Celestica's Cloud Bet Pays Off

0:00It's April 29th. You're listening to Durham News today, AI-powered local news. Celestica Stock took a hit after earnings, but the business crushed it in the first quarter. Revenue jumped 53% year over year to $4.05 billion, with adjusted operating margins expanding to 8%. From 7.1, management bumped up their full year 2026 guidance to 19 billion in revenue, up from 17 billion, plus adjusted EPS of 10, $1.15 and 500 million in free cash flow. That stronger outlook hinges on hyper-scaler demand for AI and cloud infrastructure kicking into high gear, especially in the second half. Second quarter guidance also topped estimates, with revenue between $4.15 billion and $4.45 billion, and EPS from 2, $1.14 to $2.34. Those are eyeing this as a ship from Celestica's old cyclical electronics manufacturing services

1:00model to higher quality earnings, thanks to bigger slices of high margin cloud and networking programs. The stock did ignore these fundamentals, but Volkswagen proved that demand turns into real shipments and capacity. A fresh wind adds fuel. Celestica landed a co-packaged optics, even at Switch Deal, with a hyper-scaler, ramping production in 2027 using. 1.6 terabit silicon from massive AI data flows. Keep watching second half ramps and bookings to see if this AI positioning delivers the rebound, or if delays and makes shifts, pull it back. Celestica's betting big on the cloud wave, and the proofs in the deployments ahead.