Cooper Companies Q3 2026 earnings: profit beats, revenue falls short
Cooper beat profit estimates but missed on revenue as contact-lens sales stayed flat; it opted to keep CooperSurgical and expanded its buyback.
| Q3 2026 | Reported | Expected | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPS | $1.15 | $1.13 | +1.8% |
| Revenue | $1.07B | $1.11B | -3.9% |
Key takeaways
- Adjusted profit of $1.15 per share edged past the roughly $1.13 Wall Street expected, extending Cooper’s streak of topping profit forecasts to 11 straight quarters. Revenue of about $1.07 billion, however, came in below the roughly $1.11 billion analysts had penciled in, and shares fell on the report.
- CooperVision, the contact-lens business that makes up most of Cooper’s sales, was essentially flat for the quarter. Management said this was a planned pullback as U.S. retailers work down excess lens inventory, not a sign that fewer people are buying contacts, and said the correction should largely finish by the end of the fiscal year.
- CooperSurgical, the fertility and women’s health unit, grew 3% on an organic basis (stripping out currency and acquisition effects), with fertility products up 5% and the strongest performer in the quarter.
- After reviewing options for CooperSurgical, including a possible sale, the board decided to keep the business as part of Cooper rather than spin it off or sell it.
- The company generated a record $273 million in free cash flow for the quarter – cash left over after running the business and paying for equipment and facilities – bringing the year-to-date total to $528 million. That cash cushion supported a newly authorized $1 billion increase to the share buyback program.
- Margins tell a mixed story: gross margin (what’s left after production costs) sits at a healthy 65.6% over the past year, typical for a medical device maker, but net profit margin is a much thinner 5.57% and per-share earnings over the trailing year are down sharply from a year earlier, pointing to heavier costs – such as interest, taxes, or one-time charges – eating into the bottom line even as the adjusted quarterly figures Cooper highlights keep beating estimates.
- For the current quarter, Cooper guided to revenue of $1.057-$1.080 billion and adjusted earnings of $1.05-$1.09 per share; for the full fiscal year it expects 2%-3% organic revenue growth and adjusted earnings of $4.51-$4.55 per share.
- Coverage attributed the stock’s decline to investors focusing on the revenue shortfall and a cautious near-term outlook, which outweighed the larger buyback announcement.
Q3 2026 in context
| Metric | Jul 2026 | Jul 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $1.1B | $1.1B | +0.6% |
| Net income | $433M | $98M | +340.3% |
| Free cash flow | $273M | $165M | +66.0% |
| Diluted EPS | $2.24 | $0.49 | +357.1% |
| Gross margin | 66.8% | 65.3% | +1.5 pts |
| Operating margin | 20.8% | 16.6% | +4.3 pts |
| Net margin | 40.6% | 9.3% | +31.3 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Jul 2026 and the quarter ended Jul 2025, as reported to the SEC.
How the stock took it
Cooper Companies Inc closed at $67.69 on Sep 8, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $54.17 on Sep 10, 2026, the first session after it — -20.0% across the report.
Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.
Fundamentals
| Metric | Value | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Gross margin | 65.5% | Trailing 12 months |
| Operating margin | 11.8% | Trailing 12 months |
| Net profit margin | 5.6% | Trailing 12 months |
| Pretax margin | 9.8% | Trailing 12 months |
| EPS | $1.18 | Trailing 12 months |
| Revenue growth (YoY) | 6.1% | Trailing 12 months |
| EPS growth (YoY) | -42.6% | Trailing 12 months |
| Return on equity | 2.8% | Trailing 12 months |
Sources: company report · earnings call · Vision Monday · ticker-brief analysis of fundamentals · ChartMill