Qualys (QLYS) Posts Double-Digit Growth And Still Raises The Bar

On August 4, Qualys Inc. (NASDAQ: QLYS ) reported second-quarter revenue of $182.2 million, up 11% from a year earlier, and used the moment to raise its own bar for the rest of 2026. A company that was already growing at a healthy clip just told Wall Street it expects to grow even more than it previously promised, and it backed that up with a jump in cash generation that outpaced revenue by a wide margin.

Qualys grew revenue from $164.1 million to $182.2 million year over year, and the profit line grew even faster. GAAP operating income rose 20% to $61.9 million, pushing the operating margin to 34% from 31% a year earlier. Non-GAAP operating income climbed 16% to $81.4 million, a 45% margin compared to 43% in the same period last year. Adjusted EBITDA rose 14% to $83.8 million, a 46% margin. Operating cash flow told the sharpest story of the quarter, jumping 77% to $59.6 million from $33.8 million, which lifted cash flow as a share of revenue to 33% from 21%.

On the back of that quarter, Qualys raised its full-year revenue guidance to a range of $732.0 million to $738.0 million, up from a prior range of $721.0 million to $727.0 million. Full-year non-GAAP earnings per share guidance moved up to $7.74 to $7.88, from $7.44 to $7.65, and GAAP earnings per share guidance rose to $5.76 to $5.90. The company also pointed to expanding platform reach during the quarter, including a FedRAMP High Authorization for its TotalCloud solution, sponsored by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, which brings cloud-native application protection capabilities onto the FedRAMP Marketplace for federal and other regulated customers.

The guidance raise came with a smaller growth number attached. Third quarter revenue guidance of $185.5 million to $187.5 million implies growth of 9% to 10%, down from the 11% Qualys just posted, and the full-year guidance range of 9% to 10% growth points the same direction. The gap between GAAP and non-GAAP results also widened this quarter, with GAAP net income of $52.4 million sitting well below the $69.2 million non-GAAP figure, a distance driven by adjustments that GAAP accounting does not recognize.

Qualys leaned on a busy stretch of announcements to make its case for the next leg of growth, including a Converge partnership tied to cyber insurance discounts, four international ROCon customer conferences, and Frost & Sullivan recognition in cloud and application runtime security. Those are the kinds of announcements that build a longer-term pipeline rather than move the needle immediately, and the guidance itself suggests management is not pricing in an acceleration from here.