TORONTO, April 27, 2026, 17:05 EDT<\/p>\n
Celestica bumped up its revenue forecast for 2026 to $19 billion and now expects adjusted EPS to reach $10.15.<\/p>\n
Shares slipped after hours anyway, suggesting the market had already baked in the upbeat AI demand narrative.<\/p>\n
Celestica has picked up another growth milestone for 2027 with its new 1.6-terabit switch program, though the execution risk is climbing as well.<\/p>\n
Celestica shares dropped after hours on Monday, despite the Canadian electronics firm posting better-than-expected quarterly profits and lifting its guidance for 2026\u2014investors appeared to take profits in the AI infrastructure play. First-quarter revenue landed at $4.05 billion, a 53% jump from last year. Adjusted earnings per share hit $2.16, with that non-GAAP figure excluding certain costs. <\/p>\n
The stakes were high for Celestica, which came into earnings with its U.S. shares sitting at $422.21\u2014a roughly 3% gain on the day\u2014then slipping in after-hours moves. Investors.com noted the stock soared close to 50% in April and ended regular trading at an all-time high. <\/p>\n
Celestica\u2019s results dropped at a tricky moment, right as investors zero in on tech earnings from Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, and Meta. The core issue: just how much the big players keep throwing at AI data centers\u2014and how soon that outlay starts to pay off. Steven Cress, head of quantitative strategy at Seeking Alpha, flagged last week that capital outlays and returns from AI remain front and center as five of the \u201cMagnificent 7\u201d line up to report. Seeking Alpha<\/a><\/p>\n Celestica turned in \u201ca strong first quarter,\u201d according to Chief Executive Rob Mionis, who pointed to the company\u2019s 8.0% adjusted operating margin as \u201ca new milestone.\u201d Mionis highlighted accelerating growth in Connectivity and Cloud Solutions, or CCS\u2014the division housing communications gear, as well as enterprise servers and storage. GlobeNewswire<\/a><\/p>\n The company now expects $19 billion in revenue for the year, up from its earlier $17 billion projection, and has bumped its adjusted EPS target to $10.15, previously $8.75. Celestica is guiding for $4.15 billion to $4.45 billion in second-quarter revenue and adjusted EPS between $2.14 and $2.34. <\/p>\n Nearly all the heavy lifting came from the data-center segment. CCS revenue jumped 76% to $3.24 billion. Hardware Platform Solutions, which covers the key custom cloud and AI hardware sales, climbed 63% to just about $1.7 billion. Advanced Technology Solutions, or ATS, stalled near $810 million, but margins moved up to 6.0% from 5.0%. <\/p>\n Celestica announced it has secured a project to design and build a co-packaged optics Ethernet switch for a hyperscaler. The co-packaged optics approach brings optical connections right up to the switching chips\u2014aimed at boosting data transfer speeds while cutting power use for AI networks. This 1.6-terabit initiative is lined up to begin scaling production in 2027. <\/p>\n The pre-earnings chatter was thick. In a Yahoo Finance-hosted piece out on Sunday, Insider Monkey pointed to George Atuan, CFA, and his bullish take on Celestica. Shares closed at $401.12 on April 20, with trailing and forward P\/E ratios of 56.02 and 44.64. Those lofty multiples set the bar high\u2014a beat and raise just didn\u2019t cut it for the stock. <\/p>\n