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Waters (WAT) FY2025 results: revenue $3.2 billion, up 7.0% on the year

Waters Corp. (WAT) reported revenue of $3.2 billion for fiscal 2025, the year ended 31 December 2025, up 7.0% on the year before. Net income was $643 million, up 0.8%, and diluted earnings per share $10.76. The figures are the company's own, from the 10-K it filed with the SEC on 23 February 2026.

Revenue
$3.2 billion
+7.0% on the year
FY2018FY2025
Operating margin
25.4%
27.9% a year earlier
FY2018FY2025
Net income
$643 million
+0.8% on the year
FY2018FY2025
Diluted EPS
$10.76
+0.5% on the year
FY2018FY2025

this yearthe year beforeHover a bar for its figure.

The year in brief

What management said about the year

Guidance figures: 13 new.

  • Fourth-quarter sales at top of range: Fourth-quarter sales were $932 million, up 7% as reported and 6% in constant currency, from $873 million a year earlier. Management said this landed at the high end of the reported growth guidance range.
  • Full-year sales grew 7%: Full-year 2025 sales were $3,165 million, up 7% as reported and in constant currency, from $2,958 million in 2024.
  • Full-year non-GAAP EPS up 11%: Full-year non-GAAP EPS rose 11% to $13.13 from $11.86. Fourth-quarter non-GAAP EPS was $4.53 against $4.10 a year earlier.
  • Adjusted operating margin 35.2% vs 35.5%: Adjusted operating margin was 35.2% in the quarter against 35.5% a year earlier. GAAP operating margin was 29.0% against 33.5%.
  • Free cash flow lower for the year: Adjusted free cash flow was $677,318 thousand for the year against $744,307 thousand, and $125,205 thousand in the quarter against $188,035 thousand.
Read the Q4 FY2025 earnings call summary

From this 10-K

Waters makes analytical instruments and the consumables and services that go with them, used to detect, identify, monitor and measure the chemical, physical and biological composition of materials, and to predict the suitability and stability of fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, water, polymers, metals and viscous liquids in industrial, consumer goods and healthcare products. There are two operating segments. Waters covers high-performance and ultra-performance liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, light scattering and field-flow fractionation instruments sold as Wyatt, and precision chemistry consumables with their services. TA covers thermal analysis, rheometry and calorimetry instrument systems and their service. Waters Corporation was organised in Delaware in 1991 as a holding company for its operating subsidiary and went public in November 1995. It employed approximately 7,900 people at the end of 2025, about 39 percent of them in the United States, none of them unionised.

Waters Corp., the 10-K for 2025

Waters makes analytical instruments and the consumables and services that go with them, used to detect, identify, monitor and measure the chemical, physical and biological composition of materials, and to predict the suitability and stability of fine chemicals, pharmaceuticals, water, polymers, metals and viscous liquids in industrial, consumer goods and healthcare products. There are two operating segments. Waters covers high-performance and ultra-performance liquid chromatography, mass spectrometry, light scattering and field-flow fractionation instruments sold as Wyatt, and precision chemistry consumables with their services. TA covers thermal analysis, rheometry and calorimetry instrument systems and their service. Waters Corporation was organised in Delaware in 1991 as a holding company for its operating subsidiary and went public in November 1995. It employed approximately 7,900 people at the end of 2025, about 39 percent of them in the United States, none of them unionised.

Liquid chromatography

HPLC is the standard technique for identifying and analysing the constituent components of chemicals and other materials, and the filing states the company believes its performance allows a high proportion of all known chemicals to be separated, identified and quantified. The biggest end-use markets are pharmaceutical and life sciences, where it is used to understand diseases, identify new drugs, develop manufacturing methods and assure quality. Ultra-performance liquid chromatography is the company's own higher-performance variant, and the two are referred to together as LC.

Mass spectrometry

Mass spectrometry identifies unknown compounds, quantifies known materials and works out the structural and chemical properties of molecules by measuring the masses of molecules converted into ions. The filing describes the company as a technology and market leader in these instruments and their components, which are typically integrated with complementary systems including liquid chromatography, chemical electrophoresis and gas chromatography.

Thermal analysis, and the consumables

Thermal analysis measures the physical and thermodynamic characteristics of materials as temperature changes, covering heat flow, physical state, weight, dimension and mechanical and electrical properties. It is used in the development, production and characterisation of materials in plastics, chemicals, automobiles, pharmaceuticals and electronics, with rheometry instruments often alongside. Separately from the instruments, precision chemistry consumables, chiefly separation columns, are a line of their own.

Customers and the field organisation

Customers are pharmaceutical accounts, other industrial accounts, universities and government agencies. Pharmaceutical is the largest sector, taking in multinational pharmaceutical companies, generic drug manufacturers, contract research organisations and biotechnology companies; the other industrial customers are chemical and polymer manufacturers, food and beverage companies and environmental testing laboratories. Instrument purchases often depend on customers' capital spending, or on funding for academic, government and research institutions, which fluctuates year to year. The filing describes one of the largest direct sales and service organisations focused exclusively on these workflows, with 82 sales offices worldwide at the end of 2025 and approximately 4,300 field representatives, against 4,200 in 2024. Sales representatives own the account relationships while service representatives install instruments, train customers and work to minimise downtime.

Where it is made

The company oversees each stage of production of its instruments, columns and chemical reagents. Part of the liquid chromatography assembly happens at Milford, Massachusetts, which does machining, assembly and testing. Electronic components such as computers, monitors and circuit boards are outsourced, as is the manufacture of certain liquid chromatography systems to contract manufacturers in Singapore, and the Singapore entity manages all Asian outsourced manufacturing and the distribution of all products from Asia. Columns are made and distributed mainly at Taunton, Massachusetts and Wexford, Ireland, with the Taunton expansion completed in February 2024 at a cost of approximately $251 million incurred between 2018 and 2024. Taunton processes, sizes and treats the silica and polymeric media packed into columns, solid phase extraction cartridges and bulk containers at both sites.

Competition, and one change since the year end

In the Waters markets the named competitors are Agilent Technologies, Shimadzu, Bruker, Danaher and Thermo Fisher Scientific, and in the TA markets PerkinElmer, NETZSCH-Geraetebau, Malvern PANalytical, Spectris and Anton-Paar. The consumables market is more fragmented, with competition from chemical companies producing column sorbents and small specialists that pack purchased sorbents into columns. On 9 February 2026 the company completed the acquisition of the BD Biosciences and Diagnostic Solutions business, structured as a Reverse Morris Trust in which that business was spun off to BD shareholders and merged with a wholly owned Waters subsidiary. Its 2025 results are not in the 2025 consolidated figures.

From Waters Corporation's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025. The filing carries no Item 1 or Item 7 heading in its body, using a cross-reference index instead, so nothing here was located by section name. The filing

Written from the 10-K filed 23 February 2026: read the full 10-K.

The four quarters: Q1 FY2025 · Q2 FY2025 · Q3 FY2025 · Q4 FY2025

Income statement (profit and loss)

$ millionFY2025FY2024FY2023On the yearLast 8 years
Revenue3,1652,9582,956+7.0%
Cost of revenue1,2891,2001,195+7.4%
Gross profit1,8761,7581,761+6.7%
Gross margin59.3%59.4%59.6%
Research and development196183175+6.9%
Selling, general and administrative830690736+20.3%
Operating income803826818-2.9%
Operating margin25.4%27.9%27.7%
Interest expense69.589.798.9-22.4%
Pre-tax income755755736+0.0%
Income tax11211794.0-4.1%
Effective tax rate14.9%15.5%12.8%
Net income643638642+0.8%
Net margin20.3%21.6%21.7%
Diluted EPS$10.76$10.71$10.84+0.5%
$ million except per share.
Read moreFree cash flow is operating cash flow less capital expenditure; the effective tax rate is income tax over pre-tax income; margins are the line over revenue. Gross profit is revenue less cost of revenue, and operating income is revenue less the company's own total costs, where the statement does not print those lines. Those four are arithmetic on the filed numbers; everything else is as filed. Money is in $ million as the company files it, or in $ billion by the switch above the tables; per share figures and share counts are as they are.

Cash flow

$ millionFY2025FY2024FY2023On the yearLast 8 years
Operating cash flow653762603-14.4%
Capital expenditure113142161-20.9%
Free cash flow540620442-12.9%
Free cash flow margin17.1%20.9%15.0%
Cash from investing-152-143-1,442
Cash from financing-237-697755
Depreciation and amortisation206192166+7.4%
Share-based compensation54.144.736.9+21.1%
Buybacks14.713.570.3+8.3%
Diluted shares, weighted60m60m59m+0.3%
Shares outstanding at period end60m59m59m+0.3%

Balance sheet

$ millionFY2025FY2024FY2023On the yearLast 8 years
Shareholders' equity2,5611,8291,150+40.1%
Debt1,4101,6302,360-13.5%
Operating lease liabilities52.550.358.9+4.4%
Other liabilities1,0531,0451,058+0.7%
Total liabilities and equity5,0774,5544,627+11.5%
Fixed assets642651639-1.4%
Goodwill1,3401,2961,305+3.4%
Intangible assets558568629-1.7%
Investmentsn/a0.90.9
Cash and equivalents588325395+80.7%
Receivables829733702+13.0%
Inventory572477516+19.9%
Other assets547502439+9.0%
Total assets5,0774,5544,627+11.5%

10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025, filed 23 February 2026: the filing.