the peer basket, so it did not come into the day weak. On the announcement day the stock's return was -9.2% against the peer basket, in the same window as the release. The basket holds just 2 peers, Plug Power and FuelCell Energy. Only 1 trading day after the release sits in the data, so this is an early read rather than a verdict. Two other fuel cell names had no price data at all and are left out of the basket.
Zoom out and the picture flips. Over the year to 2026-10-23 the stock returned 90.6%, while the market returned 14.4% over the same year. Along the way it also fell -52.7% from its peak to its trough. That is the trade-off with a name like this: big gains and big air pockets, often in the same twelve months.
Risks
- The peer basket holds only two companies, too small to read much into a one-day comparison.
- Past guidance accuracy is not in this data, so the full-year outlook stands untested here.
- Non-operating items sit inside this quarter's profit, so how repeatable it is stays unclear.
Sources
- SEC EDGAR XBRL companyfacts, BLOOM ENERGY CORPORATION — data as of 2026-09-30; fetched 2026-10-25 16:49 UTC