ePlus Sees FY26 Sales Boom As AI Is ‘Becoming Embedded’
‘What we’re seeing is that AI is no longer a future conversation for most organizations. It’s becoming embedded in how they think about infrastructure, data management, cybersecurity, and operational efficiency,’ says Mark Marron, ePlus CEO. ‘Customers are realizing they need modern environments capable of supporting these workloads, and that’s creating meaningful opportunities across our business.’
Solution provider ePlus saw double-digit sales growth in its most recent fiscal year as rising enterprise demand for AI, infrastructure, security and cloud modernization fueled growth, while executives said AI-related investments are shaping customer priorities across networking, data center infrastructure and services.
During the Herndon, Va.-based solution provider’s fourth-quarter and full-year earnings call Thursday, CEO Mark Marron said FY26 was defined by the company’s ability to adapt quickly to evolving customer requirements while helping enterprises prepare for the next wave of AI transformation.
“What we’re seeing is that AI is no longer a future conversation for most organizations. It’s becoming embedded in how they think about infrastructure, data management, cybersecurity, and operational efficiency,” Marron said. “Customers are realizing they need modern environments capable of supporting these workloads, and that’s creating meaningful opportunities across our business.”
[Related: Driving AI Transformation: The 2026 CRN AI 100]
Marron said the company, which is on CRN’s 2026 Tech Elite 150 list, delivered double-digit growth across key sectors, while gross billings reached a record $3.8 billion in its latest fiscal year, up by 17 percent. ePlus defines gross billings as the “total dollar value of customer purchases of goods and services including shipping charges during the period, net of customer returns, credit memos, and sales or other taxes. Gross billings include the transaction values for certain sales transactions that are recognized on a net basis, and, therefore, include amounts that will not be recognized as revenue.”
Net sales for the company climbed about 22 percent to $2.4 billion. Gross profit for the year increased by 20 percent to $616.1 million and adjusted EBITDA rose 49.5 percent to $204.8 million. Despite reporting the growth, ePlus stock on Friday was down nearly 10 percent on Friday to $80.11 per share.
“The momentum we experienced wasn’t isolated to one area,” said Marron (pictured above). “We saw strength in cloud, in security, in networking and particularly in infrastructure projects tied to AI readiness. Organizations are evaluating how they deploy compute resources, how they secure data and how they scale intelligently. That broader digital transformation activity continues to be one of the biggest drivers of technology investment across our customer base.”
He added that operational improvements and cost management also contributed to stronger profitability.
“We continued improving the scalability of the platform while staying disciplined around expenses and resource allocation,” he said. “At the same time, we’re leveraging AI internally to improve efficiency and help our teams move faster and make better decisions. We think there’s a long runway for using these technologies both within our own operations and in helping customers modernize theirs.”
Darren Raiguel, president and chief operating officer, said client discussions more and more revolve around innovation with practical deployment.
“Customers are excited about AI, but they’re also being thoughtful and deliberate,” Raiguel said. “They want to understand where the immediate return is, how to build secure environments and how to ensure their infrastructure can support increasingly complex workloads. That plays directly into our strengths because we sit at the intersection of infrastructure, services, security and lifecycle management.
With customer engagement remaining strong, he said AI-related initiatives have expanded as enterprises begin the early phase of a much larger AI-driven refresh cycle.
“What we’re finding is that AI projects tend to have a multiplier effect,” he added. “A customer may initially come in focused on compute or storage requirements, but very quickly the discussion expands into networking, cybersecurity, cloud architecture and managed services. These aren’t isolated technology decisions anymore. AI is driving broader enterprise transformation conversations, and customers are looking for partners that can help connect all of those pieces together.”
Still, some external risks remain, including the ongoing memory chip shortage and geopolitical instability that could impact supply chains and customer spending patterns.
“We are mindful of the macro environment and some of the challenges that continue to exist globally,” Marron said. “There are still supply constraints in certain areas, and geopolitical developments can create uncertainty. But when we look at the long-term demand environment, particularly around AI and digital transformation, we continue to feel very confident about the direction of the business.”
ePlus counts on a variety of technology vendors to drive sales, including products from Cisco Systems, which made up 29 percent of its total sales in FY26. Although revenue from Cisco products has steadily declined over the past three years, according to a March 29 regulatory filing. Products from other vendors including NetApp, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Juniper Networks, Dell, and Arista Networks made up 23 percent to 28 percent of net sales for the last three years, ePlus said in the filing.
The company said in the filing it had 4,200 customers that are primarily mid-market to large enterprises and state and local government institutions, including state and local education institutions. One customer, Verizon Communications, represented 24 percent of the company’s net sales in the latest fiscal year.