Symbotic Swings to Profit as Revenue Growth Cools, Cash Burns
Symbotic posted its first back-to-back profitable quarters even as revenue growth decelerated to 22% and free cash flow turned negative $164.6 million.
Symbotic (SYM) reported net income of $55 million for its fiscal third quarter, swinging from a $21 million loss a year earlier and up sharply from $9 million in the prior quarter, as the warehouse-automation company converted years of scale-up spending into its first sustained run of profitability.
The robotics and software provider, which builds automated fulfillment systems for large retailers, has now posted four straight quarters of sequential adjusted EBITDA growth, with the metric reaching $95 million in the third quarter, more than double the $45 million posted a year earlier and up from $78 million in the prior quarter. Operating income turned positive at $32.9 million, compared with a $25.8 million operating loss in the year-ago period, helped by the disappearance of restructuring charges that had cost $16.4 million a year earlier and registered at zero in each of the last two quarters.
Revenue rose 22% year over year to $721 million, up 6.6% from $676 million in the prior quarter. The growth rate has slowed for three consecutive quarters, from 29% in the first fiscal quarter to 23% in the second and now 22%, even as the dollar growth held roughly steady. Gross profit margin expanded to 22.3% from 18.9% a year earlier, holding near the 22.2% posted the prior quarter, evidence that the margin gains from earlier in the year are proving durable rather than a one-time step change.
Systems in deployment climbed to 77 from 70 in the prior quarter, underpinning the revenue base even as growth decelerates. That expansion came at a cash cost: free cash flow swung to negative $164.6 million from positive $218.0 million in the prior quarter, driven by operating cash flow of negative $147.3 million versus positive $261.3 million previously. Cash and cash equivalents fell to $1.7 billion from $2.0 billion at the end of the second quarter, the first sequential decline after two straight quarters of cash builds.
Symbotic guided for fourth-quarter revenue of $760 million to $780 million and adjusted EBITDA of $100 million to $105 million, according to the company. The midpoint of $770 million sits above the $721 million just reported and implies faster sequential growth than the $700 million to $720 million range the company had guided to for the third quarter, a range it exceeded.
The company also disclosed the election of Steve Pagliuca, former Bain Capital co-chair, to its board of directors effective August 4, 2026, a change not present in any prior quarterly release. The report also marked the first under new Chief Financial Officer Izzy Martins, who succeeded Carol Hibbard, the CFO named in the year-ago filing.
The combination of slowing top-line growth and a swing to cash burn complicates a quarter otherwise defined by profitability milestones, leaving the fourth-quarter guide as the next test of whether margin gains can persist alongside reaccelerating deployment volumes.