Nebius Group N.V. (NASDAQ: NBIS) reported third-quarter 2026 revenue of $980.8 million on November 13, 2026, a 571% increase year over year that beat consensus estimates by 6.98%, according to Yahoo! Finance. The company posted adjusted earnings of 30 cents per share against analyst expectations of a 61-cent loss.
The result confirms a structural shift in the AI infrastructure market: compute capacity is now contracted years in advance, priced upward, and increasingly financed by customers rather than balance sheets. The state of play is a protocol, not a marketplace.
AI Cloud drives nearly all consolidated revenue
Nebius AI Cloud revenue reached $973.8 million, up 643% year over year and representing roughly 99% of consolidated revenue. Annualized run-rate revenue hit $6.4 billion, up 1,062% from the prior year.
The quarter included approximately $325 million in nonrecurring revenue from the initial phase of an asset-light model, in which partners fund computing capacity while Nebius supplies its architecture and cloud platform. Revenue is recognized when the platform is enabled and capacity becomes operational, as Ticker Report detailed in its earnings call coverage.
Remaining performance obligations stood at $38.7 billion at the end of September, up 3% sequentially. Since the start of the third quarter, customers committed more than $12 billion in total contract value.
Contract economics improved across every metric
Pricing power moved decisively toward the supplier. Annual contract value per megawatt exceeded $25 million, up from $20 to $25 million in the second quarter. Average GPU-hour pricing rose more than 20% sequentially.
More than 90% of contract value signed during the quarter included customer prepayments. Those prepayments covered more than 100% of associated capital expenditures, compared with 50 to 60% in the prior quarter. The average payback period shortened to one year and seven months from one year and ten months.
Nebius signed multiyear agreements with Databricks, Datadog, and Snowflake. Its managed inference platform, Token Factory, approached a multi-hundred-million-dollar annual revenue run rate, with contract value growing 17 times sequentially.
Profitability: adjusted EBITDA margin at 47.5%
Group adjusted EBITDA reached $465.8 million, versus an adjusted EBITDA loss of $5.2 million a year earlier. The margin expanded to 47.5% from 40.6% in the second quarter. The AI Cloud segment alone delivered a 53.2% adjusted EBITDA margin, up from 50%.
Costs grew, but slower than revenue. Total operating costs and expenses rose 237% year over year to $930.4 million. Cost of revenues climbed 412% to $219.7 million. Depreciation and amortization increased 258% to $354.7 million, reflecting continued GPU infrastructure investment. Operating income reached $50.4 million against a $130.2 million operating loss a year ago.
Net loss from continuing operations narrowed to $37.5 million from $119.6 million.
Capital structure: customers fund the buildout
Nebius ended September 2026 with $7.43 billion in cash and cash equivalents. Capital expenditures totaled approximately $7.3 billion, driven by server and networking equipment purchases and data center expansion.
During the quarter the company completed a $5.75 billion convertible senior notes offering, secured a $775 million asset-backed financing facility, and raised roughly $1 billion in net proceeds through its at-the-market equity offering.
The financing model is the notable variable here. For 2027, management projects 75 to 85% of its $40 to $45 billion capital expenditure program will be financed through customer prepayments and asset-backed financing against existing investment-grade contracts. Infrastructure expansion is becoming a closed-loop system: demand funds supply.
2026 guidance trimmed, 2027 outlook set at $12-13 billion
Nebius lowered the top end of its 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $3 billion to $3.2 billion, down from $3 billion to $3.4 billion. As MarketBeat reported, the revision follows delays bringing third-party data center capacity online, particularly in New Jersey, pushing some deliveries into 2027.
Full-year adjusted EBITDA margin guidance held at approximately 40%. Projected 2026 capital expenditures increased to around $27 billion from the prior $20 to $25 billion range.
For 2027, management expects revenue of $12 to $13 billion, roughly fourfold growth. Customer prepayments of $17 to $20 billion are anticipated next year. The company projects pretax breakeven in the fourth quarter of 2027.
TradingView's earnings call highlights confirm the asset-light partnership revenue and the shift toward company-owned data centers as the next phase of expansion.
Context: peer results in the AI infrastructure sector
Nebius reported against a backdrop of comparable AI infrastructure earnings. CoreWeave posted a third-quarter loss of $1.27 per share, narrower than the expected $1.45 loss, on revenue of $3.66 billion, up 168% year over year. Its revenue backlog reached $132.5 billion, up 138%.
Amazon reported third-quarter net income of $1.89 per share on net sales of $201.9 billion, up 12% year over year but slightly below consensus.
NBIS carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
FAQ
What was Nebius's Q3 2026 revenue?
Nebius reported Q3 2026 revenue of $980.8 million, up 571% year over year and beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $917 million by 6.98%.
How much of Nebius's Q3 revenue came from the asset-light model?
Approximately $325 million of the quarter's revenue was nonrecurring, generated from the initial phase of an asset-light model where partners fund capacity and Nebius supplies architecture and its AI Cloud platform.
When does Nebius expect pretax breakeven?
Management projects pretax breakeven in the fourth quarter of 2027, supported by expected customer prepayments of $17 to $20 billion that year.