A10 Networks (ATEN) Q3 2026 Earnings Call: Revenue Up 22.6%, Guidance Raised

Key Takeaways

• A10 Networks reported record Q3 2026 revenue of $91.5 million, up 22.6% year over year. Year-to-date revenue increased 17.4% to $246.7 million.
• Product revenue reached $58.5 million, or 64% of total revenue. Security-led offerings represented 65% of product revenue.
• Non-GAAP gross margin was 80%, while non-GAAP operating margin reached 27.8%. Non-GAAP diluted EPS rose to $0.31 from $0.23 a year earlier.
• Management raised its full-year 2026 revenue growth outlook to approximately 16% from 12% to 14% previously. It expects non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin to exceed 30% and diluted EPS of $1.08 to $1.10.
• Demand was broad-based: revenue excluding A10’s largest customer grew at a double-digit rate, while EMEA and APJ each recorded double-digit year-over-year growth.
• A10 set a fiscal 2029 organic target of $500 million in annual revenue and $2 in annual non-GAAP EPS.

Core Financial Data

During the quarter, A10 paid $4.4 million in dividends and repurchased $23 million of shares, returning $27.4 million to shareholders. The board approved a quarterly dividend of $0.06 per share, payable December 1, 2026, to shareholders of record on November 16. A total of $30.1 million remained under the company’s $75 million repurchase authorization.

Business and Operating Performance

Enterprise customers generated 58% of Q3 revenue and approximately half of trailing 12-month revenue. Management said this reflected progress in diversifying the company’s revenue mix. The Americas accounted for 64% of global revenue, supported by AI infrastructure build-outs and enterprise demand.

A10 said rising AI-related traffic is increasing demand for next-generation networking, DDoS protection and tools governing AI access, routing and costs. A Fortune 50 financial services company is using A10’s AI firewall across approximately 800 agentic AI applications, with roughly 50,000 sessions routed through the solution each day. A global information and analytics provider is also using A10’s AI red-teaming capability to test models and applications for vulnerabilities.

Management emphasized that growth is linked not only to new data-center construction but also to higher traffic, expanding security requirements and responsible AI adoption. Demand from the company’s largest strategic customer remained healthy and stable, while the rest of the business also grew at a double-digit rate.

Management Guidance

A10 raised its full-year 2026 revenue growth outlook to approximately 16% year over year, compared with its prior range of 12% to 14%. Management said the outlook assumes continued year-over-year Q4 growth across the business excluding its largest customer.

The company expects full-year non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin to exceed 30%. Non-GAAP diluted EPS is projected at $1.08 to $1.10, representing growth of 20% to 22% and outpacing expected revenue growth.

Full-year free cash flow is expected to reach $74 million to $77 million, compared with approximately $64 million in the prior year.

For fiscal 2029, management established an organic target of $500 million in annual revenue and $2 in annual non-GAAP EPS. These longer-term figures are company targets rather than reported results.

Risks and Areas to Watch

A10 is navigating industrywide input-cost and delivery challenges. Management also noted that supply constraints could require the company to balance and prioritize customer fulfillment over the next four to six quarters.

Americas service-provider spending has begun to normalize but remains below historical levels. International demand can also vary with service-provider capital expenditure cycles in Asia, Europe and the United States.

Management attributed Q3’s lower days sales outstanding of 49 days to the timing of cash receipts, indicating that the quarterly working-capital benefit may not represent a recurring pattern.

Analyst Q&A Highlights

Asked about the sustainability of product revenue growth, management said it reflected new business, customer adoption of new solutions and competitive wins rather than an unusual replacement cycle. A10 is not relying on a major refresh cycle to support growth over the next two to three years.

Management said the business excluding its largest customer can support double-digit growth, although supply constraints may affect customer prioritization in individual quarters. It characterized demand as broad-based rather than dependent on one customer.

Regarding international performance, management attributed the improvement partly to normal variation in service-provider demand and its ability to fulfill orders while continuing to serve its largest customers.

Full Earnings Call Transcript

Complete Earnings Call Transcript

Management Remarks

Operator

Good afternoon, and welcome to the A10 Networks Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Tom Baumann. The floor is yours.

Tom Baumann

Thank you, and thank you all for joining us today. This call is being recorded and webcast live and may be accessed for at least 90 days via the A10 Networks website at a10networks.com.

Hosting the call today are Dhrupad Trivedi, A10's President and CEO; and CFO, Michelle Caron.

Before we begin, I would like to remind you that shortly after the market closed today, A10 Networks issued a press release announcing its third quarter 2026 financial results. Additionally, A10 published a presentation and supplemental trended financial statements. You may access the press release, presentation and trended financial statements on the Investor Relations section of the company's website.

During the course of today's call, management will make forward-looking statements, including statements regarding projections for future operating results, demand, industry and customer trends, macroeconomic factors, strategy, potential new products and solutions, our capital allocation strategy, profitability, expenses and investments, positioning and our dividend program. These statements are based on current expectations and beliefs as of today, November 5, 2026.

These forward-looking statements involve a number of risks and uncertainties, some of which are beyond our control, that could cause actual results to differ materially, and you should not rely on them as predictions of future events. A10 does not intend to update information containing these forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, unless required by law. For a more detailed description of these risks and uncertainties, please refer to our most recent 10-K and quarterly report on Form 10-Q.

Please note that with the exception of revenue, financial measures discussed today are on a non-GAAP basis, unless otherwise noted, and may have been adjusted to exclude certain charges. The non-GAAP financial measures are not intended to be considered in isolation or as a substitute for results prepared in accordance with GAAP and may be different from non-GAAP financial measures presented by other companies. A reconciliation between GAAP and non-GAAP measures can be found in the press release issued today and on the trended quarterly financial statements posted on the company's website at a10networks.com.

Now I would like to turn the call over to Dhrupad Trivedi, President and CEO of A10 Networks.

Dhrupad Trivedi

Thank you, Tom, and thank you all for joining us today. The third quarter was another record quarter for A10 with revenue up 22.6% and profitability that enabled us to consistently exceed our stated performance goals. We continue to win business and gain market share in our key growth markets of advanced network security and next-generation networking. Strong year-to-date results and sustained demand for our solutions gives us the confidence to raise our guidance for the second time this year.

A10 is well positioned at the intersection of advanced networking and security. The growth of AI is increasing the volume and complexity of network traffic, making our portfolio increasingly relevant. Customers need to distribute application requests and connect employees to external AI services reliably. Our next-generation networking solutions help them meet those needs. They also need to defend against DDoS and other attacks that could disrupt access to AI and other shared enterprise applications. Our A10 Defend portfolio helps protect the availability of these critical services with industry-leading performance.

We are also seeing demand for solutions that secure the use and development of AI and help enterprises manage AI access, routing and costs. A Fortune 50 financial services company with over 40,000 employees is using A10's AI firewall, both to help protect employees accessing public AI tools and to govern AI traffic in their internal and external-facing applications.

The deployment illustrates how leading enterprises are moving agentic AI into production at scale with approximately 800 enterprise agentic AI applications connected to our guardrail solution. These include internal and external-facing applications, with the largest application being external-facing. Roughly 50,000 sessions are routed through the solutions each day under unified customized policies.

In another example, a global information and analytics provider is using A10's AI red-teaming capability to test AI models and applications for vulnerabilities. By probing systems for potential weaknesses before deployment, the company can better assess AI-related risks and strengthen its security practices as it expands its use of AI.

These examples reflect how both A10's core portfolio and newer AI solutions can help customers meet mission-critical needs in an increasingly complex environment. Our growth is not solely predicated upon build-out of new data centers. It is in fact linked to growth in traffic, expansion of security and responsible use of AI.

Our deep partnership with our largest strategic customers continues to contribute to our growth. Through this relationship, A10's technology helps protect cloud infrastructure supporting enterprises across industries and geographies. That infrastructure enables AI applications alongside other mission-critical workloads, extending A10's role in helping keep the services businesses and consumers [ who ] rely on availability.

Demand across the rest of the business was broad-based and related to our core differentiation and increasing relevance to evolving needs for networking and security. EMEA and APJ revenue grew at double-digit levels on a year-over-year basis. Overall revenue, excluding our largest customer, grew at a double-digit rate in the quarter.

At the same time, we are converting demand into greater profitability and cash generation. Our goal is to sustain growth while investing in the capabilities this demand environment requires. We remain on track for non-GAAP earnings per share growth to outpace revenue growth.

I'd now like to turn the call over to Michelle Caron, our Chief Financial Officer, to discuss our financial results in greater detail.

Michelle Caron

Thank you, Dhrupad. As a reminder, with the exception of revenue, all of the metrics discussed on this call are on a non-GAAP basis, unless otherwise stated. A full reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP results are provided in our press release and on our website.

Let me now turn to the results. As Dhrupad noted, Q3 results reflect encouraging demand globally and our continued ability to convert growth into significant cash generation. We delivered revenue growth of 22.6% to a quarterly record of $91.5 million. Year-to-date, our revenue was $246.7 million, an increase of 17.4%.

Turning to mix, product revenue in the third quarter was $58.5 million or 64% of total revenue, while service revenue was $33 million or 36% of total revenue. From a product mix perspective, security-led revenue continues to drive product revenue growth and meet our long-term goals at 65% of total revenue. From a vertical perspective, enterprise customers represented 58% of Q3 revenue and approximately half of total revenue on a trailing 12-month basis. Stronger enterprise growth reflects progress toward our goal of diversifying our revenue mix.

Service provider spend in the Americas has begun to normalize, but remains below historical levels, representing an opportunity for incremental growth. We're confident that our service provider relationships around the world remain a strong foundation for continued growth, and we're not seeing our share of this market erode.

From a geographic perspective, our Americas region represented 64% of global revenue. This reflects our deliberate focus on the Americas as a growth region, driven by AI infrastructure build-outs and strength in the enterprise markets. We're also seeing improving results from international markets this quarter. Customer satisfaction and on-time delivery remain our top priorities as we navigate input cost and delivery challenges, like everyone else in the industry.

We delivered record non-GAAP gross profit of $73.3 million in Q3 and non-GAAP gross margin came in at 80% of revenue. Operating expenses were $47.8 million as we continue to prioritize investments in AI-facing innovation, next-gen networking and security. Operating margin was 27.8%, resulting in net income of $23.6 million or $0.33 per basic and $0.31 per diluted share, compared to $0.23 in the year-ago period. Our Q3 diluted weighted share count was 75.7 million shares.

We generated a quarterly record for free cash flow. And on a year-to-date basis, free cash flow was $57.5 million, an increase of 18% year-on-year. We continue to expect full year free cash flow to grow year-over-year in the range of $74 million to $77 million from approximately $64 million a year ago. Adjusted EBITDA was $29.5 million or 32% of revenue, consistent with our business model goals.

Turning to our balance sheet, cash and marketable securities were $360.4 million as of September 30 and deferred revenue was $157 million. During the quarter, we paid $4.4 million in cash dividends and repurchased $23 million worth of shares, returning a total of $27.4 million to shareholders. The Board has approved a quarterly cash dividend of $0.06 per share, to be paid on December 1, 2026 to shareholders of record on November 16, 2026. The company has $30.1 million remaining on its $75 million share repurchase authorization.

I'll now turn the call back to Dhrupad for an update on our 2026 outlook and closing comments.

Dhrupad Trivedi

Thank you, Michelle. Our results reflect broad-based demand for A10's networking and security solutions as customers respond to rising traffic, expanding AI deployments and increasingly complex security needs. We are focused on supporting that demand while investing in our portfolio, strengthening profitability and generating cash.

Based on our year-to-date performance, demand visibility and the current supply environment, we are updating our full year 2026 outlook. We expect revenue growth of approximately 16% year-over-year, compared with our prior outlook of 12% to 14%. Note that this is roughly 400 to 500 basis points better than our largest competitor and our peer group. Demand from our largest customer remains healthy and stable. Our outlook also implies continued year-over-year growth in the fourth quarter across rest of the business.

We expect full year non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin to exceed 30% and non-GAAP diluted EPS of $1.08 to $1.10, representing a year-over-year growth of 20% to 22% and outpacing revenue growth, in line with our operating philosophy.

We also discussed in today's press release our longer-term organic target. Our progress, expanding global opportunity and continued execution give us confidence in setting a long-term target of $500 million in annual revenue through organic growth and $2 in annual non-GAAP EPS for fiscal year '29. We remain confident in our strategy and in our ability to capture customer demand while protecting the long-term earnings power of the business.

With that, I'll turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.

Operator

[Operator Instructions] First question from Gray Powell with U.S. Bank.

Question-and-Answer Session

Gray Powell

Congratulations on the great results here. It was really nice to see. So I guess my main question is on product revenue. So growth has been excellent this year. In fact, I think it's the best product revenue growth you've seen in at least 8 years, maybe longer. My model doesn't quite go back that far. Just how should we think about the sustainability of that growth over the next 12 months, particularly as you face tougher comps? And the 14% organic commentary, that was really helpful. I'm just trying to make sure that we have building blocks correct as we think about next year.

Dhrupad Trivedi

Yes. So as we look at our product growth rate, I think that is really a good indicator of us being able to win new business as well as continue to replenish customers with new solutions. There is nothing unusual in the last 2 or 3 years where we draw some artificial refresh cycle or something like that, right? So it is a natural evolution of demand.

As we look on a long-term trend, you are correct, the product growth percentage reflects vitality in the products and customer acceptance of new solutions as well as competitive wins. So we feel pretty good that that is not based on a trend that is going to come and go. It's more broad-based. And if we can drive more of kind of a replacement cycle, that's great, but that is not [ what ] we are counting upon to get the next 2 to 3-year growth.

Gray Powell

Okay. Great. And then my follow-up question would be, so you called out, I think, double-digit growth excluding your largest customer. Just in ballpark terms, give or take, is that how we should think about that segment going forward?

Dhrupad Trivedi

So I would say that you should think of that as that segment can support that double-digit growth going forward. In the next 4 quarters or 6 quarters, we probably will have to balance and optimize, right, if there is supply constraints, on what we choose or prioritize.

But what that is meant to indicate is our growth is not a result of one company doing something, but it's more broad-based, and that we will obviously continue to prioritize customers and high-growth potential as we go through every quarter. But I think it's more meant to be an indicator that the demand is much more broad-based versus single customer based.

Operator

Next question comes from Hamed Khorsand with BWS Financial.

Hamed Khorsand

Could you just talk about the return of your international customers, if this was pent-up demand as far as what was in the pipeline before or if these are new projects that you're now being included in?

Dhrupad Trivedi

So I would say, Hamed, that there's 2 aspects to it. I would say one is, obviously, we are all living in a constrained environment in some ways. And it's not a big revenue impact for us, but obviously, we prioritize customers as we need to. So part of it was not pent-up demand, I would say, but sort of natural variation in demand. Because our historical customer base is service providers and there is a kind of CapEx cyclic variation in demand, whether it's in Asia or Europe and U.S. And so some of it was kind of being able to service that demand.

And second was balancing that fulfillment, right, while keeping our largest customers satisfied as well.

Hamed Khorsand

Okay. And then could you just talk about your accounts receivables declining in the quarter? That was great to see, but is that sustainable? And what's a good area for us to expect that the balance of the year?

Michelle Caron

Yes. So Hamed, our quarter benefited from the timing of cash receipts in that quarter. We're still on track to deliver the cash flow that I talked about a few minutes ago for the full year, between $75 million to $77 million -- or $74 million to $77 million in cash flow. So it was a timing related to this quarter bringing the DSO to 49 days.

Operator

Next question comes from Gian Conti with Deutsche Bank.

Gianmarco Conti

Congrats again on the quarter. Maybe just one on the guide, I'm not sure if you answered this. But what are the main drivers behind the $500 million revenue target? How much comes from your largest customer compared to the rest of the business? What depends on new wins? I'd love to really unpack that.

And then maybe a few thoughts on how did the business grow this quarter if you exclude your largest customer?

Dhrupad Trivedi

Okay. Yes. So we said it in the script, so business grew more than 10% excluding our largest customer. And our competitors and peers are growing 400 to 500 basis points lower than that. So that's the first answer to your question.

Second is, obviously, we expect this growth to be broadly based, which is why we are confident in that. If you look at our actuals and what we have done year-to-date, which is higher than 14%, we feel pretty confident that 14% is a good number for us.

And yes, I think, obviously, and we are highly aligned with a large customer who apparently is also the best positioned in terms of the backlog they have on AI receivables versus the cash they are generating, and they are the only cash flow positive like category in that world. So we feel pretty good about that. And if you look through the data, I think I probably -- we have addressed all your questions quantitatively in the earnings release.

Operator

That concludes our Q&A session. I will turn it back over to Dhrupad Trivedi for closing comments.

Dhrupad Trivedi

Thank you, and thank you to all of our employees around the world, customers and shareholders for joining us today and for your continued support. I remain confident in our strategic orientation with security and next-generation networking spending patterns. Thank you for your time and attention.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.