New York, Feb 13, 2026, 10:44 EST — Regular session
- Arista shares rose about 6% in morning trade after the company topped quarterly expectations and guided higher.
- Management pointed to AI-driven data center buildouts, while warning component costs — especially memory — are tight.
- Investors now look to management’s post-close call for color on demand and margins.
Arista Networks Inc shares climbed on Friday after the networking gear maker delivered a strong quarter and forecast first-quarter revenue above Wall Street’s view, keeping it in the middle of the market’s AI-infrastructure trade. (Reuters)
The move matters because investors have treated data-center plumbing — switches and routers that move traffic inside AI clusters — as a cleaner way to play spending that can swing fast, quarter to quarter. Arista is one of the few big, pure-play names in that lane.
Arista’s forecast also lands as traders pick through what looks like a new bottleneck: component costs and availability. If the parts do not show up on time, demand can be real and revenue can still slip.
Arista said late Thursday it earned 82 cents per diluted share on a non-GAAP basis in the fourth quarter, with revenue of $2.488 billion, and it expects about $2.6 billion of revenue in the first quarter. Non-GAAP results are “adjusted” figures that strip out items such as stock-based compensation and certain acquisition-related charges; the company also guided non-GAAP gross margin — profit after direct costs — of about 62%-63% for the quarter. (SEC)
In the prepared remarks, CEO Jayshree Ullal said the company shipped “a cumulative of 150 million ports,” while CFO Chantelle Breithaupt pointed to a “historic milestone” of more than $1 billion in quarterly net income. (SEC)
But the same call carried a caution flag on costs and supply. Ullal said memory prices were “horrendous,” and management described the risk that “the demand is greater than our ability to supply,” even as it raised its 2026 outlook to about 25% revenue growth and lifted its AI networking revenue target for 2026 to $3.25 billion. (The Motley Fool)
Arista shares were up 5.9% at $143.10, after touching $152.24 earlier in the session.
The gain left Arista outpacing Cisco Systems, which was down about 1.4% in morning trade.
Analyst activity followed the results, with a wave of price-target increases posted before the bell, including Needham lifting its target to $185 and Piper Sandler to $175, among others. (MarketScreener)
For now, the question is whether Arista can hold margins if memory stays scarce and expensive, and whether the company can translate the AI buildout into shipments on its schedule, not just customers’ schedules.
Investors will listen for that on the company’s earnings call after the close at 1:30 p.m. Pacific time. (SEC)
