What Changed For HPE Stock, And What Did Not?
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) stock returned 193.4% in the year to October 12, 2026, far outpacing the 20.5% return for the S&P 500. The company’s sales growth sped up over those twelve months, and management raised its outlook for fiscal 2026 and fiscal 2027 on September 2, 2026. On September 30, it raised its long-term growth forecast for its networking business and announced a $1.2 billion AI order from cloud firm Vultr. So how much has the business itself grown over that year?
How Quickly Is HPE’s Revenue Rising?
Sales over the last twelve months reached $41.9 billion, up 26.6% from $33.1 billion a year earlier. Revenue in fiscal Q3 2026 reached a record $12.2 billion. That figure was up 34% from a year earlier, management noted during the September 2, 2026 call. Just three quarters before that, sales were growing 14.4%. Unlike the order figure below, these growth rates are not adjusted for the acquired Juniper Networks.
Server revenue grew 35% in fiscal Q3 2026. Management stated that higher selling prices on traditional servers drove the increase, while supply limits restricted the total number of servers HPE could ship. AI systems brought in almost $1.6 billion of that quarter’s sales.
What Does HPE Stock Cost Against Its Sales Now?
HPE stock currently costs 2.2 times the company’s sales over the last twelve months. That multiple had stayed between 0.4 and 1.4 over the past ten years. The share price rose far faster than sales did, so buyers now pay more for each dollar of HPE’s revenue than they did in any of those years. On earnings, the stock is priced at 33.7 times.
The stock price appears to assume sales will keep growing, and management is forecasting exactly that. The company expects fiscal Q4 2026 revenue of $13.9 billion to $14.8 billion, which is above the record it reported for Q3. Management now expects revenue to grow 13% to 17% for fiscal 2027. Orders grew 42% in fiscal Q3 2026, calculated on a basis that counts the acquired Juniper Networks in both years. Furthermore, HPE ended the quarter with a record backlog.
HPE’s Margin Is Back At 7.8%
HPE kept 7.8% of its sales as operating profit over the last twelve months. This matches the 7.8% it kept two years ago. The margin fell to 6.2% a year ago and has since recovered, yet it remains below the 8.8% recorded three years ago. It is also far below the 18.5% posted by the S&P 500.
Management stated on the September 2, 2026 call that it expects its adjusted operating margin, which runs well above the 7.8% figure, to decline from the previous quarter. The company named a larger share of AI systems in what it sells among the reasons for this expected drop. The adjusted operating margin is the number to watch when the company reports fiscal Q4 2026.
How To Act On HPE?
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