NEW YORK, March 4, 2026, 18:26 EST
- Forecast FY2027 revenue above analysts’ estimates; shares dipped after hours after closing higher
- Q4 revenue rose 23% and ARR climbed to $5.25 billion; net new ARR hit a quarterly record
- Costs tied to the July 2024 Windows outage widened for the fiscal year; the company is still shopping for bolt-on deals
CrowdStrike forecast fiscal 2027 revenue above Wall Street estimates on Tuesday, betting demand for its AI-powered cybersecurity tools will hold.
Shares closed up 1.7% and slipped 0.8% in after-hours trade, after a recent drop in cybersecurity stocks tied to worries over AI startup Anthropic’s Claude Code Security tool; Truist Securities analyst Junaid Siddiqui said the muted move “seems like a good outcome.”
CrowdStrike said costs tied to the July 19, 2024 Windows outage rose to $117.7 million in fiscal 2026, though they eased to $16.2 million in the January quarter, and it pointed to two planned acquisitions announced in January. 1
The outlook matters because investors have turned skittish on software, hunting for places where AI might compress margins or make products look like features. Cybersecurity has been a relative safe harbor, until it isn’t.
CrowdStrike also sits in the middle of a buyer shift. Many large customers want fewer security vendors, fewer agents on machines, and tighter control over identity — the login layer that attackers keep targeting.
The company’s key yardstick is annual recurring revenue, or ARR — contracted subscription revenue expected over the next 12 months. ARR can move faster than reported revenue, and Wall Street reads it as a pulse on spending before the invoices land.
In results released after the U.S. market close, the Austin-based firm said fourth-quarter revenue rose 23% to $1.31 billion, while ARR grew 24% to $5.25 billion and net new ARR reached $330.7 million.
CrowdStrike reported net income of $38.7 million under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP), the standard U.S. reporting rules, and adjusted earnings per share, or EPS, of $1.12; CEO George Kurtz said fiscal 2026 was the company’s “best year yet.”
For fiscal 2027, it projected revenue of $5.87 billion to $5.93 billion and said it bought back about $50.6 million of stock after year-end. CFO Burt Podbere said the company had “strong conviction” to lift its FY2027 ARR outlook. 2
Some of the debate is about what “adjusted” results leave out. Companies strip out stock compensation and one-off costs to show operating trends, but the gap between GAAP and non-GAAP still gets scrutinized when markets turn tighter.
CrowdStrike competes with Palo Alto Networks, Microsoft and SentinelOne across endpoint and cloud security, and with a long tail of niche vendors in identity and log analytics. That list keeps changing, especially now that AI tools can spin up security features quickly.
The company’s answer has been to push more buying onto its platform, often through multi-product deals. It has also leaned on programs like Falcon Flex — a way for customers to commit budget and then allocate it across CrowdStrike tools as needs shift.
But the downsides haven’t gone away. Another major product issue, slower deal cycles, or bigger-than-expected fallout from the 2024 outage could hit renewal rates, add legal costs, and drag out a trust rebuild that is still unfinished.
Separately, CrowdStrike said on Wednesday it is accepting submissions for its Day Zero Threat Research Summit, an invitation-only event scheduled for Aug. 30 to Sept. 1 in Las Vegas as part of its Fal.Con conference. “Defense starts with knowing your adversary,” said Adam Meyers, the company’s head of counter adversary operations. 3
Investors will now watch how the first-quarter pipeline turns into signed contracts, and whether concerns about AI-driven competition prove sticky or fade with the next set of bookings.
