Healthcare product and device company Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) beat Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q2 CY2026, with sales up 13% year on year to $12.59 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $1.31 per share was 2.6% above analysts’ consensus estimates.
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Abbott Laboratories (ABT) Q2 CY2026 Highlights:
- Revenue: $12.59 billion vs analyst estimates of $12.45 billion (13% year-on-year growth, 1.1% beat)
- Adjusted EPS: $1.31 vs analyst estimates of $1.28 (2.6% beat)
- Management slightly raised its full-year Adjusted EPS guidance to $5.53 at the midpoint
- Operating Margin: 13.4%, down from 18.4% in the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $155.5 billion
"Our second-quarter results reflect the momentum we are building," said Robert B. Ford, chairman and chief executive officer, Abbott.
Company Overview
With roots dating back to 1888 when founder Dr. Wallace Abbott began producing precise, dosage-form medications, Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT) develops and sells a diverse range of healthcare products including medical devices, diagnostics, nutrition products, and branded generic pharmaceuticals.
Revenue Growth
A company’s long-term sales performance can indicate its overall quality. Even a bad business can shine for one or two quarters, but a top-tier one grows for years. Regrettably, Abbott Laboratories’s sales grew at a tepid 3% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This wasn’t a great result, but there are still things to like about Abbott Laboratories.
Long-term growth is the most important, but within healthcare, a half-decade historical view may miss new innovations or demand cycles. Abbott Laboratories’s annualized revenue growth of 7% over the last two years is above its five-year trend, which is encouraging. 
This quarter, Abbott Laboratories reported year-on-year revenue growth of 13%, and its $12.59 billion of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 1.1%.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 13.6% over the next 12 months, an improvement versus the last two years. This projection is particularly noteworthy for a company of its scale and suggests its newer products and services will fuel better top-line performance.
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Adjusted Operating Margin
Abbott Laboratories has been an efficient company over the last five years. It was one of the more profitable businesses in the healthcare sector, boasting an average adjusted operating margin of 23%.
Looking at the trend in its profitability, Abbott Laboratories’s adjusted operating margin decreased by 7.1 percentage points over the last five years. The company’s two-year trajectory also shows it failed to get its profitability back to the peak as its margin fell by 1.4 percentage points. This performance was poor no matter how you look at it - it shows its expenses were rising and it couldn’t pass those costs onto its customers.
This quarter, Abbott Laboratories generated an adjusted operating margin profit margin of 13.4%, down 9.5 percentage points year on year. This contraction shows it was less efficient because its expenses grew faster than its revenue.
Earnings Per Share
We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable.
Abbott Laboratories’s unimpressive 1.3% annual EPS growth over the last five years aligns with its revenue performance. This tells us it maintained its per-share profitability as it expanded.
In Q2, Abbott Laboratories reported adjusted EPS of $1.31, up from $1.26 in the same quarter last year. This print beat analysts’ estimates by 2.6%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Abbott Laboratories’s full-year EPS to grow 9.6% from $5.26 to $5.77.
Key Takeaways from Abbott Laboratories’s Q2 Results
It was good to see Abbott Laboratories narrowly top analysts’ revenue expectations this quarter. We were also happy its full-year EPS guidance narrowly outperformed Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this print had some key positives. The stock traded up 3.3% to $93.25 immediately following the results.
Is Abbott Laboratories an attractive investment opportunity right now? What happened in the latest quarter matters, but not as much as longer-term business quality and valuation, when deciding whether to invest in this stock. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).
