Extreme Networks Q4 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
August 5, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Fiscal 2026 revenue rose 13% and EPS increased 26%, while fourth-quarter revenue of $339 million and EPS of $0.32 exceeded the company’s guidance and consensus. Gross margin improved to 62.7% and full-year EBITDA increased 20%.
  • Positive Sentiment: Extreme reported continued momentum in moving upmarket, with 187 customers generating more than $1 million in bookings versus 168 a year earlier. The company also cited a mid-teens increase in both the number and size of large opportunities in its funnel.
  • Positive Sentiment: Platform ONE adoption is accelerating, accounting for nearly half of subscription bookings in the fourth quarter, and management expects half of its installed base to be on the platform by the end of fiscal 2027. The company expects Agent ONE AI capabilities and platform migration to support higher-margin recurring revenue growth.
  • Negative Sentiment: SaaS ARR growth slowed to 18% year over year from 24% a year earlier, partly because of difficult comparisons from large prior-year wins. Management expects growth to return to the mid-20% range, but the transition from legacy service contracts to Platform ONE is temporarily affecting recurring-revenue growth.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management secured component supply into fiscal 2028 and beyond, positioning Extreme to benefit from competitors’ longer lead times. Fiscal 2027 guidance calls for $1.38 billion-$1.40 billion in revenue and $1.28-$1.33 in EPS, implying more than 20% EPS growth.
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Earnings Conference Call
Extreme Networks Q4 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us, and welcome to Extreme Networks' fourth quarter fiscal year 2026 financial results conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. I will now hand the conference over to Stan Kovler, Senior Vice President of Finance and Corporate Development. Please go ahead.

Stan Kovler
Stan Kovler
SVP of Finance and Corporate Development at Extreme Networks

Thank you, Jade. Good morning, and welcome to Extreme Networks' fourth quarter and fiscal year 2026 earnings conference call. I'm Stan Kovler, Senior Vice President of Finance and Corporate Development. With me today are Extreme Networks President and CEO, Ed Meyercord, and Executive Vice President and CFO, Kevin Rhodes. We just distributed a press release and filed an 8-K detailing Extreme Networks' financial results for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2026. A copy of the press release, which includes our GAAP and non-GAAP reconciliations and our earnings presentation, is available in the IR section at extremenetworks.com. Today's call and Q&A may include certain forward-looking statements based on current expectations about Extreme's future financial and operational results, growth expectations, new product introductions, supply chain dynamics, and management strategies. All financial disclosures made on this call will be on a non-GAAP basis unless stated otherwise.

Stan Kovler
Stan Kovler
SVP of Finance and Corporate Development at Extreme Networks

We caution you not to put undue reliance on these forward-looking statements as they involve risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated by these statements. These risks are described in our risk factors in our 10-K and 10-Q filings. Any forward-looking statements made on this call reflect our analysis as of today, we have no plans to update them except as required by law. Following our prepared remarks, we will take questions. Now I will turn the call over to Extreme's President and CEO, Ed Meyercord.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Thank you, Stan, and thank you all for joining us this morning. In fiscal 2026, we delivered 13% year-over-year revenue growth and 26% EPS growth, highlighting competitive strength and the operating leverage in our model. During the year, we took share and accelerated our move upmarket by winning more sophisticated networking projects with larger customers, Q4 was our sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit growth. Our performance was driven by the convergence of three factors. First, our highly differentiated portfolio, including Extreme Platform ONE, Extreme Fabric, Wi-Fi 7, and the industry's first multi-beam wireless solution. Our innovation is driving competitive wins and opening doors to new customers. Second, we're well-positioned in a market that's rapidly moving away from point solutions toward integrated platforms. Our go-to-market teams are tightly aligned capitalizing on the opportunity to take share here.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Third, operating excellence and disciplined execution, highlighted by our supply chain team eliminating product constraints and by allowing us to meet customer demand into fiscal 2028 and beyond. Enterprise networking is in an extended growth cycle fueled by new demands on network created by AI, security, and the modernization of enterprise IT. At the same time, competitor refresh cycles are creating a significant multi-year window for us to take share, win new customers, and deepen existing relationships. Fiscal 2026 highlighted a significant move upmarket, with 187 customers booking more than $1 million in business with Extreme. Our average deal size grew by 1/3 and our enterprise competitive win rate improved significantly. We just completed nine consecutive quarters of product growth driven by innovation. Our unique Extreme Fabric remains one of our strongest differentiators.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

One customer recently told us they've gone 11 years without a single network outage since deploying Extreme Fabric. By automating operations, strengthening security, and simplifying management, Extreme Fabric delivers results customers can see, and when they experience it in a proof of concept, our win rate goes way up. Now our Extreme Fabric with enhanced capabilities is built into Extreme Platform ONE. Extreme Platform ONE accounted for 30% of subscription bookings in the first year of general availability, and nearly half of subscription bookings in the fourth quarter, underscoring the rapid pace customer adoption for a unified AI-powered networking platform. Customers and partners are interested in Extreme because they want the most advanced networking platforms that leverage modern agentic AI technology. The release of our Extreme Agent ONE Coworker this quarter is highly anticipated. Deployment flexibility. No competitor matches Extreme's cloud flexibility, whether it's public, private, or on-prem.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

We offer seamless alternatives without compromising performance, control, or compliance. That differentiation brings unique data sovereignty protection, driving strong public sector demand. During the quarter, Extreme Platform ONE achieved Germany's C5 certification, one of Europe's most rigorous cloud sovereignty standards. In the quarter, we extended our innovation leadership with the industry's first multi-beam wireless solution with Wi-Fi 7. This is a result of an exclusive partnership with MatSing. By delivering significantly better economics, greater coverage, and capacity with dramatically less infrastructure, the solution helped us win the massive and highly contested Tennessee Titans new Nissan Stadium project. It demonstrates how differentiated innovation continues to drive competitive wins.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Extreme Platform ONE continues to accelerate with customers across all geos and all industry verticals, including a top 10 global retailer based in Europe, University of Technology Sydney, a new logo in our largest deal in the ANZ region in company history, Vandalia Health, the largest healthcare provider in West Virginia, the UK Health Security Agency, Assumption University, Penn State Athletics, and many more. We also signed our first multi-million dollar, multi-year enterprise agreement for Extreme Platform ONE with one of the Middle East's largest healthcare providers. In other competitive wins, Extreme displaced Cisco at Nottingham City Council, the U.K. government authority that delivers a broad range of public services to more than 320,000 residents. The new network will include a unified fabric, SD-WAN, and our cloud-managed networking solution spanning 74 sites.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Elisabeth-TweeSteden, one of the largest hospitals in Netherlands, expanded its partnership with Extreme, selecting Extreme Platform ONE and wired and wireless solutions to support a major modernization initiative. Extreme Fabric was a key differentiator helping us displace Cisco with the simplicity and resiliency required for a 24/7 healthcare environment. Brunel University London with over 16,000 students was another new logo win. We displaced a 20-year incumbent by combining the differentiated value of our campus fabric with Extreme Platform ONE. Lastly, University of Florida selected Extreme to deploy the first Wi-Fi 7 network in a collegiate athletic venue, the iconic Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, better known as The Swamp. Our MSP program continued to gain traction, closing the year with 74 active MSPs, up from 70 last quarter. Billings grew 16% quarter-over-quarter and 112% year-over-year.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

All MSPs are now running Extreme Platform ONE for MSP Workspace, with upgrades now a key focus on our differentiated multi-tenant architecture. The strength of our business momentum has carried into the new fiscal year. Market trends are favorable for Extreme, and we intend to continue outpacing market growth by taking share, migrating new and existing customers onto Extreme Platform ONE. Our component supply is secured into fiscal 2028 and beyond, allowing us to meet customer demand while maintaining solid gross margins. Our channel partners continue to report that competitors' lead times are extending due to ongoing supply constraints, creating tailwinds for us.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

With the next generation of Extreme Platform ONE and the upcoming release of both Agent ONE in Coworker mode this quarter and in Operator mode next quarter, we will bring agentic AI across the entire network lifecycle, from design to orchestration, troubleshooting, and remediation across our entire product portfolio while delivering complete observability, auditability, and autonomy with built-in governance. None of our competitors will be able to say this or have this capability for some time, and it will be on display at our AI summit in Amsterdam in October. Finally, the benefits of our continued growth will show up in our operating leverage as we expect our earnings to grow in the 20%+ range, more than doubling our top-line growth as we go forward. Now, let me turn the call over to Kevin to discuss financial results and guidance.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Thanks, Ed. In the fourth quarter, total revenue of $339 million exceeded consensus and the high end of our guidance range, representing 10% year-over-year and 7% sequential growth. This is our ninth consecutive quarter of sequential product revenue growth. Demand remained strong, resulting in 14% year-over-year and 10% sequential growth. Our recurring revenue of $116 million grew 6% year-over-year. We were pleased with the continued increase in our gross margins to 62.7%, which exceeded consensus and was above the high end of our guidance range. This was the result of timely pricing actions and effective cost management of our supply chain components, which led to a 40-basis point improvement in product margins. Earnings per share of $0.32 was up 28% year-over-year and 23% sequentially and exceeded consensus in the high end of our guidance range with some tax favorability included.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

I'm pleased to report that we have secured our supply chain for the long term, including into fiscal 2028. Our broad product availability enables us to meet the needs of prospects and our customers at a time when product lead times are a concern for many of our competitors. SaaS ARR climbed to $244 million in the quarter, growing 18% year over year. Investors may recall last year in the fourth quarter, we grew 24% year over year due to winning large customers such as John Deere and the Japanese government. We expect SaaS ARR growth to re-accelerate towards the mid-20% range at the end of this fiscal year. Wi-Fi 7 continues to drive our wireless product revenue. Over half of our wireless bookings and revenue now comes from Wi-Fi 7.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

The upgrade cycle is also creating a positive mix shift in average selling prices further supports our gross margin outlook. Geographically, our bookings revenue tend to fluctuate based on the seasonality of our business. This quarter, the Americas region exhibited strong performance driven by continued bookings growth over the past two quarters. We also generated major competitive wins in EMEA and APAC, including some of the largest universities, hospitals, and retailers in their respective geographies. We expect all regions to grow in fiscal 2027. Operating margin in the fourth quarter was 15.7%, up 50 basis points from 15.2% in the prior year quarter. We had a really strong finish to the year, winning large deals exceeding our goals for Extreme Platform ONE, which drove higher incentive compensation expense.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

We also achieved our highest EBITDA on a dollar and margin basis in the last 11 quarters, generating $59 million of EBITDA at a 17.5% EBITDA margin. In addition to strong EBITDA, we generated $65 million in cash flow and ended the quarter with a healthy $47 million of net cash. In addition, we repurchased $25 million worth of shares at a favorable average cost of $16.66 per share. Our cash conversion cycle improved to 25 days from 41 days last quarter, driven primarily by a reduction in days inventory outstanding. Lastly, just last week, we strengthened our financial flexibility reduced interest expenses with a $500 million revolving credit facility, which provides additional working capital to fuel our growth. We also simplified our terms and covenants and improved our rate structure.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

For the full fiscal year 2026, we continued to translate revenue growth into accelerated earnings growth, demonstrating the leverage and scalability of our operating model. On a vertical basis, we experienced broad-based strength with particular standout bookings growth in manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and sports and entertainment. Revenue of $1.28 billion grew 13% year over year, with non-GAAP earnings per share of $1.06, up 26% from $0.84 in the prior year. In fact, product revenue growth accelerated to 15% year over year. We achieved significant operating leverage as our operating margin expanded 60 basis points to 14.8%, up from 14.2% in the prior year. EBITDA for the full year was $210 million, up 20% year over year.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

In fiscal 2026, we stepped up our buybacks to $87 million for the year, up from $38 million in the prior year. We continue to prioritize the use of cash flow to repurchase shares. As we enter fiscal 2027, we believe the business is operating from a position of increasing strength based on our growth drivers and disciplined cost and expense management. This gives us confidence in our expectations for double-digit product revenue growth, visibility into our margin outlook, and more than 20% EPS growth in fiscal 2027. By the end of fiscal 2027, we expect half of our installed base to be on Extreme Platform ONE, which in turn drives accelerated growth in our high margin recurring revenue.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

For the first quarter of fiscal 2027, we expect revenue to be in a range of $334 million-$339 million, gross margin to be in a range of 62.2%-62.7%, operating margin to be in a range of 14.7%-15.3%, and earnings per share to be in a range of $0.27-$0.29. For the full fiscal year 2027, we expect revenue to be in a range of $1.38 billion-$1.4 billion, gross margin to be in a range of 62.2%-62.7%, operating margin to be in a range of 16.7%-17.1%, and earnings per share to be in a range of $1.28-$1.33 per share. We expect our fiscal 2027 non-GAAP tax rate to be 23% for the year. With that, I will now turn the call over to the operator to begin the question and answer session.

Operator

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star one again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Ryan Koontz from Needham. Please go ahead.

Jeff Hopson
Jeff Hopson
Analyst at Needham & Company

Hey, this is Jeff Hopson on for Ryan. Thank you for the question. Just wanted to get an idea of customer buying behavior right now. You called out some great competitive wins. Just was wondering, are they interested? Is it still a technological decision? Are you winning on being able to get supply and allocation with the memory or the consistent pricing that you guys are giving out? Just trying to understand what customers doing out there right now.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Yeah. Good question, Jeff. We haven't really seen the benefit in our results yet of the product availability that we're able to support. I mentioned in my comments that we hear from our distributors, and we hear from partners that they're getting notice from all of our competitors in different geos around the world with different product sets that they're elongating and stretching lead times. That has created, and we have a few examples, I would say, of some smaller deals and bookings that came in during the quarter. We feel like that pressure is building momentum, and the opportunity, we think, will show up in greater force this quarter and the next couple of quarters, where the supply chain pinch is really going to hit people. I think our teams have done a good job communicating.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

We have a special program around deal registration with a price guarantee, where customers that want to move to Extreme can guarantee a price and guarantee supply. In today's environment, what we are hearing from distribution partners is that's going to create new business for us. We see it in the funnel, and we're expecting to see that funnel convert. In terms of demand right now, what we're seeing is this long-term network upgrade cycle by enterprise customers. Cisco announced their refresh. We have the same thing with HPE Juniper. Enterprise customers are contemplating an upgrade to their network. Obviously, everyone is talking about AI. Security is very important. Having the most modern networking infrastructure is critical to support business needs. HPE and Juniper combined, enterprise customers want to talk to three vendors.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

When they look at the enterprise and the enterprise campus, Cisco is always a default. Now you have HPE, and Extreme is more and more being included in that conversation. I'll tell you that enterprise customers are kind of blown away when they see our technology. They're blown away by our Extreme Fabric. They're blown away by the integration now of Extreme Fabric into Extreme Platform ONE, what Extreme Platform ONE can do. Then as we come out with Coworker and new tools, think about a network assistant by your side. Then in October, we're coming out with Operator mode, where you can actually unleash AI for autonomous functions and tasks. Obviously, there's always human in the loop. It's at your control. There's governance. There's all the capabilities in there. Extreme is a great alternative, and the best choice today for customers that want to leverage the new technology.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Today, we're highlighting the innovation that we're bringing to market from a tech perspective. Our teams have embraced this. They're getting more at-bats, higher winning rate. Then we do expect tailwinds to come from the fact that we have full supply and the normal lead times.

Jeff Hopson
Jeff Hopson
Analyst at Needham & Company

Thank you for that. Maybe just a follow-up. It looks like Extreme Platform ONE is going well with nearly 50% of the subscription bookings in the quarter. I guess the SaaS ARR was probably a little bit lower than some were expecting. Where are we with the feature parity kind of roadmap, and what kind of gives you that confidence that we can return to the mid 20% growth in the year coming up? Thanks.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Well, you have to keep in mind that last year, the bar was high for us as it relates to growth in Q4 because of big wins that we had previously with John Deere, wins that we had with the Japanese government, and a spike in that ARR a year ago. We talked about the fact that kind of set off a trend. As we work through those comparables, you'll see us return to those 20%+ growth rates. Two points to make. One, our feature development for the second half of the year, which in each six months, we're calling them waves, in wave two, we had a huge amount of feature enhancement to Extreme Platform ONE, specifically adding in our Extreme Fabric customers and Extreme Fabric capability and enhancements.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

At this point, we have different cohorts of customers in all of our Each of those cohorts, A, B, C, depending on size and complexity of customer, are now eligible to move into Extreme Platform ONE. That's important. The May and June releases were huge. We'll see that pick up momentum. The other thing is, if we look at bookings, we had a very aggressive target. That target of 3%, 5%, 10%, 20% with a very steep ramp of Extreme Platform ONE bookings, we exceeded. We exceeded the effective, call it a $40 million target by hitting over $50 million of bookings. The adoption is real, the features are there, as we go forward, after the high bar for this quarter, we will expect after a few quarters as we move through the comparables, to see that rate go back up.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Kevin, I don't know if you want to add.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

No, I agree. It was just an elevated benchmark from Q4. We'll be right back there. That 20%.

Jeff Hopson
Jeff Hopson
Analyst at Needham & Company

Thank you very much.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Yeah.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Tomer Zilberman from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

Tomer Zilberman
Tomer Zilberman
Analyst at Bank of America

Hey, guys. I wanted to ask a question maybe along the same veins as the previous question. If I look at the growth trajectory this quarter and what you set out for next year, you went from 11%-15% growth the last few quarters to about 10% this quarter and guiding to about 8%-8.5% next year. Can you just take us through the components of the growth trajectory, especially in respect to your long-term growth framework of 10%? Is it mostly about what you described earlier in terms of tough comps and extended lead times as the supply chain kind of remains tight? Is there risk that you saw pull forward in the last few quarters and there's a reversion period before growth re-accelerates? Thanks.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Yeah, I can take the first part of this, Kevin. I'll let you.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Sure.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

I'll let you jump in. Tomer, we're still calling 10% double-digit product growth. As you know, we're migrating customers off of traditional service break-fix maintenance plans and combining them with Extreme Platform ONE. You're seeing sort of that your traditional service line go down and offsetting growth on the subscription side. As I mentioned earlier, we're very pleased that we're exceeding our metrics for adoption for Extreme Platform ONE. We're going through a transition. We have to work through the transition on that migration, at which point we'll hit an inflection point, you'll see that recurring revenue growth kick back up after we work through the integration and the combination with absorbing the traditional service contracts that will be declining. In terms of pull forward, no, there's no unusual pull forward activity in the quarter from that standpoint.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

In fact, we built up backlog year-over-year, if you look at the comparisons. We've added that backlog in. We're off to a very healthy start from a bookings perspective in Q1. In this environment, we felt like a 10% product growth call was a solid call, and that we're working through that transition as it relates to the services offset with the growth of Extreme Platform ONE. Kevin, do you want to add anything to that?

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

No, I think you're right, Ed. I would say it's early in the year, right? This last year, we did well to overachieve our original guidance. At the end of the day, from our perspective, this is the visibility we have right now, and it is 10% product revenue growth, and we'll see how the year plays out.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Tomer, one thing that we did that was unique in the marketplace is we put something called a deal registration price guarantee. Basically, our partners can come in, and they can register a deal with us. We basically protect them, that it's their project and their deal, and we protected the price out to the end of October. There was really no incentive or need for customers to pull in their orders into the quarter, given the fact that they were price protected out into our fiscal Q2. It's been very popular. It's been very well received, and we have a really nice funnel of opportunities that are building there.

Tomer Zilberman
Tomer Zilberman
Analyst at Bank of America

Got it. Maybe as one more follow-up, I think when we last spoke, you disclosed you had two price increases versus some of your larger competitors that had up to four, if not more, price increases. Can you just remind us, have the two already flowed through? How do you view the opportunity to maybe catch up to some of your peers in terms of adding more price increases and offering another form of growth leverage?

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Yeah. I'll take this, Kevin, you can fill in. Yeah, we had two price increases, as you mentioned, many of our competitors have had more than that, we typically price under Cisco, their umbrella, bring a price advantage into the market for our customers. We will continue to look at that. I think this is an environment of price increases, we will look at that going forward. On the services side of the business, we have an annual increase, on the product side, we're opportunistic in terms of how we look at that. You should expect to see us continue to raise price on the product side, it's just not as pre-programmed as the services side of the business. Kevin, do you want to add anything?

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

The only thing I think I'd add, Ed, is that at this point, all of our quotes have the full impact of both the November and the March price increases in them. I think that the answer to your question, Tomer, is absolutely, we do have that included at this point. Then it's a balance of being able to retain some of that price increase with discounting. As you can see from our margin perspective, we're actually doing a good job on that with rising margins. I feel like we're doing a good job balancing price increases in a market that's fairly price sensitive on networking equipment, but yet also our ability to provide available networking equipment pretty much across the entire portfolio is helping us with opportunities.

Tomer Zilberman
Tomer Zilberman
Analyst at Bank of America

Understood. Thank you, guys.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Sure.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Dave Kang from B. Riley. Please go ahead.

Dave Kang
Dave Kang
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Thank you. Good morning. First question, just wondering if you can go over health of your key verticals starting with government and education.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Sure, Dave. You just want to understand the health of them. When you say the health, are you referring to the bookings growth that we're experiencing there?

Dave Kang
Dave Kang
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Yeah.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Okay.

Dave Kang
Dave Kang
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Bookings, visibility.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Yeah. Ed, I'll go ahead and let you take it.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Yeah. We mentioned, Dave, you see it in the customer examples. When we're giving customer examples, we're trying to give you a flavor of the kinds of customers that we're winning across our geos. We mentioned a big university win in Sydney, Australia. This is the largest deal that we've ever done in ANZ, driven by Extreme Platform ONE and Extreme Fabric combined. There you have healthcare. We also mentioned healthcare wins throughout EMEA, our enterprise agreement with the largest healthcare provider in the Middle East, healthcare in the U.S. and U.K. and really around the world. Government customers, if you look at our customer mix by vertical, Dave, it's pretty remarkably consistent.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Yeah.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

That really hasn't changed. I talked about some of the advantages that we're bringing. Getting the C5 certification in Germany was a big deal. That's important for us to take share and continue to expand on the government side in Germany, which is our biggest market in EMEA. That's a big one. We have really across all of our verticals, our technology development in terms of Extreme Fabric and Extreme Platform ONE, in terms of the Wi-Fi innovations that we talk about, all of this is playing well into each of our verticals across all of our geos. It's supporting our move up market, when you look at the kinds of customers that we're winning and the kinds of projects that we're winning. I'm just going to say, solid demand, no change to vertical mix to note with us moving up market across our geos.

Dave Kang
Dave Kang
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

It sounds like there's really no vertical that we should be worried about.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

No, not in our case. I mean, our forecast is very consistent on the vertical front.

Dave Kang
Dave Kang
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Got it. Just the Americas, it was very strong. Just wondering how sustainable that will be.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Yeah. I'll let Kevin talk about some of the mechanics and how we report revenue versus booking and trying to gauge true demand. If you look at the 30%+ growth numbers, it's overstating the revenue growth in Americas and understating revenue growth in EMEA and Asia-Pacific. Americas as a geo is definitely our fastest growing market in fiscal 2026, followed by EMEA, followed by Asia-Pacific. If you recall, the prior year, we won the Japanese government in a massive project that created a tough comp for Asia-Pacific. As we transition into fiscal 2027, you'll see Asia-Pacific high up on the list from a growth perspective, and then higher growth rates in EMEA than what you would see in Americas. As I said before, each of our geos, we have strong double-digit growth forecasts from a booking standpoint. Kevin, do you want to add to that?

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

I would just add, yeah.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Differentiation between revenue and bookings.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Yeah, I'd just add there is some timing differences between bookings and revenue, especially with disti buying cycles also playing a role here in different parts and regions of the world. We have some seasonality, for instance, in the fourth quarter as well within the Americas with the E-rate buying cycle, that plays out in the fourth quarter. We see other parts of the world have other stronger quarters. I would say in general, the demand across all of our different regions of the world, we're still from a bookings perspective, still very strong. We expect, again, all three of our regions to grow in fiscal 2027 year-over-year.

Dave Kang
Dave Kang
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

My last question is regarding margins. In the last couple of quarters, you talked about a number of professional installations, how that's going to pressure margins. Just wondering what happened in the fiscal fourth quarter and what should our expectation be going forward?

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Kevin, I'll start off. Then have you jump in.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Sure.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Dave, as you know, we were guiding it at a 62.3% margin for this quarter. We had favorability. Some of that does have to do with professional services mix. We also had strength in our product margins. We have confidence to take that up to 62.5% as a guide going into Q4 and for the rest of the year. In this environment, we don't think it makes sense to be too aggressive in trying to how we call that number, you'll notice that we've gradually been taking that up in a very challenging environment. As we forecast the business, we have to look at mix as it relates to pro services and obviously wired, wireless, the portfolio. Kevin, do you want to add to that?

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Yeah, I think you're right, Ed. At the end of the day, we didn't quite have as much professional services as we originally anticipated in the quarter to drag down margins. You saw the product margin improvements, which is really emblematic of the supply chain kind of management that we had, the good supply chain management we've had.

Dave Kang
Dave Kang
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Got it. Thank you.

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of David Vogt from UBS. Please go ahead.

David Vogt
David Vogt
Analyst at UBS

Great. Thanks, guys, for taking my question. Maybe Kevin and Ed, this is just more of a longer-term philosophical question. Obviously, the networking market continues to be incredibly strong. You guys are doing exceptionally well. The component environment and the supply chain environment is obviously a constraining factor, and I think everyone can acknowledge leading to maybe elevated costs and long lead times. How do we think about that mix in terms of what this means longer term for your profitability? Because I think, Kevin, in the past, we've talked about long-term targeting, getting to 64%-66%.

David Vogt
David Vogt
Analyst at UBS

To Ed's just recent comment, obviously we want to be prudent and not get out ahead of our skis, but just how do we think about the environment today, maybe vis-a-vis what the environment looked like six months ago or 12 months ago, and how do you think about that in the context of a longer-term perspective on your business? Thanks.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Thanks, David. Kevin, again, I'll jump in and then let you pick it up. Obviously, David, we have to look at it from two sides, right? We were talking about pricing. That question came up. We have to balance how much we raise price and how does it impact demand from customers. That's something that we look at. We are not the industry leader, we're priced below the larger competitors in the marketplace, which gives us an advantage. From a pricing standpoint, that is a lever that we're able to kind of push and pull, if you will. We do that, I'd say we're very good at that, and we expect to capture the price increases we put in place. The other thing that we've done, which is exceptional in the industry, is we've solved for the supply chain constraint.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

I can tell you, we don't have supply chain constraints at Extreme, which is highly unusual. It has to do with many factors. We were early in recognizing the supply issues. We have literally 12 different initiatives underway at Extreme in terms of sourcing new vendors. Broadcom has been an amazing partner for us in introducing us important relationships for us with returning up new sources of supply. They've also been very helpful for us in CEO level connections, board level connections. At Micron, our traditional vendor, we've gotten in on Micron now, and we are now part of their supply mix, and we're on their radar going direct with them. In the open market, broker markets, we've done a great job. Samsung is a large customer of Extreme.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Samsung's global headquarters runs on Extreme, our sales leadership in that country has excellent relationships, and we've unlocked supply from Samsung at amazing prices. I'm just giving you some examples of here you have your country manager in sales unlocking supply. You have your cross-functional team members getting very creative about how we solve for this. The net-net for us is we have clear visibility for supply, as we mentioned in our comments, into 2028 and beyond. We have new suppliers coming online, and I'm confident saying that supply just isn't an issue. Then it's a question of pricing. Even in the case of Micron, where they shifted their products to these higher margin products, if you will. At the same time, to support customers like Extreme, they're still building more fabs for the older technology, if you will.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

We see increasing supply coming from older vendors that we've dealt with, then we have new sources of supply, and we're confident that that margin goal will come back. The real shift in the margin goal will be the evolution of Extreme Platform ONE as we pivot into 2028, where we'll have real confidence in seeing that margin move. Kevin, do you want to add?

David Vogt
David Vogt
Analyst at UBS

Maybe just one. Oh, sorry. Go ahead, Ed.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

The only thing I would add, Ed, is, well, David, if you think about the one stat we had in the quarter, we had 187 customers over $1 million, that's up pretty heavily from last year. We had 47 customers in particular in Q4 with over $1 million. We're going up market. When we go up market, there are-

David Vogt
David Vogt
Analyst at UBS

Right.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Larger deals. When you get larger deals, as we continue to move with the AI leadership position that we have, going up market to these larger customers, then attracting new resellers with that larger capacity to be able to find larger customers, that's going to help us from a demand perspective and growth perspective in future years. That's the strategy that we have, and I think it's playing out well with Extreme Platform ONE, with going up market, and I think we've got a long cycle here of continued growth.

David Vogt
David Vogt
Analyst at UBS

Great. Now, just to follow up. I appreciate all that color. That was incredibly helpful. I know this is maybe a difficult question, but when you think about all those vectors and the different sort of matrices, whether it's demand, price, discounting, are you trying to solve for gross margin rate or gross profit dollars right now given the environment that we're in? I'm just trying to get a sense for how you're thinking about all the moving pieces.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

I don't think we're trying to solve for one or the other, to be honest with you, David. First and foremost, we're a growth company. We're focusing on growth and being able to take as much share as we possibly can in this market. I think second, we want to do it profitably. As Ed and I talked about, even at the Analyst Day, we want to grow more than 10% in the business. We want to double that amount from a profit perspective. That's what we just-

David Vogt
David Vogt
Analyst at UBS

Right.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Landed on in 2026. Hopefully we can continue to be that way in 2027. As we think about just what we're trying to do here is grow the company and grow it with scale and leverage to continue to provide stronger EPS, which is going to underpin a growing stock price.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Yeah.

David Vogt
David Vogt
Analyst at UBS

Great. Thank you.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

David, I think, yeah, Kevin, good answer. Net, we're doing both. We think we can do both. Again, we're pointing to growth numbers for this year. Then we're also pointing to expanding gross margins. I know, again, 62.3% target in Q4, 62.5% target in Q1. Over the long term, in our long range plan, as you look at the migration of customers over to Extreme Platform ONE, you see a real gross margin benefit.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

That's right.

David Vogt
David Vogt
Analyst at UBS

Yeah, great. Thanks, guys. Helpful.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Yeah.

Operator

A reminder, if you would like to ask a question, to please press star one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Eric Martinuzzi from Lake Street Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Eric Martinuzzi
Analyst at Lake Street Capital Markets

Yeah, Kevin, I wanted to follow up on your comment there about the 187 customers that ordered with over $1 million in bookings.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Yeah.

Eric Martinuzzi
Analyst at Lake Street Capital Markets

How does that compare? What was the number in FY 2025? I have a follow-up.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

We had 168 in 2025 there, Eric. Sorry, 168.

Eric Martinuzzi
Analyst at Lake Street Capital Markets

For FY 2027, is there an expectation about an assumption of growth? Is there something in the sales plan where we are targeting, where we've got based on the pipeline that we have now, is there an expectation for that number to grow, or is it just kind of taking it as it comes?

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Kevin, let me take that.

Kevin Rhodes
Kevin Rhodes
EVP and CFO at Extreme Networks

Go ahead. Yeah.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

The answer is we have great visibility, Eric, into the funnel. In terms of our funnel metrics, the number of opportunities that we have that are over $1 million, if you look at the funnel as where we sit today versus where we were one year ago, that funnel in terms of the number of opportunities is up, call it in the mid-teens. If you look at the size of those opportunities, that is up as well into the mid-teens. If you look at, again, it goes back to the funnel creation, and I talked about the alignment of our go-to-market teams. We have 19 pods between marketing, direct sales, channel sales. They're doing a great job. They have very specific funnel creation targets and funnel conversion targets.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Within all of these, we're incentivizing our teams to go after bigger deals. It's nice to see it when you have a strategy, you're executing on the strategy, and it shows up in the numbers. Our funnel, that's what gives us a lot of confidence in what we're calling here, because we're definitely moving up market, and as we look forward, based on the metrics and the analysis of the opportunities in our funnel.

Eric Martinuzzi
Analyst at Lake Street Capital Markets

Ed, that your channel that you currently have is supporting that. It's not like we need to develop new reseller relationships.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

That's the other thing that's going on, Eric. We have opened up the doors to larger customers, and larger partners, and that channel is going to be critical for us. I can talk about some of the largest channel partners that Extreme has never had. A year ago, we could say we were ground zero with some of these bigger partners, and we've made tremendous progress. These are partners that talk about doing hundreds of millions of dollars with Extreme, not tens of millions of dollars with Extreme. It's a longer lead time, if you will, to nurture and develop these relationships. We've done that in the U.S. with some key partners that we're very excited about. We're doing that in Europe.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

As you may recall, we have a new sales leader who is running Europe for us, who came from Juniper, who's coming in. He strengthened some of these larger partner relationships and in our funnel, that's contributing to the larger deals that we're seeing in our funnel. This is where there's the combination of these larger partners training up on our technology and being surprised and impressed and excited by the technology differentiation that they didn't realize, one. Two, the commercial terms, the kinds of things that we're doing, the availability of supply, and the relationships.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

It's all a combination of channel, and it's a combination of our sales teams being able to manage these kinds of projects that are larger, more complicated, the operational support that we provide, and our marketing teams, and how we're targeting and the kinds of events that we're doing. All these things are coming together, and as I mentioned before, we have 19 specific strategies based on how we go to market, leveraging best practices from across the company. We're executing and we see it because if we're looking at funnel creation, funnel conversion, and obviously that ties into our bookings forecast and, yeah, you can tell just listening, we're excited about how all that's coming together.

Eric Martinuzzi
Analyst at Lake Street Capital Markets

Got it. Thanks.

Operator

At this time, there are no further questions. I will now turn the call back to Ed Meyercord, President and CEO, for closing remarks.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

Jade, thank you. For all the investors on the call, we appreciate your time and attention and work on Extreme. We have employees and partners, suppliers, people that tune into the call. I want to thank you for the partnership and the hard work delivering the results. One thing I will say, we are very excited about the release of Agent ONE Coworker, scheduled to come at the end of this month, as well as our Operator mode, which we are unveiling in Amsterdam on October 20th. Investors, you're welcome to join if you want to make the trek over there to see the technology. As I mentioned before, we are going to be demonstrating and showing technology that will become GA this year, that is well in front of our much larger competitors.

Ed Meyercord
Ed Meyercord
President and CEO at Extreme Networks

If you want to get a flavor for that, please come over and we'll welcome you and make space for you in that event. Again, thanks all of you for the participation and have a great day.

Operator

This concludes today's call. Thank you all for attending. You may now disconnect.

Executives
    • Stan Kovler
      Stan Kovler
      SVP of Finance and Corporate Development
    • Ed Meyercord
      Ed Meyercord
      President and CEO
    • Kevin Rhodes
      Kevin Rhodes
      EVP and CFO
Analysts
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