PANW · Forward model · Support · Bull case
What has to happen in Support
Model as of
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Support
Attached maintenance and support on the installed base - roughly a million firewalls in the field with more than four subscriptions attached per device. It is the slowest and steadiest line in the company, $582M to $776M across eight quarters, and the $776M in 2026 Q3 is the first quarter carrying CyberArk and Chronosphere support contracts. It is also the line NGS ARR explicitly excludes, which is why it is modelled off the installed base and its own trend rather than off ARR.
Latest: $1.47B (2031Q3E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2024Q4 | $582M |
| 2025Q1 | $593M |
| 2025Q2 | $603M |
| 2025Q3 | $602M |
| 2025Q4 | $647M |
| 2026Q1 | $676M |
| 2026Q2 | $676M |
| 2026Q3 | $776M |
| 2026Q4E | $838M |
| 2027Q1E | $880M |
| 2027Q2E | $910M |
| 2027Q3E | $913M |
| 2027Q4E | $978M |
| 2028Q1E | $1.02B |
| 2028Q2E | $1.05B |
| 2028Q3E | $1.05B |
| 2028Q4E | $1.12B |
| 2029Q1E | $1.16B |
| 2029Q2E | $1.19B |
| 2029Q3E | $1.18B |
| 2029Q4E | $1.26B |
| 2030Q1E | $1.31B |
| 2030Q2E | $1.33B |
| 2030Q3E | $1.32B |
| 2030Q4E | $1.40B |
| 2031Q1E | $1.45B |
| 2031Q2E | $1.48B |
| 2031Q3E | $1.47B |
Assumptions & reasoning
- SEASONALITY: this line carries the same jointly-derived recurring shape as Subscription - Q1 1.014, Q2 1.008, Q3 0.973, Q4 1.006 - from the consolidated eleven-quarter ratio-to-centred-moving-average net of Product at its 19.5% weight. Support's own eight-quarter windows give Q1 1.010, Q2 1.004, Q3 0.972, Q4 1.013, which agree closely on the fiscal Q3 trough but rest on one window each.
- SEASONALITY SPREAD: Support's own repeated sequential steps are the weakest evidence in the model - Q4-to-Q1 printed +1.9% and +4.5% (2.6 points apart) and Q1-to-Q2 printed +1.7% and 0.0% (1.7 points apart) against a 4.1-point own-line amplitude. Signal barely clears spread on this line alone, which is exactly why the shared residual with its 0.2 to 0.4 point company-level spread is used instead of Support's own factors.
- Support is disclosed as a revenue line but has no disclosed cost line of its own. PANW publishes only a combined subscription-and-support gross margin (75.1% non-GAAP at 2026 Q3), so every margin figure attached to this vertical is a company-level allocation and is flagged as such.
- The step to 28.9% year-over-year growth in the basis quarter is acquisition arithmetic, not an attach-rate improvement - the three prior quarters printed 11.2%, 14.0% and 12.1%. A model that extrapolated the basis-quarter rate would overstate this line by roughly 16 points of growth, which is why the driver starts at 3.4% a quarter and decays.