Nebius Group Q2 2026 earnings: loss narrows sharply as AI cloud demand surges
Nebius's quarterly loss was far smaller than expected as AI cloud revenue rocketed higher; the company reaffirmed its full-year 2026 outlook.
| Q2 2026 | Reported | Expected | Surprise |
|---|---|---|---|
| EPS | -$0.12 | -$0.69 | +82.7% |
| Revenue | $582.3M | $584.2M | -0.3% |
Key takeaways
- Nebius’s per-share loss came in much narrower than analysts expected, while revenue landed almost exactly where forecasters predicted — a sign the AI infrastructure business is scaling roughly as planned.
- Revenue jumped 454% from a year earlier and grew 46% from the prior quarter, driven almost entirely by Nebius AI, the company’s AI cloud computing unit, which supplied 98% of group revenue and grew 514% year-over-year.
- Adjusted EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — a measure of underlying operating cash profitability) swung to a $236 million profit from a $21 million loss a year ago, with the margin improving to 41% from 32% in the prior quarter, suggesting the business is starting to generate real operating leverage as it scales.
- Annualized recurring revenue — contracted revenue run-rate from AI cloud customers — reached $3 billion at the end of June, up from $1.9 billion in March, reflecting a wave of new long-term contracts.
- The company signed four new AI cloud deals during the quarter, each averaging more than $1 billion, with customers including Reflection, Cohere, and others; management said these were struck on the strongest pricing terms to date.
- Despite the adjusted-profit turnaround, the company’s trailing operating margin remains sharply negative, underscoring that Nebius is still spending heavily — on data centers, chips and staffing — well ahead of the revenue that spending will eventually generate.
- The very high trailing net profit margin in the fundamentals table mostly reflects one-time or non-operating items (such as gains unrelated to core AI cloud operations) rather than sustained profitability, so it should not be read as a sign the core business is already net-income positive.
- Nebius raised its full-year 2026 capital expenditure plan to a range of $20 billion to $25 billion, underscoring how much it is investing in data-center and chip capacity to meet AI demand.
- Management reaffirmed full-year 2026 guidance of $3 billion to $3.4 billion in revenue, about a 40% adjusted EBITDA margin, and a $7 billion to $9 billion annualized revenue run-rate target.
- CEO Arkady Volozh said in a shareholder letter, “Everything we set out to do this quarter, we did. In most cases, we did more,” and shares rose sharply in premarket trading after the results.
How the stock took it
Nebius Group NV closed at $193.23 on Aug 11, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $255.04 on Aug 13, 2026, the first session after it — +32.0% 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 | 72.1% | Trailing 12 months |
| Operating margin | -70.5% | Trailing 12 months |
| Net profit margin | 93.1% | Trailing 12 months |
| Pretax margin | 83.5% | Trailing 12 months |
| EPS | $2.73 | Trailing 12 months |
| Revenue growth (YoY) | 528.0% | Trailing 12 months |
| Return on equity | 16.0% | Trailing 12 months |
Sources: company report · earnings call