---
title: "Supermicro’s sales grew 298% at a 13% margin; Arista’s grew 58% at 64%"
summary: "Revenue growth and gross margin at Arista, AMD and Supermicro, six quarters to September 2026, each from the company’s own results: where Big Tech’s AI spending lands."
url: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/ai-hardware-suppliers-revenue-who-keeps-margin
format: Trend
desk: "Markets & the AI economy"
region: Global
published: 2026-11-04
facts_checked: 2026-11-04
author: TechBag (The TechBag Journal)
tags: ["Arista Networks","AMD","Supermicro","Nvidia","earnings","gross margin","AI servers","data-centre networking","GPUs","AI capex","supply chain"]
cover: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/covers/ai-hardware-suppliers-revenue-who-keeps-margin.png
---

# Supermicro’s sales grew 298% at a 13% margin; Arista’s grew 58% at 64%

*Revenue growth and gross margin at Arista, AMD and Supermicro, six quarters to September 2026, each from the company’s own results: where Big Tech’s AI spending lands.*

Trend · Markets & the AI economy · By TechBag · Published 2026-11-04 · Facts checked 2026-11-04 · Canonical: https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/ai-hardware-suppliers-revenue-who-keeps-margin

The short version

1. Supermicro’s net sales were US$19.9bn in the quarter to 30 September, almost four times the US$5.0bn of a year earlier. Arista’s revenue rose 58.5% to US$3.66bn, its fastest growth since its IPO, and AMD’s Data Center segment 97% to US$8.5bn.[1][2][3]
2. What each kept after paying for the goods it sold differs fivefold: a gross margin of 63.6% at Arista, 53.9% at AMD and 12.7% at Supermicro. Supermicro sold 5.5 times as much as Arista and made about the same gross profit, US$2.54bn against US$2.33bn.[1][2][3]
3. All three expect more in the December quarter. The line to watch at Supermicro is cash: its operations used US$434m in the quarter while inventory reached US$15.1bn.[3]

Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta paid US$201.9bn for property and equipment in the quarter to 30 September, by [our count from their filings](https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/big-tech-ai-capex-quarterly-line).[11] That spending is someone else’s revenue: the chip designers, the server builders and the network makers. Three of them reported on 3 November. This piece follows their sales over six quarters, each from the company’s own release, and asks which kind of supplier keeps the most of each dollar.

## The line: growth sped up at all three

**Arista**, which sells data-centre switches and the software that runs them, grew 27–38% a year in each quarter from June 2025 to June 2026, then 58.5% in the September quarter. Its chief executive, Jayshree Ullal, called it “the highest year-over-year revenue growth since our IPO”.[1][4]

**AMD**’s Data Center segment, which holds its Instinct GPUs and EPYC server processors, grew 14% in the June 2025 quarter and 97% in the latest, to US$8.5bn. The company as a whole grew 45% to US$13.4bn, because Client and Gaming fell 8%. AMD says Anthropic, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure are running models on its first Helios racks.[2][5]

**Supermicro**, which builds servers and whole racks, shrank 15.5% in the September 2025 quarter, then grew 93–123% in each of the next three and 298% in the latest. In August it had guided US$14.5–15.5bn for the quarter; on 20 October it raised that to US$18.5–19.5bn, “primarily due to increased demand for AI platforms”, and reported US$19.9bn.[6][3][7][8]

**Figure: Supermicro's sales grew 298% in a year; AMD's data-centre chips and Arista's switches grew fastest in the latest quarter too**

*Revenue growth on the same quarter a year earlier, %, calendar Q2 2025 to Q3 2026*

|  | Supermicro | AMD Data Center | Arista |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Q2 25 | 7.5 | 14.3 | 30.4 |
| Q3 25 | -15.5 | 22.3 | 27.5 |
| Q4 25 | 123.4 | 39.4 | 28.9 |
| Q1 26 | 122.7 | 57.2 | 35.1 |
| Q2 26 | 93.2 | 107.3 | 37.7 |
| Q3 26 | 297.5 | 96.9 | 58.5 |

Source: Arista, AMD and Supermicro quarterly results releases (8-K Exhibit 99.1); TechBag arithmetic where a release gives only the two values · as of 3 November 2026 · AMD: Data Center segment only. Supermicro's quarters are its fiscal Q4 2025 to Q1 2027; its latest is preliminary and unaudited

## Who keeps the margin

Gross margin is what is left of each dollar of sales after paying for the goods sold: parts, manufacturing and freight. It differs because the three sell different things. AMD designs chips and has them made by contract manufacturers; it kept 53.9% (56% on its adjusted measure). Nvidia, whose GPUs fill many AI servers, kept 75.0% in its latest reported quarter, to 26 July.[2][9] Arista builds switches around chips from what it calls “a predominant merchant silicon vendor”, has them made by third parties and sells its own operating software on them; it kept 63.6%.[1] Supermicro buys the processors, GPUs and memory and assembles them into servers and racks. Its cost of sales was US$17.4bn of its US$19.9bn, leaving 12.7%.[3]

**Figure: Of each US$100 of sales, the chip and network makers kept US$54 to US$75; the server builder kept US$13**

*Gross profit and cost of sales as a share of revenue, %, latest reported quarter (GAAP)*

Nvidia

75%

25%

Arista

64%

36%

AMD

54%

46%

Supermicro

87%

|  | Gross profit | Cost of sales |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Nvidia | 75 | 25 |
| Arista | 63.6 | 36.4 |
| AMD | 53.9 | 46.1 |
| Supermicro | 12.7 | 87.3 |

Source: Company results releases: Nvidia (quarter to 26 July 2026), Arista, AMD and Supermicro (quarter to 30 September 2026) · as of 3 November 2026 · Nvidia had not reported its quarter to late October by 4 November

TechBag countSame gross profit, 5.5 times the sales

Supermicro’s US$19.95bn of sales was 5.45 times Arista’s US$3.66bn; its gross profit, US$2.54bn, was 1.09 times Arista’s US$2.33bn. Arista’s gross margin was 5.0 times Supermicro’s (63.6% against 12.7%).[1][3]

The thin margin also moves the most. Supermicro’s fell from 9.5% to 6.3% over the second half of 2025, then rose to 17.5% in the June quarter against its own guidance of 8.2–8.4%, which it put down to “a favorable customer and product mix”. For the September quarter it guided 10.4–10.8% and reported 12.7%.[6][3][7][8][10] Arista’s stayed between 61.9% and 65.2% in all six quarters.[4] AMD’s was 39.8% in the June 2025 quarter, after about US$800m of inventory and related charges tied to US export restrictions on its MI308 GPUs for China, and 51.7–54.3% in each quarter since.[5]

## What to watch

**The December quarter.** Arista guides US$3.9–4.0bn of revenue. AMD guides about US$17bn, plus or minus 3%, which it says is about 66% growth, at a non-GAAP gross margin of about 55%. Supermicro guides US$19.5–21.5bn and US$72–82bn for its year to June 2027, up from the US$65–72bn it gave in August.[1][2][3][10]

**The balance sheets.** Supermicro used US$434m of cash in its operations in the quarter. Its inventory rose to US$15.05bn from US$12.90bn in June and its receivables to US$9.69bn from US$6.13bn, against cash of US$6.9bn and US$8.6bn of bank debt and convertible notes.[3] Arista’s inventory rose to US$3.21bn from US$2.25bn at the end of 2025, and AMD’s to US$11.46bn from US$7.92bn.[1][2]

Our viewOur view: what a buyer of servers can take from this

At 12.7%, most of a server’s price is the parts inside it, so what a buyer pays for a GPU server follows what chips and memory cost the builder more than the builder’s own margin. The margins in the second chart are where pricing power sits; the next data points are Nvidia’s quarter to late October and the December quarters of these three.

How we did this

Figures as of 3 November 2026

Six quarters per company, each read from that quarter’s results release filed as Exhibit 99.1 to a Form 8-K on SEC EDGAR. Growth compares revenue with the same quarter a year earlier, as printed in the same release (Arista prints the rate; for AMD and Supermicro it is TechBag arithmetic on the two printed values). Gross margin is GAAP gross profit divided by revenue; AMD’s adjusted (non-GAAP) margins are named where used. AMD’s growth line is its Data Center segment; its margin is the whole company, because it does not report a margin by segment. Supermicro’s fiscal year ends on 30 June, so its fiscal quarters fall on the same calendar quarters; its 3 November figures are preliminary and unaudited. Not used: share-price moves after the 3 November results, for which we found no primary source, and any analyst estimate.

Spotted an error? Write to us; corrections are published at the foot of the piece.

Sources

1. [Arista Networks, Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results (8-K, Exhibit 99.1)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001596532/000159653226000252/ex991q326-earningsrelease.htm) — 3 November 2026
2. [AMD, Third Quarter 2026 Financial Results (8-K, Exhibit 99.1)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0000002488/000000248826000188/q32026991.htm) — 3 November 2026
3. [Supermicro, First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2027 Financial Results (8-K, Exhibit 99.1)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001375365/000137536526000026/exhibit991_20260930.htm) — 3 November 2026 Preliminary and unaudited, as the release states.
4. [Arista Networks, quarterly results releases for Q2 2025 to Q2 2026 (8-K, Exhibit 99.1), SEC EDGAR filing list](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=1596532&type=8-K) — 5 August 2025 to 4 August 2026
5. [AMD, quarterly results releases for Q2 2025 to Q2 2026 (8-K, Exhibit 99.1), SEC EDGAR filing list](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=2488&type=8-K) — 5 August 2025 to 4 August 2026 The Q2 2025 release gives the US$800m export-restriction charge.
6. [Supermicro, quarterly results releases for Q4 FY2025 to Q3 FY2026 (8-K, Exhibit 99.1), SEC EDGAR filing list](https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=1375365&type=8-K) — 5 August 2025 to 5 May 2026
7. [Supermicro, Fourth Quarter of Fiscal Year 2026 Preliminary Business Update (8-K, Exhibit 99.1)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1375365/000137536526000019/fq42026businessupdate.htm) — 21 July 2026
8. [Supermicro, First Quarter of Fiscal Year 2027 Preliminary Business Update (8-K, Exhibit 99.1)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1375365/000137536526000025/smcifirstquarterfy2027busi.htm) — 20 October 2026
9. [Nvidia, Financial Results for Second Quarter Fiscal 2027 (8-K, Exhibit 99.1)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1045810/000104581026000073/q2fy27pr.htm) — 26 August 2026
10. [Supermicro, Fourth Quarter and Full Fiscal Year 2026 Financial Results (8-K, Exhibit 99.1)](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1375365/000137536526000021/exhibit991_20260630.htm) — 11 August 2026
11. [The TechBag Journal: Big Tech's quarterly capex hit US$202bn, more than its operations brought in](https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/big-tech-ai-capex-quarterly-line) — 30 October 2026

**Disclosure.** TechBag is a software reseller: it earns a margin when a reader buys through it, including from vendors named here. The analysis is TechBag’s own; no vendor paid for or saw this piece before publication. Facts are labelled reported, TechBag count or our view.

**Read this next:** [Marvell to buy Lumentum for US$115bn; its shares fell 32% in three sessions](https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/marvell-lumentum-115bn-all-stock-deal) — Another supplier to the same build-out: Marvell offered US$115bn in shares for Lumentum, and its own shares fell 32% in three sessions.

Go deeper on TechBag

- [Microsoft Azure](https://www.thetechbag.com/microsoft/microsoft-azure) — one of five buyers AMD names on its first Helios racks
- [Google Cloud](https://www.thetechbag.com/google/google-cloud) — a cloud whose capex lands as revenue at chip, server and network makers
- [Big Tech's quarterly capex hit US$202bn](https://www.thetechbag.com/blog/big-tech-ai-capex-quarterly-line) — the spending that becomes these suppliers' revenue