F5, Inc. (FFIV) AI Stock Analysis

• Market Cap: $16.35B
• Dividend Yield: N/A
• Average Volume (3M): 656.50K
• Price to Earnings (P/E): 20.4
• Beta (1Y): 0.76
• Revenue Growth: 9.66%
• EPS Growth: 23.87%
• Country: US
• Employees: 6,114
• Sector: Technology
• Sector Strength: 88
• Industry: Software - Infrastructure
• EPS (TTM): 4.45
• Shares Outstanding: 56,519,270
• 10 Day Avg. Volume: 600,917
• 30 Day Avg. Volume: 656,505
• PEG Ratio: 1.13
• Price to Book (P/B): 5.21
• Price to Sales (P/S): 6.06
• P/FCF Ratio: 20.65
• Enterprise Value/Market Cap: 0.96
• Enterprise Value/Revenue: 5.01
• Enterprise Value/Gross Profit: 6.15
• Enterprise Value/Ebitda: 17.64
• 1Y Price Target: $320.43
• Price Target Upside: 10.76% Upside
• Rating Consensus: Hold
• Number of Analyst Covering: 10
• EPS Forecast (FY): 15.89
• Revenue Forecast (FY): $3.16B

• Rating: 75 Outperform
• Price Target: $318.00 ▲(9.92% Upside)
• Action: Reiterated Date: 03/14/26
• Date: Action: Reiterated 03/14/26

FFIV scores well on core fundamentals (high margins, strong ROE, robust free cash flow, and low leverage) and is supported by a strong earnings-call read-through with raised FY26 guidance. The score is tempered by recent TTM revenue contraction, only moderately positive technicals (below the 200-day with elevated stochastic), and a valuation that looks fair rather than clearly discounted (P/E ~20.4, no dividend yield provided).

Positive Factors

High margins & profitability

Sustained very high gross and operating margins plus strong ROE indicate durable pricing power and operational efficiency in application delivery and security. These structural profitability advantages fund R&D, product quality, and long-term competitive positioning across hybrid cloud environments.

Strong free cash flow & capital returns

Consistent high free cash flow provides durable funding for buybacks, strategic M&A, and product investment while limiting reliance on external financing. The cash conversion profile supports capital allocation flexibility and resilience through cyclical demand shifts in enterprise security spending.

Systems momentum & AI traction

Rapid AI-related customer wins and strong systems growth point to structural demand expansion for F5's data delivery and runtime security capabilities. This reinforces multi-cloud relevance, increases stickiness via integrated services, and supports a higher recurring revenue mix over time.

Negative Factors

Recent TTM revenue decline

A pronounced trailing‑12‑month revenue contraction signals a meaningful shortfall in top‑line momentum that can persist absent durable demand re-acceleration. Lower revenue scale can constrain R&D spending, reduce operating leverage, and make margin targets harder to sustain long term.

Software revenue weakness

Declines in software and perpetual license sales highlight execution and mix risks in the strategic shift to subscription/SaaS. Slower software growth undermines recurring revenue expansion, weakens predictability, and could delay the margin and cash benefits of a fully subscription-led model.

Supply & component cost risk

Elevated memory prices and supply-chain exposure can structurally pressure product gross margins, especially for appliance-heavy systems. Persistent input-cost inflation or supply constraints could erode margin advantage, complicate earnings targets, and force higher product prices or margin tradeoffs.

F5, Inc. Business Overview & Revenue Model

Company Description

F5, Inc. provides multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions for the security, performance, and availability of network applications, servers, and storage systems. The company's multi-cloud application security and delivery solutions enable its customers to develop, deploy, operate, secure, and govern applications in any architecture, from on-premises to the public cloud. It offers application security and delivery products, including BIG-IP appliances and VIPRION chassis and related software modules and software-only Virtual Editions; Local Traffic Manager and DNS Services; Advanced Firewall Manager and Policy Enforcement Manager that leverage the unique performance characteristics of its hardware and software architecture; Application Security Manager and Access Policy Manager; NGINX Plus and NGINX Controller; Shape Defense and Enterprise Defense; Secure Web Gateway, and Silverline DDoS and Application security offerings; and online fraud and abuse prevention solutions. The company also provides a range of professional services, including consulting, training, installation, maintenance, and other technical support services. F5, Inc. sells its products to large enterprise businesses, public sector institutions, governments, and service providers through distributors, value-added resellers, managed service providers, and systems integrators in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific region. It has partnerships with public cloud providers, such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. The company was formerly known as F5 Networks, Inc. and changed its name to F5, Inc. in November 2021. F5, Inc. was incorporated in 1996 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington.

How the Company Makes Money

F5 primarily makes money by selling and subscribing customers to application delivery and security products and associated support services. Key revenue streams include: (1) Product revenue: Sales of F5 software and, where applicable, purpose-built appliance systems that run F5’s application delivery and security capabilities (historically associated with BIG‑IP deployments). (2) Software subscriptions and SaaS: Recurring revenue from time‑based subscriptions for F5 software (including NGINX offerings) and from SaaS delivered through F5 Distributed Cloud Services (e.g., web application and API security, distributed app delivery, and related cloud security services). (3) Support and services: Ongoing recurring revenue from maintenance, technical support, and customer service contracts tied to deployed F5 products and subscriptions. F5’s revenue is influenced by enterprise and service-provider demand for application performance, reliability, and security across hybrid and multi‑cloud architectures, as well as by the company’s shift toward software/subscription and SaaS models that increase recurring revenue. Significant partnership details: null.

F5, Inc. Financial Statement Overview

Summary

Strong profitability and quality: very high gross margin (~82%), solid operating/net margins (~25%/~22%), healthy ROE (~19–20%), robust free cash flow (~$0.86–$0.91B) and low leverage (debt-to-equity ~0.06). Offsetting this strength, TTM revenue is down (-24.8%) and TTM free cash flow growth is slightly negative (~-5%), signaling near-term momentum risk.

Income Statement

Profitability is a clear strength: the latest period shows very high gross margin (~82%) and solid operating and net profitability (operating margin ~25%, net margin ~22%), with multi-year margin expansion versus 2022–2023 levels. Annual results also show steady top-line improvement from 2021 through 2025. The main concern is the TTM (Trailing-Twelve-Months) revenue decline (-24.8%), which signals a recent growth setback despite continued strong earnings.

Balance Sheet

The balance sheet looks conservative with low leverage: debt-to-equity is ~0.06 in the most recent annual period (down materially from ~0.25–0.28 in 2021–2022), and total debt is modest relative to the equity base. Returns are healthy, with return on equity around ~19–20% recently, indicating efficient use of capital. A watch item is that total assets and equity are fairly stable rather than rapidly compounding, so future value creation relies more on sustained profitability and growth re-acceleration than on balance-sheet expansion.

Cash Flow

Cash generation is strong and consistent: free cash flow is high (roughly $0.86–$0.91B recently) and closely tracks net income (free cash flow to net income ~0.95), which supports earnings quality. The weaker spot is momentum—TTM (Trailing-Twelve-Months) free cash flow growth is slightly negative (~-5%) after strong growth in prior years, suggesting some recent pressure. Operating cash flow remains solid in absolute dollars, but the provided coverage indicator is lower than ideal, tempering the score.

Breakdown	TTM	Sep 2025	Sep 2024	Sep 2023	Sep 2022	Sep 2021
Income Statement
Total Revenue	3.14B	3.09B	2.82B	2.81B	2.70B	2.60B
Gross Profit	2.56B	2.51B	2.26B	2.22B	2.16B	2.11B
EBITDA	892.30M	883.83M	774.24M	650.66M	527.31M	509.45M
Net Income	705.99M	692.38M	566.78M	394.95M	322.16M	331.24M
Balance Sheet
Total Assets	6.29B	6.32B	5.61B	5.25B	5.28B	5.00B
Cash, Cash Equivalents and Short-Term Investments	1.20B	1.34B	1.07B	803.32M	884.57M	910.61M
Total Debt	502.58M	492.54M	465.35M	520.55M	937.05M	1.01B
Total Liabilities	2.75B	2.73B	2.48B	2.45B	2.81B	2.64B
Stockholders Equity	3.54B	3.59B	3.13B	2.80B	2.47B	2.36B
Cash Flow
Free Cash Flow	861.19M	906.41M	762.01M	599.23M	409.01M	614.54M
Operating Cash Flow	906.10M	949.67M	792.42M	653.41M	442.63M	645.20M
Investing Cash Flow	-220.07M	-219.49M	-59.21M	36.39M	218.12M	-445.33M
Financing Cash Flow	-643.15M	-464.81M	-457.00M	-653.30M	-476.51M	-468.28M

F5, Inc. Technical Analysis

• Technical Analysis Sentiment: Positive
• Last Price: 289.31
• 50DMA: Positive
• 100DMA: Positive
• 200DMA: Positive
• MACD: Negative
• RSI: Neutral
• STOCH: Negative

Evaluating momentum and price trends is crucial in stock analysis to make informed investment decisions. For FFIV, the sentiment is Positive. The current price of 289.31 is above the 20-day moving average (MA) of 279.86, above the 50-day MA of 274.50, and above the 200-day MA of 287.03, indicating a bullish trend. The MACD of 3.93 indicates Negative momentum. The RSI at 58.27 is Neutral, neither overbought nor oversold. The STOCH value of 84.46 is Negative, not indicating any strong overbought or oversold conditions. Overall, these indicators collectively point to a Positive sentiment for FFIV.

F5, Inc. Peers Comparison

Name	Overall Rating	Market Cap	P/E Ratio	ROE	Dividend Yield	Revenue Growth	EPS Growth
FFIV	75 Outperform	$16.35B	20.43	20.29%	―	9.66%	23.87%
PANW	74 Outperform	$136.28B	71.18	15.49%	―	15.30%	-60.71%
FTNT	72 Outperform	$61.74B	31.84	123.64%	―	14.78%	22.52%
CRWD	69 Neutral	$112.04B	-686.05	-4.68%	―	22.05%	-341.24%
ZS	66 Neutral	$24.72B	-232.70	-3.48%	―	23.24%	-8.83%
Sector *	61 Neutral	$37.18B	12.37	-10.20%	1.83%	8.50%	-7.62%
NET	57 Neutral	$74.78B	―	-7.48%	―	28.06%	-7.44%

F5, Inc. Corporate Events

F5 Shareholders Approve 2026 Incentive Plan and Governance Items

On March 12, 2026, F5 shareholders approved the 2026 Incentive Award Plan at the fiscal 2025 annual meeting, authorizing 3,500,000 new shares of common stock for issuance and rolling over remaining shares from the prior plan. On the same date, the board adopted a new Non-Employee Director Compensation Program, signaling continued use of equity and structured compensation to attract and retain key leadership and align incentives with shareholder interests.

At the annual meeting, shareholders also elected eight directors to serve until the 2026 annual meeting, approved on an advisory basis the compensation of named executive officers, and ratified PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as F5’s independent auditor for fiscal 2026. The voting results, with more than 52 million shares represented, reflect broad shareholder support for the company’s governance, executive pay practices, and long-term equity compensation strategy.

The most recent analyst rating on (FFIV) stock is a Buy with a $335.00 price target. To see the full list of analyst forecasts on F5, Inc. stock, see the FFIV Stock Forecast page.