By Adam Levine and Mackenzie Tatananni

Palantir Technologies reported strong fourth-quarter earnings Monday and in premarket trading Tuesday the stock jumped 11%.

Adjusted earnings per share were 25 cents, above Wall Street's consensus estimate of 23 cents and up from 14 cents last year. Revenue for the quarter reached $1.41 billion, ahead expectations for $1.34 billion, and up 70% on the year.

CEO Alex Karp said the company's financial results "have again exceeded even our most ambitious expectations."

"Such a massive acceleration in growth, for a company of this scale and size, is a remarkable achievement -- a cosmic reward of sorts to those who were interested in advancing our admittedly idiosyncratic project and embraced, or at least did not wholly reject, our mode of working," Karp said.

Sales in Palantir's core U.S. market rose 93% from a year ago. As has been the case recently, commercial revenue was the standout, up 137% to $507 million. Sales to the U.S. government reached $570 million, up 66%. U.S. quarterly revenue broke above $1 billion for the first time.

Though Palantir has more trouble selling overseas, international sales were still up 22% year over year.

Palantir also issued first-quarter and 2026 guidance well in excess of current analysts' projections.

In the fourth quarter, the company posted a 41% operating margin, continuing a strong trend for profitability. For 2025, it converted 47% of sales to free cash flow and now has over $7 billion in cash and marketable securities.

Palantir helps large organizations sort through their mountains of data and make sense of it using artificial intelligence. It aids decision-makers in seeing connections and courses of action that may not have been obvious before.

The company's roots are in intelligence and defense work, and Palantir has seen an acceleration of its already extensive contracts with the U.S. federal government. Most recently, in December, the company announced a new contract with the U.S. Navy worth up to $448 million.

But Palantir has expanded beyond its government roots as large companies struggle to manage and interpret the seas of data they produce every day. This may be Palantir's biggest opportunity, because all large data-rich organizations can benefit from its software. The U.S. is again the core market here.

Few analysts doubt that Palantir has a long runway for commercial success, but there is concern surrounding its valuation. At a forward price-to-earnings multiple of about 145, it is among the most richly valued stocks, though still behind Tesla's roughly 206 multiple.

In both cases, the stocks are supported by a large base of retail investors who believe in -- and identify with -- the companies, helping to push share prices higher.

William Blair's Louie DiPalma said he liked what he saw from the report. "In our view, shares will trend back above $200 per share over the next year," he wrote in a note to clients late Monday.

Write to Adam Levine at adam.levine@barrons.com and Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com

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February 03, 2026 05:04 ET (10:04 GMT)

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