Worthington (NYSE:WOR) Reports Strong Q1 CY2026

Diversified industrial manufacturing company Worthington (NYSE:WOR) reported Q1 CY2026 results topping the market’s revenue expectations, with sales up 24.4% year on year to $378.7 million. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.98 per share was 1.9% above analysts’ consensus estimates.

Is now the time to buy Worthington? Find out by accessing our full research report, it’s free.

“We delivered another quarter of strong, resilient performance, achieving year-over-year growth in adjusted EPS and EBITDA for the sixth consecutive quarter,” said Worthington Enterprises President and CEO Joe Hayek.

Company Overview

Founded by a steel salesman, Worthington (NYSE:WOR) specializes in steel processing, pressure cylinders, and engineered cabs for commercial markets.

Revenue Growth

Reviewing a company’s long-term sales performance reveals insights into its quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but many enduring ones grow for years. Over the last five years, Worthington’s demand was weak and its revenue declined by 13.9% per year. This wasn’t a great result and is a sign of poor business quality.

Long-term growth is the most important, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss new industry trends or demand cycles. Worthington’s annualized revenue growth of 1.2% over the last two years is above its five-year trend, which is encouraging.

This quarter, Worthington reported robust year-on-year revenue growth of 24.4%, and its $378.7 million of revenue topped Wall Street estimates by 8.6%.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 5% over the next 12 months. Although this projection indicates its newer products and services will spur better top-line performance, it is still below the sector average.

ONE MORE THING: The $21 AI Application Stock Wall Street Forgot. While Wall Street obsesses over who’s building AI, one company is already using it to print money. And nobody’s paying attention.

AI chip stocks trade at ridiculous valuations. This company processes a trillion consumer signals monthly using AI and trades at a third of the price. The gap won’t last. The institutions will figure it out. You need to see this first. Read the FREE Report Before They Notice.

Operating Margin

Worthington was profitable over the last five years but held back by its large cost base. Its average operating margin of 3.8% was weak for an industrials business. This result isn’t too surprising given its low gross margin as a starting point.

Analyzing the trend in its profitability, Worthington’s operating margin decreased by 6.3 percentage points over the last five years. Worthington’s performance was poor no matter how you look at it - it shows that costs were rising and it couldn’t pass them onto its customers.

In Q1, Worthington generated an operating margin profit margin of 8.3%, up 1.5 percentage points year on year. The increase was encouraging, and because its operating margin rose more than its gross margin, we can infer it was more efficient with expenses such as marketing, R&D, and administrative overhead.

Earnings Per Share

Revenue trends explain a company’s historical growth, but the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) points to the profitability of that growth – for example, a company could inflate its sales through excessive spending on advertising and promotions.

Worthington’s EPS grew at 2.2% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. On the bright side, this performance was better than its 13.9% annualized revenue declines and tells us management adapted its cost structure in response to a challenging demand environment.

Diving into the nuances of Worthington’s earnings can give us a better understanding of its performance. A five-year view shows that Worthington has repurchased its stock, shrinking its share count by 6.7%. This tells us its EPS outperformed its revenue not because of increased operational efficiency but financial engineering, as buybacks boost per share earnings.

Like with revenue, we analyze EPS over a shorter period to see if we are missing a change in the business.

For Worthington, its two-year annual EPS declines of 26.7% show it’s continued to underperform. These results were bad no matter how you slice the data.

In Q1, Worthington reported adjusted EPS of $0.98, up from $0.91 in the same quarter last year. This print beat analysts’ estimates by 1.9%. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Worthington’s full-year EPS of $3.43 to grow 13.8%.

Key Takeaways from Worthington’s Q1 Results

We were impressed by how significantly Worthington blew past analysts’ revenue expectations this quarter. We were also glad its EBITDA outperformed Wall Street’s estimates. Zooming out, we think this quarter featured some important positives. The stock remained flat at $51.68 immediately following the results.

Is Worthington an attractive investment opportunity at the current price? If you’re making that decision, you should consider the bigger picture of valuation, business qualities, as well as the latest earnings. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).