TORONTO, April 27, 2026, 17:05 EDT
- Celestica bumped up its revenue forecast for 2026 to $19 billion and now expects adjusted EPS to reach $10.15.
- Shares slipped after hours anyway, suggesting the market had already baked in the upbeat AI demand narrative.
- 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.
Celestica shares dropped after hours on Monday, despite the Canadian electronics firm posting better-than-expected quarterly profits and lifting its guidance for 2026—investors 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.
The stakes were high for Celestica, which came into earnings with its U.S. shares sitting at $422.21—a roughly 3% gain on the day—then 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.
Celestica’s 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—and 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 “Magnificent 7” line up to report. Seeking Alpha
Celestica turned in “a strong first quarter,” according to Chief Executive Rob Mionis, who pointed to the company’s 8.0% adjusted operating margin as “a new milestone.” Mionis highlighted accelerating growth in Connectivity and Cloud Solutions, or CCS—the division housing communications gear, as well as enterprise servers and storage. GlobeNewswire
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.
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%.
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—aimed 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.
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—a beat and raise just didn’t cut it for the stock.
Before the report, Cress labeled Celestica a hyperscaler supplier “worth watching,” predicting a 73% first-quarter EPS jump. Turns out, adjusted EPS climbed closer to 80%. Still, the stock’s sluggish response made it clear: expectations had already outpaced consensus. Seeking Alpha
Celestica isn’t the only name in play here. Sanmina, which also supplies electronics manufacturing and data-center hardware, logged a revenue jump to $4.01 billion on Monday—a doubling, driven by the ZT Systems acquisition and fresh momentum in AI-focused hardware, according to Investors.com. The trade’s still working, but more players are piling in.
The list of risks is anything but short. Celestica flagged potential hits from evolving customer capacity plans, its own exposure to a concentrated customer base, ongoing supply bottlenecks, and the threat of trade barriers. Data center limits on power and water, plus rising competition from budget or open-source AI models, all made the warning list. Options traders weren’t caught off guard; before the results landed, TheFly noted Celestica contracts were pricing in a swing of about 9.8% after earnings.
Tuesday brings the next update, with management set to review results on an 8 a.m. Eastern call. This time, investors aren’t focused on the existence of AI demand—it’s all about how long Celestica can keep turning that demand into actual margin, cash flow, and production growth, and whether it can do so without having to sacrifice any pricing power.
