{"id":386293,"date":"2026-01-02T06:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/386293\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T06:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T06:34:17","slug":"where-will-intuitive-surgical-be-in-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/386293\/","title":{"rendered":"Where Will Intuitive Surgical Be in 5 Years?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Demand for Intuitive Surgical&#8217;s da Vinci surgical robot is growing faster than the company&#8217;s sales of new robots.<\/p>\n<p>Innovation is a driving force in the healthcare sector. Intuitive Surgical (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/quote\/nasdaq\/isrg\/\" class=\"font-bold hover:underline\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ISRG<\/a> 1.09%) is at the forefront of surgical robotics with its da Vinci system. But one of the most exciting stories is actually a subtle one, highlighted by the fact that Intuitive Surgical&#8217;s installed base increased 13% year over year in the third quarter of 2025, but the number of surgeries using a da Vinci system rose 20%.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s see what this could all portend for Intuitive in the next few years ahead.<\/p>\n<p>Intuitive Surgical is getting better all the time<\/p>\n<p>Surgical robots represent a significant advancement over traditional surgery. They offer less invasive procedures and generally better outcomes. This is a big reason why the number of surgeries using a da Vinci system grew faster than the number of new systems sold. Clearly, the value of the surgical robotics innovation that has taken place in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/stock-market\/market-sectors\/healthcare\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the healthcare sector<\/a> is very high.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"A surgical robot.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"880\" height=\"660\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"h-auto max-w-full rounded object-contain\" style=\"color:transparent\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767335656_515_.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Image source: Getty Images.<\/p>\n<p>However, Intuitive Surgical didn&#8217;t stop innovating after introducing its first surgical robot. As an example, it recently introduced software upgrades for its da Vinci 5 system. The actual tools aren&#8217;t as important as a single line from the news release announcing them: &#8220;Da Vinci 5 has more than 10,000 times the computing power of da Vinci Xi.&#8221; Very clearly, Intuitive is continuing to focus on this high-tech <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/investing\/stock-market\/market-sectors\/healthcare\/medical-device-stocks\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">medical device<\/a> to make it more and more powerful over time.<\/p>\n<p>That helps it in another way, too. Specifically, Intuitive Surgical&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/c\/capital-investment\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">capital investments<\/a> in technology enable it to obtain U.S. Food &amp; Drug Administration (FDA) approval for additional uses of the da Vinci system. There were two such FDA approvals in recent months, with software approved for the company&#8217;s Ion endoluminal system and new uses approved for the da Vinci Single Port system (inguinal hernia repair, cholecystectomy, and appendectomy procedures).<\/p>\n<p>Given these trends, in five years, Intuitive Surgical&#8217;s da Vinci will be even more useful than it is today. And that likely means continued strong sales of the company&#8217;s robots, as well as even more procedures being performed with them. Both are important.<\/p>\n<p>Intuitive Surgical&#8217;s flywheel<\/p>\n<p>Growing the installed base of da Vinci systems is obviously important. It generates a substantial amount of revenue for the company, with robot sales totaling around $590 million in the third quarter alone. Annualizing that figure, da Vinci sales could add around $2 billion to the revenue line of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/i\/income-statement\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the income statement<\/a>. That&#8217;s a big number, but it is only around 25% of the top line.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Intuitive Surgical Stock Quote\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"w-full flex-none object-contain\" style=\"color:transparent\"  src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767335656_373_.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s Change<\/p>\n<p>(-1.09%) $-6.27<\/p>\n<p>Current Price<\/p>\n<p>$566.36<\/p>\n<p>Key Data Points<\/p>\n<p>Market Cap<\/p>\n<p>$201B<\/p>\n<p>Day&#8217;s Range<\/p>\n<p>$565.77 &#8211; $573.28<\/p>\n<p>52wk Range<\/p>\n<p>$425.00 &#8211; $616.00<\/p>\n<p>Volume<\/p>\n<p>993K<\/p>\n<p>Avg Vol<\/p>\n<p>2M<\/p>\n<p>Gross Margin<\/p>\n<p>66.37%<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the company&#8217;s revenue is derived from services and the sale of instruments and accessories. Services is the less important, at around 15% of revenues. However, every new da Vinci system still helps to build up the services revenue stream, since systems need to be installed and maintained.<\/p>\n<p>The really big flywheel is instruments and accessories. If 25% of revenue is new sales and 15% is services, then a whopping 60% falls into the instruments and accessories category.<\/p>\n<p>Once a da Vinci is installed, Intuitive Surgical has basically created an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/a\/annuities\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">annuity-like<\/a> income stream for what amounts to parts and services. This is the underlying growth story, given that the number of surgeries using a da Vinci robot is increasing faster than the number of surgical robots being sold by the company.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, in five years, Intuitive Surgical&#8217;s investment in research and development is likely to lead to further growth. That growth, meanwhile, will be leveraged by the company&#8217;s ability to increase the usefulness of the da Vinci system to its customers and by further approvals from the FDA for new surgical indications. This is a powerful growth story.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/ycharts.com\/companies\/ISRG\/chart\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\"><img alt=\"ISRG Chart\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"720\" height=\"441\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"h-auto max-w-full rounded object-contain\" style=\"color:transparent;max-width:720px\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/e56ab019ea313d9a7ec6e3d5dc3ceb27.png\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ycharts.com\/companies\/ISRG\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">ISRG<\/a> data by <a href=\"https:\/\/ycharts.com\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">YCharts<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Tread with caution with Intuitive Surgical<\/p>\n<p>The Intuitive Surgical growth story is a compelling one, but it is also fairly well-known to investors. The stock&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/p\/pe-ratio\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">price-to-earnings ratio<\/a> is currently 76x, which is a very large number on an absolute basis. It is also above the company&#8217;s own five-year average for the P\/E ratio. Also above their five-year averages are the price-to-sales and price-to-book value ratios.<\/p>\n<p>Like most fast-growing companies, however, Intuitive Surgical is prone to deep <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fool.com\/terms\/d\/drawdown\/\" class=\"text-cyan-900 hover:text-cyan-800\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">drawdowns<\/a>. A 30% or greater retrenchment isn&#8217;t at all unusual. If you like Intuitive Surgical&#8217;s story, you might want to keep it on your wish list. If you are patient and prepared, you may end up buying it at a more attractive valuation than is currently on offer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Demand for Intuitive Surgical&#8217;s da Vinci surgical robot is growing faster than the company&#8217;s sales of new robots.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[64,63,137,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-386293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}