Shares of F5 Inc. jumped more than 10% in late trading today after the application security firm impressed investors with strong revenue and earnings beats in its fiscal 2026 first quarter.

For the quarter that ended on Dec. 31, F5 reported adjusted earnings per share of $4.45, up from $3.84 in the same quarter of the previous fiscal year, on revenue of $822 million, up 7% year-over-year. Analysts had been expecting earnings of $3.65 and revenue of $756 million.

F5 saw systems revenue in the quarter grow 37% year-over-year to $218 million, software revenue fell 8%, to $192 million, and global services revenue rose a modest 4%, to $412 million.

Business highlights in the quarter included enhancements to F5’s Distributed Cloud Services in November that expanded the company’s application and application programming interface security capabilities across hybrid and multicloud environments. The updates included broader API discovery options spanning BIG-IP traffic and third-party gateways, along with new support for air-gapped and regulated deployments, reflecting continued demand from customers operating in highly controlled environments.

The November release also introduced early access API discovery support across popular proxy and gateway platforms, including open-source and commercial offerings, extending visibility beyond F5-native infrastructure.

In December, F5 announced further enhancements to its Application Delivery and Security Platform, building on the November updates with improvements focused on deeper application visibility and delivery performance. The changes were part of F5’s strategy to unify application delivery and security capabilities into a single platform that is designed to support modern, distributed applications across data centers, clouds and edge environments.

“This strong performance underscores F5’s alignment with durable market demand drivers including the shift to hybrid multicloud architectures, enterprise adoption of AI and the growing need for converged platforms,” Chief Executive François Locoh-Donou said in the company’s earnings release. “The first quarter also marks our sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit product revenue growth, demonstrating the continued value we are delivering to customers.”

For its fiscal second quarter, F5 expects non-adjusted earnings of $3.34 to $3.46 and revenue of $770 million to $790 million. The earnings outlook at the midpoint was just shy of the $3.41 expected by analysts, while the revenue outlook was ahead of an expected $748 million.

For the full year, F5 revised its outlook up, reflecting expected revenue growth of 5% to 6%, versus a previously expected flat to 4%. F5 expects adjusted earnings per share of $15.65 to $16.05 and revenue, up from the previous outlook of $14.50 to $15.50.

Photo: F5