Nebius beats quarterly revenue estimates on strong AI demand

Nov 12 (Reuters) - AI cloud company Nebius on Thursday topped Wall Street estimates for third-quarter revenue and projected $12 billion to $13 billion in sales for 2027, powered by booming demand for its cloud computing infrastructure.

The Amsterdam-based company reported revenue of $981 million for the quarter ended September 30, compared with analysts' average estimate of $907.5 million, according to data compiled by LSEG.

However, its 2026 revenue forecast range of $3 billion to $3.4 billion was slightly lower than market estimates of $3.37 billion at the midpoint.

The company expects to break even on a pre-tax basis by the end of 2027.

Nebius' results follow a strong showing from neocloud rival CoreWeave, which raised its annual revenue forecast on Tuesday and said it was targeting profitability on an adjusted basis in the first half of 2028.

Nebius said its customers committed to longer deals at higher prices in the third quarter and paid more money up front.

Those prepayments covered more than 100% of the capital spending associated with those contracts in the third quarter, including data center construction and networking, the company said.

(Reporting by Deborah Sophia in Bengaluru; Editing by Shreya Biswas)