Teledyne (TDY) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Digital Imaging Drives Guidance Increase

Teledyne’s (NYSE: TDY) fiscal Q3 2026 earnings call highlighted record quarterly sales and operating earnings, accelerating Digital Imaging growth and a third consecutive increase to full-year guidance. Management raised its 2026 revenue outlook to $6.625 billion and non-GAAP EPS guidance to $25.40–$25.50.

Key Takeaways

• Teledyne reported the strongest quarterly sales and operating earnings in its history, while orders exceeded sales for the 12th consecutive quarter.
• Funded backlog reached approximately $5.3 billion. Management said about 72% is expected to be available for conversion into revenue over the next 12 months.
• The 2026 revenue outlook increased to $6.625 billion, representing 8.3% year-over-year growth, versus the initial January forecast of $6.37 billion and 4.2% growth.
• Full-year non-GAAP EPS guidance rose to $25.40–$25.50, compared with the January forecast of $23.65 per share.
• Digital Imaging sales increased 15%, including 14.3% organic growth, while non-GAAP operating margin expanded 376 basis points to 25.4%.
• Third-quarter free cash flow reached a record $319.5 million. Teledyne also repurchased $224.6 million of shares at a weighted average price of approximately $607 per share.

Core Financial Data

Business and Operating Performance

Digital Imaging

Digital Imaging was the principal growth driver. Segment sales increased 15%, or 14.3% organically, supported by both defense and commercial demand.

Sales of infrared detectors for space-based imaging rose more than 25%. Revenue from infrared subsystems and cameras used in unmanned air systems and unmanned maritime surface vehicles also increased by more than 25%.

Commercial growth was broad-based across industrial and scientific vision sensors and cameras, healthcare X-ray products, thermography cameras, maritime navigation electronics, geospatial sensors and software, and MEMS products.

The segment’s non-GAAP operating margin reached 25.4%, up 376 basis points. Management expects full-year Digital Imaging revenue of approximately $2.5 billion, with organic growth of about 10% and acquisition growth of 0.6%. It also expects the segment’s full-year margin to improve by approximately 225 basis points.

Management said FLIR revenue is projected to grow 12% year over year across defense and commercial markets. Digital Imaging’s book-to-bill ratio was approximately 1.2.

Instrumentation

Instrumentation sales increased 1.9%. Marine instruments grew 2%, driven by defense-related interconnects for U.S. Virginia- and Columbia-class submarines and continued growth in offshore energy exploration and production.

Environmental instruments increased 7.1%, led by gas-monitoring equipment and more modest growth in laboratory and life sciences products.

Electronic test and measurement sales declined 6.3%, partly because of order timing. However, orders increased 18% and book-to-bill reached a record 1.23. Segment margin declined modestly year over year due to product mix but improved sequentially for the second consecutive quarter.

Aerospace and Defense Electronics

Segment sales increased 4.3%. Defense Electronics grew 7.4%, partly offset by lower commercial aerospace revenue.

Bookings were strong across both defense and aerospace, producing a book-to-bill ratio of 1.29. Non-GAAP operating margin increased 86 basis points despite a greater mix of lower-margin defense electronics.

Engineered Systems

Engineered Systems revenue increased 7.8%, primarily due to higher sales from marine and other manufacturing programs. Operating margin was largely unchanged from the prior year.

Management Guidance

Management expects Q4 2026 company-wide organic revenue growth of approximately 7%–8%, subject to execution during the quarter.

For 2027, management has not issued formal guidance but said growth should remain above Teledyne’s historical low-single-digit rate. Its preliminary view is for mid- to high-single-digit growth, although potentially below the pace expected for 2026.

For Digital Imaging, management indicated a preliminary 2027 growth range of roughly 5%–8%. It also reiterated a portfolio-wide objective of improving annual margins by at least 50 basis points, while noting that actual performance can vary by year.

The pending Varex acquisition remains subject to the regulatory process and a Varex stockholder meeting scheduled for October 28. Teledyne continues to anticipate closing the transaction in early 2027.

Risks and Watch Items

• Management acknowledged uncertainty around government budgets. Existing long-term programs, including a recent Golden Dome award, support its confidence in 2027, but the outlook for 2028 and 2029 is less certain.
• Electronic component and printed circuit board shortages are contributing to higher input-specific inflation. Teledyne is planning with suppliers and using price increases to offset cost pressure.
• Instrumentation margins are improving sequentially, but management does not expect Q4 margins to fully return to 2025 levels.
• Q4 2025 included tax benefits that Teledyne is not currently realizing. Additional tax credits depend partly on future IRS decisions.
• Higher inventory purchases partially offset the benefit of stronger operating results in third-quarter cash flow.
• Management emphasized that Q4 performance depends on converting backlog and executing deliveries as planned.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

Backlog visibility: Management said approximately 72% of the $5.3 billion funded backlog is available for revenue conversion over the next 12 months. It described order strength as broad-based and said it had not observed unusual early ordering or inventory-building by customers.

Sustainability of Digital Imaging growth: Management attributed the acceleration to space-based infrared imaging, missile warning and tracking, unmanned systems and recovering commercial imaging markets. It expects Digital Imaging to maintain higher-single-digit growth potential, although it declined to provide a multi-year forecast.

Unmanned systems: Management expects unmanned revenue to grow approximately 15% from 2025 to 2026. The broader portfolio covering unmanned systems, space, electronic warfare, missiles and underwater applications is expected to grow roughly 11.3%–11.5%.

Varex strategy: Teledyne views Varex’s amorphous-silicon and photon-counting detector technologies as complementary to its existing X-ray detector portfolio. Management plans to apply its 80/20 operating model, which could initially reduce revenue through customer and SKU rationalization while improving margins. It ultimately aims to return the business to mid-single-digit growth and integrate sales through its “One Teledyne” approach.

Capital allocation: Over the past three years, Teledyne has deployed nearly $980 million on share repurchases at a weighted average price of $479 per share. Management said leverage remains at its lowest level in six years despite buybacks and the pending Varex acquisition.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

Welcome to Teledyne's Third Quarter Earnings Call. Here's our first speaker, Mr. Jason VanWees.

Jason VanWees

Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us. This is Jason VanWees, Vice Chairman of Teledyne, and I'd like to welcome everyone to Teledyne's Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Release Conference Call. We released our earnings earlier this morning before the market opened. Joining me today are Teledyne's Executive Chairman, Robert Mehrabian; President and CEO, George Bobb; EVP and CFO, Steve Blackwood, and Melanie Cibik, EVP General Counsel, Chief Compliance Officer and Secretary. After remarks by Robert, George and Steve, we will ask for your questions.

However, our attorneys have reminded me that before we get started, all forward-looking statements this morning are subject to various assumptions of risks and copies as noted in the earnings release under periodic SEC filings and of course, actual results may differ materially. In order to avoid potential selective disclosures, this call is simultaneously being webcast and a replay, via webcast and Island will be available for approximately one month. Here is Robert.

Robert Mehrabian

Thank you, Jason, and good morning, everyone.

Our third quarter sales and operating earnings were the strongest in Teledyne's history. For the third quarter in a row, we're raising our full year 2026 sales and earnings guidance. In January, we forecasted revenue of $6.37 billion, a 4.2% increase from 2025 and non-GAAP earnings of $23.65 per share. Today, our outlook for 2026 sales is $6.625 billion, a year-over-year increase of 8.3% and nearly double the growth rate projected in January. And earnings of $25.45 per share, which is $1.80 per share or almost 8% higher than forecast in January. [indiscernible] earned a 16% increase compared to last year. For all of Teledyne, orders have exceeded sales for 12 consecutive quarters and funded backlog is now approximately $5.3 billion.

In the third quarter, organic growth accelerated in our Digital Imaging segment and was led by sales of infrared detectors and subsystems for space and unmanned applications. Furthermore, each of our major commercial imaging businesses, such as industrial vision sensors and systems as well as health care increased year-over-year. Our third quarter performance reflected not only the strong execution of the backlog that we've been building for 3 years, but also the strength of our business portfolio and what Teledyne needs today. A company with a broad set of sensors and vertically integrated platforms from space to deep sea. We also continue to enjoy robust free cash flow and recently made $224.6 million of opportunistic stock repurchases at a weighted average price of approximately $607 per share. We did the same in 2025 and 2024, when we felt Teledyne was undervalued.

During the past 3 years, we've deployed nearly $980 million to buy back shares of our company at a total weighted average price of $479 per share. Regarding the pending acquisition of [indiscernible], we were following the company for more than 6 years. As health care and life sciences markets began to recover earlier this year, we felt the timing was finally right for us to pursue and then announce this highly complementary acquisition in the third quarter. The regulatory process is underway and [indiscernible] special stockholder meeting scheduled for October 28. We continue to anticipate closing early in 2027. Notwithstanding the stock repurchases and the pending acquisition, current leverage remains at the lowest level in 6 years and we have more than ample flexibility to continue compounding earnings growth for years to come. George will now comment on the performance of our 4 business segments.

George Bobb

Thank you, Robert. In the Digital Imaging segment, third quarter sales increased 15% and 14.3% organically due to well balanced growth among our defense and commercial businesses. Sales of infrared detectors for space-based imaging increased more than 25%, as did revenue from infrared subsystems and cameras for our customers, unmanned air systems and unmanned maritime surface vehicles. In addition, segment sales increased in each of our larger commercial end markets. That is sensors and cameras for industrial and scientific vision applications, X-ray products for health care, commercial thermography cameras electronics for maritime navigation, geospatial sensors and software and micro-electromechanical systems, or MEMS,

Finally, non-GAAP operating margin in the segment increased 376 basis points to 25.4%. In the Instrumentation segment, which consists of our marine environmental and test and measurement businesses. Third quarter sales increased 1.9% versus last year. Overall sales of marine instruments increased 2%, primarily due to strong defense-related sales of interconnects for U.S. Virginia and Columbia submarine as well as continued growth in the offshore energy exploration and production markets. Sales of environmental instruments increased 7.1% due to increased sales of gas monitoring instrumentation along with more modest growth in sales of laboratory and life sciences instruments.

Sales of electronic test and measurement systems decreased 6.3% due in part to the timing of orders, which increased 18% year-over-year for a record book-to-bill ratio of 1.23. Instrumentation non-GAAP operating margin in the third quarter decreased modestly due to product mix, but was sequentially higher for the second consecutive quarter. In the Aerospace and Defense Electronics segment, third quarter sales increased 4.3%. Growth in Defense Electronics of 7.4% was partially offset by lower sales in commercial aerospace. However, Third quarter bookings were very strong in both the defense and aerospace markets, with a segment book-to-bill ratio of 1.29. Non-GAAP segment margin increased 86 basis points year-over-year even though there was a greater mix of defense electronics, which as a whole, have a lower operating margin compared with commercial avionics. For the Engineered Systems segment, third quarter revenue increased 7.8% driven primarily by greater sales of marine and other manufacturing programs. Segment operating margin was largely flat with last year.

I will now pass the call back to Robert.

Robert Mehrabian

Thank you very much, George. To conclude, right now, virtually all of our businesses are moving in a positive direction simultaneously and our growth remains balanced across many end markets and geographies and not due to any singular potentially fleeting market driver. Given our backlog, the pending acquisition of Varex, our strong balance sheet and outstanding operating discipline, I'm already looking forward to 2027. I will now turn the call over to Steve.

Stephen Blackwood

Thank you, Robert, and good morning. I will first discuss some additional financials for the quarter not covered by Robert, and then I will discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2026 outlook. In the third quarter, cash flow from operating activities was $352.5 million compared with $343.1 million in 2025. Free cash flow, that is cash flow from operating activities less capital expenditures, was $319.5 million, a third quarter record compared with $313.9 million in 2025. Cash flow increased due to favorable operating results in the third quarter of 2026 compared to 2025, partially offset by higher inventory purchases. Capital expenditures were $33 million in the third quarter of 2026 compared with $29.2 million in 2025. Depreciation and amortization expense was $84.7 million in the third quarter of 2026 compared with $84.5 million in 2025. We ended the quarter with $1.47 billion of net debt. That is approximately $2.03 billion of debt less cash of $562.4 million.

Now turning to our outlook. Management currently believes that GAAP earnings per share in the fourth quarter of 2026 will be in the range of $5.68 to $5.83 with non-GAAP earnings per share in the range of $6.60 to $6.70. And for the full year 2026, we believe the GAAP earnings per share will be in the range of $21.71 to $21.87 and non-GAAP earnings per share in the range of $25.40 to $25.50. I will now pass the call back to Robert.

Robert Mehrabian

Thank you, Steve. We would now like to take your questions. Rob, if you're ready to proceed with the questions and answers, please go ahead.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]

And the first question today comes from the line of Zachary Walljasper with UBS.

Question-and-Answer Session

Zachary Walljasper

My first question is around backlog. So total company backlog has grown sequentially every quarter so far this year. So with the trends you're seeing in unmanned space, can you just talk about the visibility of the team is building on from a top line perspective heading because based on awards you're winning now, I would assume that will be delivered next year?

And then my second question is around instrumentation. It sounds like from the prepared remarks, there's a bit of mistiming or bit of a timing of orders? Was that just for test management or for the whole segment?

Robert Mehrabian

Let me take the backlog question first. I want to just take it on a larger scale. As we mentioned, the backlog right now stands at $5.3 billion. Of that, about 72% will be available for us to a revenue in the last -- next 12 months. To put that in perspective, that number is about half of the revenue that we enjoy for 2026. Now the backlog in other areas, it varies. But basically, a lot of our longer-term defense and other areas. The backlog is for the full 18 months and 9 months of it being, as I mentioned. And overall, we think if you look at the different segments, even in instruments that George talked about and you just mentioned, our book-to-bill is 1.07. So we feel pretty good about it. Even though the revenue may have been done in certain parts of that, overall, the pickup in our orders in Q3 points to a fairly favorable future.

Operator

Our next questions are from the line of Andrew Buscaglia with BNP Paribas.

Andrew Buscaglia

I wanted to touch on digital imaging. Just it seems like things have really accelerated and it seems really broad-based. But what changed in your quarter that made you exceed your expectations by so much? Was it on the defense side? Or is it more kind of commercial infrared stuff that really picked up?

Robert Mehrabian

Yes. I think, Andrew, obviously, we anticipated based on the orders we had that we would do better than we initially thought. But obviously, everything depends on execution. I think when you look at our digital imaging and you look at it both as what we call our historical digital imaging, which would be our Teledyne [indiscernible] or imaging systems here, what we call Teledyne Scientific and Imaging. Those grew very nicely, primarily due to space. As you know, we do a lot of work in space with our infrared image sensors and the whole missile warning and tracking systems been a really good domain for us. So that picked up.

The other area, of course, is the unmanned systems and that did very well, better than we thought. And then lastly, in the commercial domain, which is machine vision, health care, microelectronics, mechanical systems. If you add them all up, they all did very well and digital imaging book-to-bill as a whole, both what we call our legacy and player had a book-to-bill of about 1.2x. So things worked out across the board very well.

Andrew Buscaglia

Yes. And maybe the next question on digital imaging margins. Can you talk about expectations around gross margin going forward, given price costs dynamics? And then it looks like R&D and SG&A are growing quite fast. I thought last year you guys were -- you took out some costs, but those -- so presumably, those wouldn't be growing that way. But can you talk a little bit more about on the OpEx side, what you expect from here?

Robert Mehrabian

I'll let George talk about the cost structure because that's been a significant undertaking in the whole digital imaging domain, specialty and what we call our historical digital imaging. All along, we've said that FLIR is going to do better year-over-year, quarter-over-quarter, and it's finally arrived at a point where we feel very comfortable with the growth both in revenue as well as earnings. Overall, we're projecting robust growth in FLIR year-over-year of 12%. And in defense as well as commercial domain. In terms of the cost structure, I'll let George, as I said, answer it. But I think what we're aiming for is to continuously improve our margins. And we started the year just broadly, we started the year by saying Digital Imaging margins would grow about 150 basis points in Q2. Today, we've added another 61 basis points. So we're projecting for the whole year, margins to grow 225 basis point. So with that, I'll pass this to George to talk about the cost structure.

George Bobb

Sure. So we did take cost out in 2025. We're getting the benefit of that as evidenced by the margins that we had here in Q3, up 180 basis points and gross margins are up year-over-year, at least in the neighborhood of 100 basis points. Beyond that, R&D really wasn't up materially in the quarter. And I think the rest of the cost structure is fine. I think we're getting the benefit of the cost we took out and obviously, the volume growth that we have.

Robert Mehrabian

That's about -- I hope that answers your question.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Sheila Kahyaoglu with Jefferies.

Adam Samuelson

It's Adam Samuelson on for Sheila. Maybe the first question is on instrumentation. I know you talked about Test & Measurement kind of bookings improving and that giving you confidence on the outlook for the top line as you go into the fourth quarter. I'm wondering if you could comment on kind of the margin outlook there. Is that -- as we think about that mix maybe flipping more favorably within the segment. Should we think about that segment returning to year-on-year margin expansion in the fourth quarter? And I mean, is there any way to think about the margin trajectory for that business as we move into 2027?

Robert Mehrabian

Thank you, Adam. I'll pass this one back to George again.

George Bobb

Yes. I think, largely, we continue to see sequential margin improvement as we go through the year quarter-over-quarter. I don't think we'll quite get back to 2025 margins in Q4. Having said that, based on the outlook for 2027, I feel good about the direction we're at.

Adam Samuelson

Got it. And then maybe just switching gears, I sneak one more in. Back in digital imaging on the unmanned side. Can we differentiate the demand for Fred some systems on for customer platforms versus your own? And any thoughts on kind of -- is there any need for incremental capacity to support some of the demand growth that you're seeing there?

Robert Mehrabian

Yes. First of our subsystems have been the strongest of all of our defense programs. In the infrared and visible domain our sensors, as you said, we supply to our own as well as other people. And that has gone substantially year-over-year. There are good reasons for that. One of them is, obviously, as the demand is growing, the ability to meet the demand and confidence that the customers have in a demand environment that you will be supplying and not get off-line because very, very important. And the second thing is, of course, with improving our product continuously. We have 12 micron, which detectors that we've been shipping. Now we have announced 8-micron plus software additions, et cetera. The bigger system, which would be our total defense system, we're looking at about a 10% growth, whereas in the subsystems, we're looking at multiple of that.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Jonathan Siegmann with Stifel.

Jonathan Siegmann

Congratulations on the nice balance growth across the portfolio again. A question on the budget environment. Teledyne has some terrific exposure both in space and in drones and counter drone applications. Those are disproportionally funded by some of the reconciliation money, which there is some worries out there maybe stalled out in the months ahead in Congress. As a supplier, what impact does that have on your business? What are your prime customers saying in terms of any impact on this powerful growth you're seeing?

Robert Mehrabian

That's a very good question. There's -- right now, as you mentioned, there's uncertainty in the budget. On the other hand, because of our longer-term programs that we've won, including the most recent one in the Golden Dome, we don't see an issue for us in 2027. Having said that, there's other things that are happening that may change the outlook in '28 and '29, we don't know. On the other hand, right now, sitting where I am and where George is, we think we're okay in 2027 with all the uncertainties surrounding the budget as well as everything else that's going on in Europe and the Middle East.

Jonathan Siegmann

And if I could just slip 1 in on Varex given we're used to looking at businesses that fly and blow up. Just can you understand you've looked at Varex for quite some time. Maybe could you talk a little bit about what attracted you to that business? And maybe comment on some of the declines in revenue that business saw and why you're excited about it. I'd appreciate it.

Robert Mehrabian

That's a very good question. First of all, we've been looking at that business for a long time. At least in the last 6 years, pretty actively. We wanted to proper that business before we're not able to. But what happened is recently as the whole arena of health care and products that they make began to recover. We thought it was an appropriate time for us to approach them, and that would be obviously in the recovery after the first quarter there. And we were able to approach that. We were able to go through the process. They have a lot of other potential buyers that they were dealing with.

And that's, by the way, detailed in their merger proxy. And in the end, we ended up with a friendly transaction. Why Varex, very simple. We have health care products. We have X-ray detectors, but nothing like they do. We primarily focus on ceramic metal oxide detectors with our small in size, cannot tolerate high energy, high extra energy levels, like you have in oncology. They have a bunch of other detectors led by amorphous silicon that are uniquely designed for high energy oncology rates. Also they have really different complementary products to us. And I'll end up with one thing that they have that's exciting to us, and that's their photon detectors, which can detect x-rays without having to go through an intermediate layer called insulation. And that's very attractive to us because we've always wanted to get into that field, and they already have advanced in it. And we think while the revenue has been relatively flat.

We think for us, our opportunity is to improve margins like we've done in all of our acquisitions. I'll give you one example, [indiscernible]. We bought it at a multiple of 16.7% to EBITDA. If you look at it today, in just 4 years, that's down to 13.7%. And broadly, Teledyne has improved almost every acquisition that we've made and improved the margins I would say, on the average, we rated 13.5x EBITDA. And today, they're less than 8. So that's the other driver. As we think we can improve it with our 80/20 programs with not having the public costs associated with a smaller public company. So that kind of sums up the best answer that I can give you at this time.

Jonathan Siegmann

Great. Thank you. Congratulations on and a nice final one for Jason to have his contributions on. Good luck with it.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Guy Hardwick with Barclays.

Guy Drummond Hardwick

Robert, considering your pretty upbeat comments on the backlog, are you willing to give us kind of an early look as to what revenue growth potential could be in 2027, excluding the Forex acquisition? And just to say -- and I'll ask my follow-up now. Did digital Imaging margins in Q3 benefit from any tariff reversal or refunds?

Robert Mehrabian

No. The refunds were really taken up in Q2, so it doesn't affect Q3. Let me start there. It's a little early for us to talk about '27. A matter of fact, we had our first cut of half of our businesses that George went through with our Board. I think our momentum is there. I think we will improve next year again or whether it be at the level we did this year or projecting to do this year. I don't know, it's a little early. Improve? We will. That I can tell you.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Joe Giordano with TD Cowen.

Joseph Giordano

So on the orders there, I mean, again, at the consolidated level, really strong, it's a pretty similar number to what you had in dollars last quarter. I'm just curious if there's any parts of that where you feel like are customers ordering earlier or excessively because of worries about a budget or anything like that? I mean I know your products are not like stock in inventory typically or anything like that. But just curious if there's any parts of the business where you feel like there is a little bit of different order patterns for whatever reason?

Robert Mehrabian

Yes. Joe, I don't think so. We haven't seen anything unusual. The kind of the backlog, the orders are broad-based across our products. We're not looking at any huge movements because of data centers or other things. So we feel comfortable about that. That's the best answer I can give. We haven't noticed anything unusual across our portfolio.

Joseph Giordano

Okay. And then on Varex. I think I cut -- my phone cut out a little bit. You may have gotten into this a little bit on the last question. But on the growth side of Varex, I mean, you guys have shown the ability to cut costs out. And so I think people would expect that on the margin side. But growth, you mentioned it's been flattish. Like what do you do there? Is that just the market dynamic I know you're probably not wanting to buy something that's wildly dilutive to the total growth profile of Teledyne. So what do you do there to stimulate that?

Robert Mehrabian

Yes. I think first, we're going to apply like we do in our own -- all of our businesses every single quarter, every single month. We're going to apply our 80/20 principles to bid. What do we mean by that? We haven't done detailed analysis because obviously, we're going through the process now. So the first thing in 80/20 is that's probably begun to shrink revenue somewhat because we look at the 80% of the revenue that is substantially available for us to improve margins, and there's 20% that goes to smaller customers that are dilutive to earnings. And we do that across Teledyne.

If you look at Teledyne today versus 5 years ago, we've reduced the number of SKUs that we have by 50%. So we're going to do that first. So that might actually reduce our revenue a little bit at the beginning. But then we think after that, we think we'll get back to midsized mid-single-digit growth like we do under normal circumstances across our own portfolio, and we obviously look for synergies where we can sell similar but different products to the same customer.

So I think initially, revenue down a little bit margins up, gross margins up almost first year, accretive. And then as we go forward, grow the business like we've done every other acquisition that we've made.

Joseph Giordano

If I could just sneak one more in. Do you foresee Varex like the go-to-market strategy? Is there -- are they going to work independently from the offerings you already have? Is it 2 separate sales teams? Or is this going to be like one face of Teledyne going to these same customers?

Robert Mehrabian

I think it's going to be one face. That is very important because George really was the architect of what we call One Teledyne, and it's not just across health care, but across all of our products. So when a market represent a sales representative approaches a company, whether it's the best company and the commercial company, they have the visibility of all of our products. So somebody in the past might mention some of the products we have in the commercial domain, we're going to do the same thing with Varex. It's not going to be separate. It's got to be One Teledyne approach.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Ron Epstein with Bank of America.

Unknown Analyst

So just quickly, I didn't hear much discussion around how are supply chain holding up for you? When we've gone to some of the recent trades out, we've heard that there's shortages on things like printed circuit boards and some basically for electronic components given all the -- I'm going to say, capacity that's being thrown to value per scales and the AI build-out that they've kind of like sucking up everything. How is that impacting you guys? And how are you managing it?

Robert Mehrabian

Well, that's a very good question. Obviously, there's a lot of shortages. We have a dedicated team that works with our businesses that ensures that we get what we need to produce our products. The only problem that we see because of the shortages, the inflation specific inflation to the different areas that you mentioned is higher than normal, but we try and make up for that. with price increases. This year, we've been successful in enjoying probably one of our better price increases across our portfolio. So it's an annoyance from an inflation perspective, and sometimes, you have a hard time getting specifically what you need, but we are very aggressively planning ahead with our suppliers, recognizing that some of the shortages would probably not last. Let's put it that way.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Noah Poponak with Goldman Sachs.

Noah Poponak

Jason, congrats on your announcement and thanks for all the time you spent with us over the years always super helpful.

Jason VanWees

Thanks, Noah. And I'll see you in December. So I'm still here for now.

Noah Poponak

Yes. I appreciate that. Robert, given the diversification of your business, as well as you guys have done over the years. There aren't that many quarters in any of the businesses that look like the last 2 growth rates in digital imaging. I guess it leaves me wondering how sustainable is that? Because what's happening in the defense verticals you feed into right now is pretty unique and at least for now, seems fairly enduring, and I guess you kind of have that happening at the same time that your commercial side is picking up, that is a little bit more of a cyclical element to it. Can we -- do you see these growth rates sustaining for a period of time? Or is this more the early pickup on easy compares?

Robert Mehrabian

Thank you, Noah. Very good question, as usual, difficult for them to answer. Let me just say, short term and short term 2027, we think that we're going to do better than we have historically this year, as you know, we're looking at about 8.3%, 8.4% growth, that's organic, which is higher -- the organic -- sorry, it's about 7.5%, but it's higher than what we've enjoyed in the last 15 years or so. I think that's going to sustain, maybe not exactly at that level, but it's going to be better than low single digits, which we've been stuck on for a while. Mid- to higher single digits is what we're anticipating. It's hard to say, but we have a balanced portfolio. We've intentionally worked very hard to balance our portfolio so that when things get tough, we survive and do well and things are going well, some parts of our portfolio outshine like they are this year. I feel comfortable that we're going to do better than our historical. Maybe not as aggressive as this year, but pretty close to it.

Noah Poponak

Okay. And then I also wanted to ask about the margin in that segment. When it was under some pressure, you would project when you expected it to be back to the level of that now. I guess now that it's here and it maybe has growth ahead of it, but also pieces moving around under the hood. Is there a framework for how to think about the 3- to 5-year out or just the longer-term profitability potential of digital imaging?

Robert Mehrabian

Yes. In Digital Imaging, obviously, we've enjoyed significant margin improvement this year over last year. By the end of the year, we expect the total margin to go up 225 basis points. Our target for every year across our portfolio is at least 50 basis points. This year, we're going to enjoy closer to 90 basis points, and that improvement really we just announced this quarter. Last quarter, we were closer to 50, 55. So I think our target is to stay on that 50 and do what we can year-over-year to improve our margins. And that goes to the heart of what George talked about. When necessary, cut costs. When things improve, don't put it back.

Noah Poponak

Okay. One last one. Just what's the implied fourth quarter total company organic revenue growth that's embedded in your revised guidance. I realize you raised the bottom line considerably, but it seems like it would require organic growth that maybe looks a little conservative given you still have the easy compares?

Robert Mehrabian

Yes. I think 7% to 8% is the number we have in mind at the present time. It may be a little higher, but 7% to 8% for Q4. As we get into Q4, which we are now. Things are looking pretty well. We just have to execute. Execution is, as you well know, it's everything in our portfolio. So 8% is a good number.

Operator

The next question is from the line of Robert Jameson with Needham Company.

Unknown Analyst

Just back on the 4Q guide as well, just with everything in the positive commentary around order books and books and bills, and then just looking historically, I had to go back to like 2015, 2016, to sequentially when EPS was, kind of, like similar in 3 to 4Q. So just wondering what's kind of embedded in your outlook and any puts and takes in the broader macro that you're considering that might be just keeping a little bit more cautious here on your guidance.

Robert Mehrabian

Yes. I think if you, kind of, look back at those years -- and by the way, we do all the time, what happened is in -- by the end of fourth quarter of 2025, we started seeing some tax benefits, which by the way, we are not enjoying today. So we very hard that work, making sure that we get those tax credits that play an important role, obviously, especially if we can move the IRS to do what it's supposed to do make decisions. If we can do that, we might enjoy some tax benefits on top of everything else. But if you look back at what we call coming out of the hard years, simply what happened is we cut costs, as I mentioned, [indiscernible] George did, let's say, in marine and other domains.

But when markets turned up, we didn't put all that cost back. We have very good discipline. If we can't do that again, that would sustain us for a while. And our EPS will grow just slightly did subsequent to the tough years that we had in the mid of 2015 and 2016. So that's the best I can do in my answers. George, do you have anything you want to add?

George Bobb

No.

Robert Mehrabian

No, I guess not.

Unknown Analyst

No. That's helpful. And then just can you update us on the unmanned outlook? Just how much you expect to generate just on dollar growth for this year? I know you guys kind of bumped that up the last couple of quarters. So just curious where that stands today.

Robert Mehrabian

Broadly, 15%. Year-over-year, '25 through '26, just unmanned, if you put everything else in with space, electronic warfare, missiles and of course, underwater. If you do all of that, it's still double digits, it's 11.3%, 11.5%. So while unmanned is doing really great, everything else in the portfolio seems to be moving up in double digits in that domain.

Operator

Thank you. The next question is from the line of John Godyn with Citigroup.

Bradley Eyster

This is Bradley Eyster on for John Godyn. I just want to follow up on Noah's question about the growth trajectory for digital imaging. I mean 2Q to 3Q have been strong. But I'm just trying to think for the potential outlook here, given that you called programs such as space sensors, missile detection, [indiscernible] program still seem to be in their infancy. So I'm just trying to think what the size and shape of this segment looks like over the fullness of time. Any closing this year would be appreciated.

Robert Mehrabian

Let me just say right now from where we sit, George and I. We're looking at mid-single digits, maybe a little higher than that 5% to 8%. It's too early right now. Right now, we're working on 2027, and I've never been one to project beyond the year. I know some people would tell you, 3 to 5 years, everything is going to be great, but that's not us because we don't see that far into the future. But I think single digits on the high side we'd be comfortable with that. And as we execute and as we compete with new programs with things like our new drones, loitering drones that are armed with our new nano drones that you can release 3 of them simultaneously from a single platform and recover them with our ability to have in an environment where all of our drones, whether it's grown base or air, talk to one another. I think we feel comfortable with the -- that's a higher single-digit growth.

Operator

Next question is from the line of Joe Giordano with TD Cowen.

Joseph Giordano

Just wanted to clarify something, I may have heard wrong. Robert, I thought you said for DI for the year, you were thinking like 8-point-something percent. Is that a fourth quarter number? Or is that a full year number? Because if it's a full year number, I'm guessing if not, then it would mean like fourth quarter organic is barely up. I just wanted to clarify that.

Robert Mehrabian

Yes. I think for the year, it's higher than that. It's -- organic is 10%. With 0.6% of acquisition, it's 10.6% closer to 11%. So if I said that, I have misspoken. We're talking about the revenue for digital imaging around $2.5 billion.

Joseph Giordano

That makes much more sense.

Operator

At this time, we reached the end of our question-and-answer session. I'll hand the floor back to management for any closing comments.

Robert Mehrabian

Thank you, Rob. I will ask Jason to conclude our conference call.

Jason VanWees

Thanks, Rob. And again, thank you, Rob, for hosting the call. And if any of you have follow-up questions, please feel free to call me at [indiscernible] the earnings release or you have my e-mail. So thanks, everyone. Bye.

Operator

This will conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. We thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful day.