Palantir Shares Surge 12% After U.S. Commercial Revenue Jumps 149% in Second Quarter

Palantir Technologies reported second-quarter results Monday that significantly beat analyst expectations, with revenue climbing 93% year-over-year to $1.94 billion against a consensus estimate of $1.80 billion, sending shares up 12% in after-hours trading.

Earnings per share came in at 41 cents on an adjusted basis, topping the 35-cent figure analysts had forecast. Net income reached $1.07 billion, or 41 cents per share, compared with approximately $329 million, or 13 cents per share, in the same quarter a year ago.

The standout figure was U.S. commercial revenue, which surged 149% from a year ago to $764 million. When accounting for compounding, that segment has grown 380% since 2024, the company said. U.S. government revenue grew 90% year-over-year to $809 million.

"Forget consensus," CEO Alex Karp told CNBC's Seema Mody in an exclusive interview. "To my knowledge, no businesses at our scale has even grown half this much."

Palantir also raised its full-year revenue guidance to between $8.15 billion and $8.16 billion, up from prior guidance of $7.65 billion to $7.66 billion. The company said it now expects U.S. commercial revenue "in excess of" $3.42 billion for 2026, up from a prior outlook of $3.22 billion.

The company's remaining U.S. commercial deal value more than doubled year-over-year to $6.24 billion, a figure that analysts typically watch as a leading indicator of future revenue momentum.

Karp said the strong growth trajectory "looks like this is going to go on for at least another 18 months."

The results arrive as Palantir's stock had been under pressure, shedding 29% this year amid investor concerns that enterprise demand for AI software could plateau. Monday's report directly challenged that narrative.

Karp, a vocal advocate for open-weight AI models, has been particularly outspoken about competition with Chinese AI tools. Last month, he and Palantir joined other technology companies in signing a letter urging the U.S. government not to restrict open-weight models. "The way we win in America is we compete, and our open models are going to have to become as good as Chinese open models," he said.

The quarter also lands amid a broader conversation about how AI-era earnings are being reported across the technology sector. For context, S&P 500 earnings growth for the most recent quarter reached approximately 48% year-over-year, according to LSEG — though analysts note that figure is significantly inflated by paper investment gains in private AI companies, particularly OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX, held by Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet. Stripping out those gains, aggregate S&P 500 earnings growth falls to closer to 29%, according to Tajinder Dhillon, LSEG's head of earnings and equity research. Palantir's gains, by contrast, stem from software contracts and recurring commercial deals rather than mark-to-market investment adjustments.

With a raised guidance range and accelerating commercial bookings, Palantir now faces the question of whether demand will continue to broaden beyond its government base — and whether U.S. enterprise AI adoption can sustain the growth rate Karp projected in the months ahead.

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