Nebius pushes part of its 2026 revenue into 2027 as third-party capacity slips

Nebius Group (Nasdaq: NBIS) said it now expects 2026 revenue at the low end of its $3.0-3.4 billion range because third-party capacity it counted on this year is scheduled for the first half of 2027, according to its third-quarter shareholder letter.

Third-quarter revenue reached $980.8 million

The Amsterdam-based AI cloud company reported revenue of $980.8 million for the three months ended September 30, up 571% from $146.1 million a year earlier, according to its results release of November 12. Adjusted EBITDA, a non-GAAP measure, was $465.8 million, against a loss of $5.2 million in the third quarter of 2025.

The company's annualized run-rate revenue, or ARR, stood at $6.4 billion at the end of September, the letter said. Nebius also said it no longer sees ARR as the right measure of its business and will give guidance for revenue, pre-tax earnings and capacity from 2027.

A two-month slip in the ARR target, tied to New Jersey

Founder and chief executive Arkady Volozh wrote in the letter: "Where we rely on third parties, there have been delays." The company named a site in New Jersey, where it is moving the power source to Bloom Energy fuel cells.

Nebius said it now expects to deliver more than half of the capacity contracted with Microsoft there by the end of the year, with the remaining tranches scheduled for the second quarter of 2027. The letter said the contracts behind the delayed capacity remain in place.

As a result, Nebius had guided to ARR of $7 billion to $9 billion by December and now expects ARR to exceed $7 billion for the month of February. Its adjusted EBITDA margin guidance for 2026 is unchanged at about 40%, and its 2026 capital spending outlook rose to about $27 billion from a range of $20 billion to $25 billion.

Customers are paying more of the bill in advance

The letter said prepayments on deals signed in the third quarter covered more than 100% of the associated capital spending, up from 50% to 60% in the second quarter. More than 90% of contract value signed in the quarter carried a prepayment, Nebius said.

For 2027, the company said it expects prepayments and financing against contracts with investment-grade customers to cover 75% to 85% of capital spending of $40 billion to $45 billion. It guided to 2027 revenue of $12 billion to $13 billion, which it described as about four times its 2026 revenue, and to pre-tax breakeven in the fourth quarter of 2027.

The pre-tax figure is calculated after financing costs and assumes a five-year depreciation life for computing hardware, the letter said.

What the figures do not settle

The release and letter are the company's own statements. They do not show how much of the 2027 revenue guidance rests on the delayed third-party sites, and they do not name the customers whose prepayments would cover most of 2027 spending.

Delay is a smaller risk than the bill that follows it

We think the quarter shows two things at once. Revenue growing about 6.7 times from a year earlier, with prepayments now covering more than the cost of new deals, supports the case that customers pay for scarce capacity. Yet capital spending of about $27 billion this year and $40 billion to $45 billion next year is large next to revenue of $3.0 billion to $3.4 billion, so the plan depends on both prepayments and construction schedules holding.

We expect the next test to be whether the remaining New Jersey tranches arrive in the second quarter of 2027 as scheduled; a further slip would push more revenue out while the spending continues. The opportunity is that owned sites, which Nebius says are on or ahead of schedule, make up a growing share of capacity. We would also watch whether prepayment coverage stays above 100% on new deals, and our view would change if it falls back toward the second quarter's level.

The view in this final section is FinanceInTime's editorial opinion, for information only. It is not investment, tax, legal or other advice, and it does not take your circumstances into account. Forecasts are uncertain and past results do not guarantee future ones.