CDW Q3 2026: AI demand drives a 9% earnings beat and 17.7% revenue growth

CDW reported adjusted non-GAAP earnings of $3.26 per share for the third quarter of 2026, beating the consensus estimate of $2.98. Revenue came in at $6.75 billion, also ahead of the $6.19 billion expectation, and grew 17.7% compared to the same quarter a year ago.

Financial Services net sales surged 73.2% year over year to $571.5 million. The Corporate segment added 16.8% to reach $2.61 billion, while international operations in the UK and Canada climbed 26.0% to $880.1 million. CDW attributed the broad-based acceleration to rising enterprise AI adoption, alongside strong demand for data storage, servers, and notebooks.

Servers and storage carry thinner margins than software and services, and gross profit margin narrowed to 20.5% from 21.9% a year earlier. Workplace optimization charges also jumped to $31.0 million from $2.7 million, adding further pressure below the gross line, though a lower diluted share count of 125.7 million versus 131.8 million a year ago helped lift the per-share result.

Despite the margin headwinds, the board raised the quarterly cash dividend to $0.68 per share, an increase of roughly 8% over the prior year, with a record date of November 25 and a payment date of December 10, 2026. The dividend is targeted at approximately 25% of trailing-twelve-month non-GAAP net income. CDW also had about $1.03 billion remaining under its share repurchase program as of September 30, 2026.

CEO Christine Leahy said the company is confident in its ability to outpace US IT addressable market growth by 200 to 300 basis points on a constant-currency basis, though no specific numeric financial guidance was included in the release. CDW also spent $450.3 million on acquisitions in the first nine months of 2026, a signal that management is using its cash position, which stood at $1.54 billion, to accelerate its full-stack technology offering even as AI-driven hardware demand compresses near-term margins.