Arista Posts Fastest Revenue Growth Since IPO

The Tip Desk · November 3, 2026 · 2 min read

Third-quarter sales of $3.66 billion beat the $3.3 billion outlook as the networking company guided fourth-quarter revenue to $3.9 billion to $4.0 billion.

Arista Networks, Inc. (ANET) reported third-quarter revenue of $3.66 billion, 58.5% above the year-earlier period, the highest year-over-year revenue growth since its IPO, and above the approximately $3.3 billion it had guided.

The data-center networking company said sales rose 20.5% from the second quarter, when revenue was $3.036 billion and year-over-year growth was 37.7%. In the first quarter, revenue was $2.709 billion, up 35.1% from a year earlier. The sequential step-up in the year-over-year rate, from 35.1% in the first quarter and 37.7% in the second, to 58.5% in the third, marked a clear acceleration in the pace of growth.

GAAP diluted earnings were $1.22 a share, compared with $0.67 a year earlier. Non-GAAP diluted earnings were $1.20 a share, versus $0.77. GAAP net income was $1.56 billion. Chief Financial Officer Chantelle Breithaupt said the quarter set record highs in revenue growth, net income and EPS.

GAAP operating margin was 44.9% and non-GAAP operating margin was 49.1%. GAAP gross margin was 63.6%. Product revenue was $3.19 billion and service revenue was $467.6 million.

Chairperson and Chief Executive Officer Jayshree Ullal said the company registered the highest year-over-year revenue growth since the IPO and record profitability, and that momentum across customer sectors highlighted increased relevance for the generative and agentic AI era.

Arista said it launched open standards-based rack-scale architectures for scale-up and scale-out AI networks in partnership with AMD, Arm, Broadcom, d-Matrix, Meta, Microsoft and Qualcomm. The liquid-cooled portfolio uses Ethernet for Scale-Up Networks and introduces the Etherlink SU-144 architecture, supporting up to 144 accelerators per rack in a single hop and scaling to 1,024 XPUs via cross-rack topologies. The company also outlined a scale-across strategy built on the Arista 7800 AI Spine, unified EOS and SRv6 multiplane forwarding, aimed at distributed fabrics of up to one million XPUs.

In September 2026, Arista was added to the S&P 100. The company said it expanded AI-driven software security across its development lifecycle with Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.

Cash and cash equivalents were $2.29 billion at September 30, 2026, and marketable securities were $12.07 billion. Inventories were $3.21 billion. Deferred revenue, current, was $5.10 billion.

For the fourth quarter of 2026, Arista expects revenue of $3.9 billion to $4.0 billion, non-GAAP operating margin of 48% to 49%, and non-GAAP diluted net income of $1.26 to $1.30 a share.