New York, Feb 27, 2026, 18:27 EST — After-hours
- Intuit (INTU) shares rose 3.7% to $409.03 at Friday’s close, up less than 1% after hours.
- Intuit forecast third-quarter adjusted profit below estimates as it steps up tax-season marketing and support spending.
- The company posted 17% second-quarter revenue growth and raised its quarterly dividend to $1.20 a share.
Intuit Inc. shares rose 3.7% to $409.03 at Friday’s close. In after-hours trading, the stock was last up less than 1%. 1
The TurboTax and QuickBooks maker said on Thursday it expects third-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $12.45 to $12.51, below analysts’ average estimate of $12.95, as it ramps marketing and customer-support spending for the quarter ending April 30 and targets about 10% revenue growth. The IRS began accepting federal returns on Jan. 26 and the filing deadline is April 15; Intuit competes with H&R Block and Oracle’s NetSuite. CFO Sandeep Aujla said the company pays OpenAI and Anthropic for their tools and “we’re not paying them revenue share.” 2
A quarterly filing showed Intuit does not expect to have “substantially complete” results for the 2025 tax season until that third quarter, underlining how seasonal its consumer tax business can be. The filing also pointed to rising costs, including marketing, even before the heavier push tied to tax season. 3
In the fiscal second quarter ended Jan. 31, Intuit said revenue rose 17% to $4.65 billion and adjusted earnings per share rose to $4.15, a measure that strips out certain items. Global Business Solutions revenue grew 18% to $3.2 billion while consumer revenue rose 15% to $1.5 billion; CEO Sasan Goodarzi called the quarter “outstanding.” It repurchased $961 million of stock and the board approved a quarterly dividend of $1.20 per share, payable April 17. 4
Intuit reiterated its full-year outlook for revenue of $20.997 billion to $21.186 billion and adjusted earnings per share of $22.98 to $23.18. For the April-ended third quarter, it forecast GAAP earnings per share of $10.56 to $10.62. 5
Analysts were split on the softer near-term profit guide. Wolfe Research analyst Alex Zukin said the results “reiterate our positive view on growth durability,” while Jefferies analyst Brent Thill said the repeated full-year guide “look[s] conservative,” according to Investing.com. 6
Trading in Intuit was heavy on Friday, with about 8.2 million shares changing hands, more than double its 50-day average, MarketWatch data showed. The stock also outpaced payroll processor Paychex and enterprise software firm Oracle in the session. 7
But the bigger marketing bill is a bet: if it fails to pull in filers or convert more customers into assisted-tax offerings, the margin hit won’t be easy to explain. Competition in tax prep and small-business software is already crowded, and pricing pressure can show up fast.
The next marker is the stretch into the April 15 filing deadline, when TurboTax volume and assisted tax uptake tend to move sentiment around the sector. Investors will also track the April 17 dividend and the April 30 quarter-end for any fresh read on how the spending push is landing. 8
