Manufacturing company Dover (NYSE: DOV) reported Q1 CY2026 results exceeding the market’s revenue expectations, with sales up 10.1% year on year to $2.05 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $2.28 per share was in line with analysts’ consensus estimates.

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Dover's President and Chief Executive Officer, Richard J. Tobin, said, "We delivered a solid start to the year, with double-digit revenue growth driven by continued strength in our secular-growth-exposed end markets and improving conditions across the portfolio. Performance in the quarter was broad-based, reflecting solid execution by our teams and healthy underlying demand. Bookings rates were excellent in the quarter, with book-to-bill well above one in all five segments, underscoring the momentum across the portfolio and providing improved visibility and confidence to our forecast.

Company Overview

A company that manufactured critical equipment for the United States military during World War II, Dover (NYSE: DOV) manufactures engineered components and specialized equipment for numerous industries.

Revenue Growth

A company’s long-term sales performance is one signal of its overall quality. Even a bad business can shine for one or two quarters, but a top-tier one grows for years. Regrettably, Dover’s sales grew at a sluggish 3.7% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This was below our standard for the industrials sector and is a poor baseline for our analysis.

Long-term growth is the most important, but within industrials, a half-decade historical view may miss new industry trends or demand cycles. Dover’s annualized revenue growth of 4% over the last two years aligns with its five-year trend, suggesting its demand was consistently weak.

We can better understand the company’s sales dynamics by analyzing its organic revenue, which strips out one-time events like acquisitions and currency fluctuations that don’t accurately reflect its fundamentals. Over the last two years, Dover’s organic revenue averaged 2.3% year-on-year growth. Because this number is lower than its two-year revenue growth, we can see that some mixture of acquisitions and foreign exchange rates boosted its headline results.

This quarter, Dover reported year-on-year revenue growth of 10.1%, and its $2.05 billion of revenue exceeded Wall Street’s estimates by 2.4%.

Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 4.6% over the next 12 months, similar to its two-year rate. This projection is underwhelming and implies its newer products and services will not accelerate its top-line performance yet.

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Operating Margin

Operating margin is an important measure of profitability as it shows the portion of revenue left after accounting for all core expenses – everything from the cost of goods sold to advertising and wages. It’s also useful for comparing profitability across companies with different levels of debt and tax rates because it excludes interest and taxes.

Dover has been a well-oiled machine over the last five years. It demonstrated elite profitability for an industrials business, boasting an average operating margin of 16.1%. This result isn’t surprising as its high gross margin gives it a favorable starting point.

Looking at the trend in its profitability, Dover’s operating margin rose by 1 percentage points over the last five years, as its sales growth gave it operating leverage.

This quarter, Dover generated an operating margin profit margin of 14.9%, in line with the same quarter last year. This indicates the company’s cost structure has recently been stable.

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.

Dover’s EPS grew at 10.1% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years, higher than its 3.7% annualized revenue growth. This tells us the company became more profitable on a per-share basis as it expanded.

We can take a deeper look into Dover’s earnings to better understand the drivers of its performance. As we mentioned earlier, Dover’s operating margin was flat this quarter but expanded by 1 percentage points over the last five years. On top of that, its share count shrank by 6.2%. These are positive signs for shareholders because improving profitability and share buybacks turbocharge EPS growth relative to revenue growth.

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

For Dover, its two-year annual EPS growth of 5.8% was lower than its five-year trend. We hope its growth can accelerate in the future.

In Q1, Dover reported adjusted EPS of $2.28, up from $2.05 in the same quarter last year. This print was close to analysts’ estimates. We also like to analyze expected EPS growth based on Wall Street analysts’ consensus projections, but there is insufficient data.

Key Takeaways from Dover’s Q1 Results

We were impressed by how significantly Dover blew past analysts’ EBITDA expectations this quarter. We were also glad its revenue outperformed Wall Street’s estimates. On the other hand, its adjusted operating income missed. Overall, this print had some key positives. The stock traded up 1.6% to $219.68 immediately following the results.

Dover may have had a good quarter, but does that mean you should invest right now? When making that decision, it’s important to consider its valuation, business qualities, as well as what has happened in the latest quarter. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).