New York, Feb 27, 2026, 06:01 ET — Premarket
- AAOI jumped roughly 19% in premarket trading, clawing back some ground a day after a steep fall during regular hours.
- Applied Optoelectronics put out a Q1 revenue forecast, targeting a range between $150 million and $165 million.
- The company has launched a $250 million at-the-market stock sale facility. B. Riley bumped its rating up to Neutral.
Applied Optoelectronics (AAOI.O) surged 19.3% ahead of the bell Friday, trading at $64.05. That comes right after Thursday’s whipsaw session, which saw the stock tumble hard by the end. 1
Based in Sugar Land, Texas, the optical components maker has turned into something of a high-beta signal for data-center expansion, as cloud players pour money into quicker links for server-to-server data movement. That wave of spending has put some of the smaller hardware suppliers front and center. Bigger optical firms—Lumentum, Coherent—are getting attention too.
Late Thursday, the company disclosed it had launched an “at-the-market” stock sale program—essentially, a way to drip new shares into the market at current prices rather than unloading them all at once. Applied Optoelectronics is looking to raise as much as $250 million through Raymond James and Needham, who stand to collect a 2% cut of the gross proceeds. 2
Applied Optoelectronics turned in $134.3 million in fourth-quarter revenue, with GAAP gross margin clocking in at 31.2%. Looking ahead, the company set its first-quarter revenue target between $150 million and $165 million. GAAP net loss landed at $2.0 million. Stripping out stock-based comp and a few other charges, non-GAAP net loss narrowed to $0.6 million. “Record fourth quarter results,” CEO Thompson Lin said. CFO Stefan Murry flagged manufacturing expansion tied to ramped-up data-center product lines. 3
Shares ended Thursday at $53.69, off 7.6% for the day, after a volatile ride between $52.26 and $61.45. 4
B. Riley bumped Applied Optoelectronics up to Neutral from Sell and took its price target to $54 from $15, an Investing report showed.
The company’s latest annual filing throws the spotlight on just how fast things can shift when a major customer taps the brakes. Applied Optoelectronics’ 2025 Form 10-K shows its top five customers brought in 95.2% of total revenue — Digicomm led at 53.1%, Microsoft followed with 28.8%. The report also listed an accumulated deficit of $491.0 million at the close of Dec. 31, 2025. 5
In the coming sessions, investors have their eyes on two fronts: if the company taps its new share-sale facility for extra cash, and how margins fare as production scales up alongside heavier inventory and capital expenditures.
During Thursday’s earnings call, Lin pointed out that demand for the company’s 800G optical modules—used in high-speed data-center links—“are projected to exceed our production capacities to mid-2027.” As for the near-term schedule, management listed a series of events: Susquehanna’s Annual Technology Conference on Feb. 27, followed by the Raymond James Institutional Investors Conference on March 3. An investor session at OFC is set for March 17, with the next earnings call lined up for May 7. 6
