Marvell reported the quarter ended 1 August 2026 after the US close on 27 August. Revenue was a record $2.7393 billion, up 36.5% year over year and $39.0 million above the mid-point of its own guide. Non-GAAP diluted EPS was $0.94 against a $0.93 consensus. GAAP diluted EPS was $0.33 — against a company guide of $0.37 ±$0.05, which is to say below the bottom of its own range. The shares closed at $241.45 on the day of the print, before the release.
Our preview argued that the quarter itself was the less interesting half, because the Street had simply copied the middle of Marvell's May guide. What mattered was the next number. Marvell gave three of them on the call — and the shares still traded at $227.80 after hours, down 5.7%.
What the preview asked, and what the print answered
The October guide against roughly $3B — cleared, with room. Marvell guided fiscal Q3 to $3.150 billion ±5%, a 15.0% sequential step and +51.8% against the $2.075 billion of the October 2025 quarter. Put the three quarters side by side and the promise management made in May is now visible as arithmetic: +27.6%, +36.5%, and +51.8% guided. Growth accelerating three quarters in a row is what the company said would happen, and it is the only part of this print that changes a model.
Data centre revenue and mix — $2.1715 billion, 79% of the company. Against $1.833 billion and 76% in the April quarter, data centre grew 18% sequentially and 46% year over year. Communications and other went the other way, down 3% sequentially to $567.8 million. A year ago the split was 74/26. The consolidated beat came from the part of the business the preview said it needed to come from.
Gross margin — in range now, guided down next. GAAP gross margin was 53.1%, the top of the 52.1–53.1% guide; non-GAAP was 58.9%, inside 58.25–59.25%. But October is guided to 57.5–58.5% non-GAAP, a 58.0% midpoint, while revenue is guided up 15%. Marvell is buying its acceleration with mix: custom silicon ramps at a lower margin than merchant connectivity, and the release says the custom business accelerates significantly in the second half of the fiscal year.
The Google programme — still not a number, but now a warrant. The release does not name it. On the call Murphy pointed instead at the 8-K filed the week before, disclosing an expanded commercial agreement and warrant with "a key hyperscaler, one of the largest adopters of custom silicon", spanning inference accelerators, storage and network interface controllers, memory interface controllers and near-memory compute. He was explicit that it changes nothing in the near term: revenue from the programmes it covers through fiscal 2028 is "already reflected in the overall custom revenue target we have previously provided." The preview said this was a fourth question but not yet a fourth-quarter number, and that remains true.
What changed in the story
The GAAP line broke from its own guide, and the reason is one item. Stock-based compensation was $326.2 million, against $207.6 million in the April quarter and $153.6 million a year ago. At the operating line that is 11.9% of revenue, up from 7.7% a year ago. GAAP operating expenses came in at $995.9 million against a guide of roughly $960 million. Revenue beat, gross margin held, and the miss happened below the gross-profit line.
The second change runs the other way. April's GAAP EPS of $0.04 made the GAAP-to-non-GAAP gap look like a permanent 20x. It was not: that quarter carried a $250.7 million revaluation of the contingent-consideration liability on the Celestial AI earnout, against $52.0 million this quarter. GAAP net income went from $34.5 million to $308.0 million on revenue up 13.3%, and the gap narrowed to 2.8x. The structural half of the wedge — $214.9 million of acquired-intangible amortisation a quarter — is unchanged, and recurs until the intangibles are gone.
Underneath, the balance sheet is doing the funding. Cash reached $3.933 billion from $2.639 billion at the January year-end, but that came from the $2.0 billion preferred issue and $998.9 million of borrowing in the first half, not from operations: free cash flow was $478.8 million for the quarter, up 15.6% against revenue up 36.5%, and it fell sequentially. Capex was $126.7 million, 4.63% of revenue against 2.37% a year ago — a 167% year-over-year step-up for a company that owns no fabs. Diluted shares went 870.4 million to 921.2 million, up 5.8%, against $400 million of buybacks in the half.
What is coming
October is guided to $3.150 billion ±5%, GAAP EPS $0.53 ±$0.05 and non-GAAP EPS $1.10 ±$0.05 on 921 million diluted shares — with data centre alone guided up more than 20% sequentially and roughly 75% year over year, and communications and other guided down low-to-mid teens percent both sequentially and year over year before recovering in the January quarter.
The release said only that the fiscal 2027 and 2028 outlooks had been raised again. The call put numbers on both. Fiscal 2027 goes to roughly $12 billion, about 45% growth, from approximately $11.5 billion a quarter ago — with data centre now expected to grow about 60% this year against a prior 50%. Fiscal 2028 goes to roughly $18 billion, up $1.5 billion from $16.5 billion, and the guided growth rate rises to about 50% from about 45% on a much larger base, with data-centre revenue up more than 60% and the custom business more than doubling.
Margin follows the same shape. Non-GAAP operating margin was 36.6%, up 180 basis points year over year, and Dan Durn — on his first call as CFO after Willem Meintjes stepped down in June — expects it to enter the 38–40% long-term target range in the January quarter, with fiscal 2027 non-GAAP operating expenses going to about $2.55 billion from $2.45 billion. The Investor Day on 6 October 2026 is where the longer-term custom trajectory gets its detail; Marvell has not yet scheduled the next print.
What we learned
- The annual numbers went up, not just the quarter. On the call Marvell raised fiscal 2027 to roughly $12 billion (from ~$11.5B) and fiscal 2028 to roughly $18 billion (from $16.5B) — $500 million and $1.5 billion added in one quarter, with data-centre growth raised to about 60% this year and above 60% next.
- Marvell is a data-centre company with a legacy attachment. Data centre is $2.1715 billion, 79% of revenue, +46% year over year; communications and other fell 3% sequentially to $567.8 million.
- GAAP EPS missed its own guide on stock compensation. $0.33 against a guided $0.37 ±$0.05, with SBC at $326.2 million — 11.9% of revenue, from 7.7% a year ago — and GAAP opex $995.9M against a ~$960M guide.
- Margin is the price of the ramp. Non-GAAP gross margin printed 58.9% and is guided to a 58.0% midpoint for October while revenue is guided up 15%, as custom silicon takes mix from merchant connectivity.
- The stock fell 5.7% after hours on a raised outlook. The offsets are all in the guide: non-GAAP gross margin down to a 58.0% midpoint, communications and other down low-to-mid teens percent, and about $1 billion of capacity prepayments to suppliers in fiscal 2027 that already pulled operating cash flow down this quarter.
Marvell Technology (Nasdaq: MRVL) reported its second fiscal quarter of 2027 — the three months ended 1 August 2026 — after the US close on 27 August 2026. Revenue, gross margin, operating expenses, the GAAP and non-GAAP earnings figures, the end-market split, the cash-flow and balance-sheet lines and all guidance are the company's own, from the release; the full figure set is on the Marvell Q2 FY2027 earnings page. Free cash flow of $478.8 million is derived as operating cash flow less purchases of property and equipment, and the capex-to-revenue, effective-tax-rate and year-over-year growth percentages — including the +51.8% implied by the October guide against the $2.075 billion October 2025 quarter — are ours. Stock compensation as 11.9% of revenue is the company's own figure in its non-GAAP operating-margin reconciliation. The $2.71 billion and $0.93 consensus is the press-reported LSEG/Refinitiv figure carried in our preview and is not a series this site verifies. The closing price of $241.45 is 27 August 2026, before the release. Quotations, the fiscal 2027 and fiscal 2028 revenue outlooks, the data-centre and communications growth guidance, the operating-margin and operating-expense outlook and the capacity-prepayment figure are from the earnings call held the same afternoon, 27 August 2026, and sit alongside the rest of the call on the earnings call page. The after-hours price of $227.80, down 5.7%, is as at 6:42 p.m. Eastern on 27 August 2026, sourced to stockanalysis.com. Guidance for the third fiscal quarter and the fiscal 2027 and 2028 outlooks are forward-looking statements by the company, not forecasts by this site.
