Q1 Earnings: So Far, So Good

YoY Revenue  +10.9%

YoY net income  +34.0%

YoY cost of Revenue  +9.1%

We revved up the Calcbench Earnings Tracker this weekend for our first analysis of Q1 2026 earnings data. So far, among the large companies that dominate the beginning of earnings season, the overall numbers look solid.

Figure 1, below, tells the tale. With roughly data from roughly 800 firms, revenue is up 10.9 percent from the year-ago period, operating income up 20.6 percent, and net income up 34 percent. Can’t complain about performance like that.

Then again, notice the cost of revenue: up 9.7 percent. Notice operating expenses, up 9.8 percent. Notice SG&A expenses, up 8.1 percent. 

Altogether, that suggests that costs are rising swiftly for large companies. If they want to keep operating margins high, they’ll need to raise prices, cut costs (which usually means layoffs), or both. 

Meanwhile, we also have capex spending up 35 percent from the year-earlier period, but that number is primarily driven by a handful of tech giants spending zillions of dollars on data centers for artificial intelligence. 

We’ve noted in prior posts that if you strip AI hyperscalers out of the picture, capex spending was falling for everyone else in Corporate America. We haven’t re-performed that analysis on Q1 numbers yet because we’re still waiting for a few more hyperscalers to file, but don’t be surprised if that trend still holds true now.

Figure 2, below, shows the earnings comparison in table format. 

Metric	Q1 2026	Q1 2025	Firm Count	YoY Change
Revenue	$3.0T	$2.7T	807	10.9%
Operating Income	$492.1B	$407.9B	822	20.6%
Capex	$286.0B	$211.9B	693	35.0%
Assets	$18.3T	$16.5T	813	11.2%
Liabilities	$11.3T	$10.3T	796	9.4%
Cost Of Revenue	$1.7T	$1.5T	733	9.7%
Cash	$1.2T	$1.0T	798	16.9%
Net Income	$429.4B	$320.5B	822	34.0%
SGA Expense	$394.3B	$364.6B	767	8.1%
Operating Expenses	$755.3B	$687.7B	762	9.8%
Inventory	$1.0T	$994.9B	577	4.8%
Operating Cash Flow	$487.1B	$391.1B	763	24.5%
Total Debt	$5.1T	$4.7T	642	8.4%
EBIT	$537.6B	$417.2B	798	28.9%
Restructuring	$5.9B	$6.1B	162	-4.0%

Calcbench tracks these earnings using our Earnings Tracker template, which pulls in financial disclosures as companies file their latest earnings releases with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The Earnings Tracker provides an up-to-the minute snapshot of financial performance compared to the year-earlier period.

If Calcbench subscribers wish to get their hands on the template we use for this analysis, so you can conduct your own experiments at home, use this link to the file. 

Please note that it will only work with an active Calcbench subscription. If you need an active subscription (and who doesn’t, really, when swift access to real-time data is so important?), contact us at us@calcbench.com.

That’s all for this week. Come back next Friday for more!