On June 08, 2026, Hims & Hers Health Inc HIMS shares rose 3.7% today to a current price of $27.17. The stock has traded within a 52-week range of $13.74 to $70.43, illustrating a significant decline from its recent highs.
GF Value™ verdict: Current price is $27.17 versus GF Value™ of $37.93, indicating a 28.4% upside.GF Score™ of 81/100, suggesting a strong overall performance.Notable signal: Insiders sold $5.5M worth of shares while buying $1.2M in the last three months. Is HIMS Overvalued or Undervalued? The current price of Hims & Hers Health Inc at $27.17 presents a significant margin of safety when compared to its GF Value™ of $37.93, which indicates that the stock is undervalued by approximately 28.4%. This undervaluation suggests a potential investment opportunity, although caution is warranted given the company's financial performance and recent insider selling activity. The GF Valuation label categorizes HIMS as "Modestly Undervalued," which reinforces the notion that while there is upside potential, investors should be aware of underlying risks that might affect stock performance.
GF Value™ is GuruFocus' proprietary measure of intrinsic value, calculated from historical trading multiples, past business growth, and future performance estimates. The significant gap between the current price and GF Value™ indicates that the market may not fully recognize the growth potential of Hims & Hers Health Inc. However, the recent trends in stock performance and insider activity could signal caution.
How Does HIMS's Valuation Compare to Its History? Metric Current Historical P/E (TTM) 168.8x 65.8x Currently, HIMS trades at a forward P/E of 168.8x, significantly higher than its 5-year median P/E of 65.8x. This elevated P/E ratio signals that the stock is trading far above its historical valuation levels. This analysis agrees with the GF Value™ verdict, suggesting that while the stock may be undervalued on a fundamental basis, the high forward P/E indicates that the market may be pricing in high growth expectations that could be difficult to achieve.
What Does HIMS's GF Score™ Tell Us? Metric Rating GF Score™ 81/100 Financial Strength 5/10 Profitability 4/10 Growth 10/10 Valuation 8/10 Momentum 5/10 The GF Score™ of 81/100 indicates a strong overall performance, particularly in terms of growth, which is rated at 10/10. However, the weaker areas include profitability and financial strength, both rated at 4/10 and 5/10, respectively. This divergence suggests that while Hims & Hers is poised for significant growth, it may face challenges in maintaining profitability and financial stability in the near term.
What Are Insiders Doing with HIMS Stock? In the last three months, insider activity for Hims & Hers Health Inc has shown a mixed sentiment. Insiders bought $1.2 million worth of shares, but they also sold $5.5 million worth of shares during the same period. This pattern of selling could indicate a lack of confidence among insiders about the company's short-term prospects, despite their own purchases. Such dynamics often raise flags for potential investors, suggesting that while there may be optimism regarding the company's growth, insiders may be taking profits.
What This Means for Investors Based on the GF Value™ assessment, Hims & Hers Health Inc is considered undervalued at the current price of $27.17. However, the high forward P/E ratio and mixed insider activity should prompt investors to proceed with caution. The company's significant growth potential is promising, but the challenges in profitability and financial strength are worth considering before making any investment decisions.
For the complete analysis, visit the Hims & Hers Health Inc HIMS stock page. You can also explore the GF Value™ page for detailed valuation methodology, or use the GuruFocus Stock Screener to find similar opportunities.
Frequently Asked Questions What is HIMS's GF Score™?
HIMS has a GF Score™ of 81/100, indicating a strong overall performance with potential for higher long-term returns.
Is HIMS overvalued or undervalued?
HIMS is currently considered undervalued based on its GF Value™ of $37.93 compared to its current price of $27.17.
What is HIMS's P/E ratio?
HIMS has a forward P/E ratio of 168.8x, which is significantly above its 5-year median P/E of 65.8x, indicating that the stock is trading at a higher valuation level than it has historically.
This stock alert was generated using automated technology and GuruFocus financial data to provide readers with timely and accurate market reporting. This content was reviewed by GuruFocus editorial team prior to publication. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected].
A month has gone by since the last earnings report for Hims & Hers Health, Inc. (HIMS - Free Report) . Shares have added about 15.8% in that time frame, outperforming the S&P 500.
Will the recent positive trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is Hims & Hers Health due for a pullback? Well, first let's take a quick look at the latest earnings report in order to get a better handle on the recent catalysts for Hims & Hers Health, Inc. before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late.
Hims & Hers Post Q1 Earnings Miss, Gross Margin DownHims & Hers Health reported quarterly adjusted loss per share of 18 cents in first-quarter 2026, against the year-ago period’s adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of 20 cents and the Zacks Consensus Estimate of EPS of 4 cents.
HIMS’ Revenues in DetailHims & Hers registered revenues of $608.1 million in the first quarter, up 3.8% year over year. However, the figure lagged the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 1.9%.
Solid revenues from the Rest of the World segment drove the top line.
Hims & Hers’ Geographical ResultsIn the first quarter of 2026, revenues in the United States declined 8.4% year over year to $529.9 million.
Rest of the World revenues grossed $78.2 million, up from the year-ago quarter’s $7.3 million.
During the reported quarter, subscribers were 2.6 million, up 9.2% year over year.
Monthly online revenue per average subscriber decreased 5.9% year over year to $80 in the first quarter. Per management, the decrease was primarily due to the shift to shorter shipping cadences for certain of HIMS’ offerings.
HIMS’ Margin AnalysisIn the first quarter of 2026, Hims & Hers’ gross profit decreased 7.9% year over year to $396.8 million. The gross margin contracted 825 basis points (bps) to 65.2%.
Marketing expenses decreased 3.9% year over year to $222 million, while technology and development expenses jumped 56.9% year over year to $46.9 million. General and administrative expenses surged 125.6% year over year to $109.7 million, while operations and support expenses increased 53.1% year over year to $96.5 million. Operating expenses of $475.1 million increased 27.4% year over year.
Operating loss totaled $78.3 million against the year-ago quarter’s operating profit of $57.9 million.
Hims & Hers’ Financial PositionHims & Hers exited first-quarter 2026 with cash and cash equivalents and short-term investments of $750.9 million compared with $577.5 million at the end of 2025.
Net cash provided by operating activities at the end of first-quarter 2026 was $89.4 million compared with $109.1 million a year ago.
HIMS’ OutlookHims & Hers has provided its revenue outlook for the second quarter and raised the same for 2026.
The company projects revenues for the second quarter of 2026 in the range of $680 million to $700 million, reflecting an uptick of 25%-28% year over year.
For the full year, HIMS now projects revenues in the range of $2.8 billion to $3 billion (representing growth of 19%-28% from 2025 levels), up from the prior outlook of $2.7 billion to $2.9 billion (representing growth of 15%-24% from 2025 levels).
How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?In the past month, investors have witnessed a downward trend in estimates review.
The consensus estimate has shifted -125.7% due to these changes.
VGM ScoresCurrently, Hims & Hers Health has a great Growth Score of A, though it is lagging a lot on the Momentum Score front with an F. Following the exact same course, the stock has a grade of F on the value side, putting it in the fifth quintile for this investment strategy.
Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of D. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in.
OutlookEstimates have been broadly trending downward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions indicates a downward shift. It's no surprise Hims & Hers Health has a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell). We expect a below average return from the stock in the next few months.
Performance of an Industry PlayerHims & Hers Health belongs to the Zacks Medical Info Systems industry. Another stock from the same industry, 10x Genomics (TXG - Free Report) , has gained 46.2% over the past month. More than a month has passed since the company reported results for the quarter ended March 2026.
10x Genomics reported revenues of $150.84 million in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of -2.6%. EPS of -$0.10 for the same period compares with -$0.36 a year ago.
For the current quarter, 10x Genomics is expected to post a loss of $0.23 per share, indicating a change of -182.1% from the year-ago quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate has changed -6.5% over the last 30 days.
The overall direction and magnitude of estimate revisions translate into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for 10x Genomics. Also, the stock has a VGM Score of B.
Investors interested in Medical Info Systems stocks are likely familiar with Omnicell (OMCL - Free Report) and Hims & Hers Health, Inc. (HIMS - Free Report) . But which of these two stocks is more attractive to value investors? We'll need to take a closer look to find out.
We have found that the best way to discover great value opportunities is to pair a strong Zacks Rank with a great grade in the Value category of our Style Scores system. The proven Zacks Rank emphasizes companies with positive estimate revision trends, and our Style Scores highlight stocks with specific traits.
Omnicell and Hims & Hers Health, Inc. are sporting Zacks Ranks of #1 (Strong Buy) and #5 (Strong Sell), respectively, right now. The Zacks Rank favors stocks that have recently seen positive revisions to their earnings estimates, so investors should rest assured that OMCL has an improving earnings outlook. But this is only part of the picture for value investors.
Value investors also tend to look at a number of traditional, tried-and-true figures to help them find stocks that they believe are undervalued at their current share price levels.
Our Value category grades stocks based on a number of key metrics, including the tried-and-true P/E ratio, the P/S ratio, earnings yield, and cash flow per share, as well as a variety of other fundamentals that value investors frequently use.
OMCL currently has a forward P/E ratio of 20.62, while HIMS has a forward P/E of 724.50. We also note that OMCL has a PEG ratio of 0.70. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. HIMS currently has a PEG ratio of 54.37.
Another notable valuation metric for OMCL is its P/B ratio of 1.47. The P/B is a method of comparing a stock's market value to its book value, which is defined as total assets minus total liabilities. By comparison, HIMS has a P/B of 14.98.
Based on these metrics and many more, OMCL holds a Value grade of B, while HIMS has a Value grade of F.
OMCL stands above HIMS thanks to its solid earnings outlook, and based on these valuation figures, we also feel that OMCL is the superior value option right now.
Hims & Hers Health, Inc. (HIMS - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $27.71, moving -4.38% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's 1.62% loss on the day. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a drop of 1.87%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw a decrease of 1.98%.
The company's stock has climbed by 15.78% in the past month, exceeding the Medical sector's gain of 5.04% and the S&P 500's loss of 0.03%.
The investment community will be closely monitoring the performance of Hims & Hers Health, Inc. in its forthcoming earnings report. It is anticipated that the company will report an EPS of -$0.02, marking a 111.76% fall compared to the same quarter of the previous year. Meanwhile, the latest consensus estimate predicts the revenue to be $689.29 million, indicating a 26.52% increase compared to the same quarter of the previous year.
Looking at the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of -$0.26 per share and revenue of $2.91 billion. These totals would mark changes of -149.06% and +23.78%, respectively, from last year.
It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for Hims & Hers Health, Inc. These latest adjustments often mirror the shifting dynamics of short-term business patterns. Hence, positive alterations in estimates signify analyst optimism regarding the business and profitability.
Our research suggests that these changes in estimates have a direct relationship with upcoming stock price performance. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.
Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 92.39% lower within the past month. Currently, Hims & Hers Health, Inc. is carrying a Zacks Rank of #5 (Strong Sell).
Digging into valuation, Hims & Hers Health, Inc. currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 724.5. This expresses a premium compared to the average Forward P/E of 25.06 of its industry.
We can additionally observe that HIMS currently boasts a PEG ratio of 54.37. Comparable to the widely accepted P/E ratio, the PEG ratio also accounts for the company's projected earnings growth. Medical Info Systems stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.6 based on yesterday's closing prices.
The Medical Info Systems industry is part of the Medical sector. Currently, this industry holds a Zacks Industry Rank of 159, positioning it in the bottom 35% of all 250+ industries.
The Zacks Industry Rank evaluates the power of our distinct industry groups by determining the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks forming the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.
Ensure to harness Zacks.com to stay updated with all these stock-shifting metrics, among others, in the next trading sessions.
Scott Galloway and Ed Elson laid out the math on Prof G Markets and it should make every fast food shareholder uneasy: roughly 30 million Americans, about 1 in 8 US adults, are now on GLP-1s, and the drugs are reducing fast food’s addressable market by an estimated 27-30%. This is structural, not cyclical: appetite, the literal raw material of the drive-thru economy, is being chemically suppressed at scale. Below are five US-listed stocks positioned on the winning side of that trade, ranked so the most surprising name leads and the punchline lands at #5.
1. Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN): The Pharmacy Nobody Is Pricing In The GLP-1 trade is as much about who puts the pen in the patient’s hand on a Tuesday afternoon as it is about who makes the molecule. Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN | AMZN Price Prediction) quietly turned itself into the most frictionless GLP-1 fulfillment channel in the country while everyone was busy debating AWS multiples. Amazon Pharmacy is expanding Same-Day delivery to nearly 4,500 US cities and towns by year-end, and the company just launched a 24/7 AI-powered personal health agent inside its main app. Whole Foods is in the same portfolio. So is Prime. The flywheel is already built; GLP-1 just gives it another lane.
The Q1 numbers say the underlying engine is accelerating, not slowing. Revenue hit $181.52B, AWS grew 28%, its fastest in 15 quarters, and CEO Andy Jassy said “unit growth in our Stores reached 15% (the highest since the tail end of covid lockdowns)”. Shares are up only 3% year to date and just 9% over the past year, which means the pharmacy optionality is essentially free.
Amazon is the surprise leadoff. The obvious heavyweight comes next, and its quarterly print is genuinely difficult to argue with.
2. Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY): The Category King, Now With a Pill If GLP-1s are the new cigarettes (only in reverse, shrinking demand for everything calorically adjacent), then Eli Lilly (NYSE:LLY) is Philip Morris circa 1955. Mounjaro and Zepbound are the dominant injectables, and the FDA just approved Foundayo (orforglipron), the only approved GLP-1 pill that can be taken any time of day, without food and water restrictions. Pills travel better than pens. Pills scale internationally. Pills crush stigma. This is the catalyst that opens the back half of the decade.
Q1 FY26 was a statement quarter. Revenue came in at $19.80 billion, up 55.5% YoY, with EPS of $8.55 beating the $6.79 consensus. Inside the headline number, Mounjaro printed $8.66 billion (+125% YoY) and Zepbound printed $4.16 billion (+80% YoY). CEO David Ricks said “Foundayo will meaningfully expand the number of people who can benefit from GLP-1s.”
Reddit caught on late. LLY sentiment surged from neutral (52) in mid-May to very bullish (82-88) by early June. Shares are up 42% over the past year. Next earnings: August 3, 2026. There is one other GLP-1 incumbent, and its stock chart looks like the opposite of Lilly’s.
3. Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO): The Bombed-Out Pioneer The original GLP-1 pioneer has been left for dead by the market. Novo Nordisk (NYSE:NVO) is down 44% over the past year while Lilly ripped higher. That dislocation is the trade. Novo just launched its own oral GLP-1, Wegovy pill, on January 5, 2026, and the company says it is already used by more than one million patients with over 200,000 weekly US prescriptions. Wegovy HD, approved in March 2026, delivers ~20.7% weight loss. The franchise keeps compounding; only the multiple has cracked.
The Wegovy pill alone generated $2.26 billion in its debut quarter, while Wegovy injectable did $18.24 billion (+12%). Management raised FY26 adjusted sales growth guidance to -4% to -12% CER from -5% to -13%, and authorized a new DKK 15B share buyback. CEO Mike Doustdar said “Wegovy is driving a strong start to 2026… rapid adoption of Wegovy pill, the most efficacious GLP-1 tablet now used by more than one million patients since its January launch.”
Retail is still hostile. NVO Reddit sentiment collapsed from neutral (48-53) in May to bearish (22-29) in early June. That is exactly the kind of crowd-positioning gap I look for. You buy Novo IF you believe the duopoly holds and the multiple re-rates as the pill ramps; you avoid it if you think Lilly’s superiority data ends the story. The next stock on the list does not need you to pick a winner between them at all.
4. Sprouts Farmers Market (NASDAQ: SFM): The Plate Replacement Trade GLP-1 patients keep eating, just differently. Smaller portions, more protein, more produce, less processed garbage. That is the entire merchandising thesis of Sprouts Farmers Market (NASDAQ:SFM). The company sits inside a $290 billion health and wellness food-at-home market, has 483 stores in 25 states, and a long-term target of 1,000+ stores. While drive-thrus lose foot traffic, Sprouts is building the food rails for the post-Ozempic shopping cart.
Q1 FY26 had soft comps but the structural story kept compounding. Revenue was $2.329 billion (+4.15% YoY) with EPS of $1.71 beating the $1.67 estimate. Two numbers I keep coming back to: Sprouts Brand penetration climbed to 26% of sales from 23%, and ROIC hit 17.4%. CEO Jack Sinclair said “We continue to focus on accelerating customer engagement, foraging and discovery, building an advantaged supply chain, and expanding access to healthy food.”
Shares are still down 46% over the past year on the comp slowdown, but up 9% year to date and 10% in the past week. Next earnings: August 3, 2026. The reset has likely already happened. Which leaves one final stock, and it is the most directly leveraged name on this list to the consumer side of GLP-1 distribution.
5. Hims & Hers Health (NYSE: HIMS): The Punchline Trade Hims & Hers Health (NYSE:HIMS) is the messiest name on the list and possibly the most asymmetric. The company just absorbed a brutal strategic pivot: out of compounded GLP-1s, into branded GLP-1 distribution. That cost real money in Q1, but it converts Hims from a regulatory bullseye into a long-duration consumer health platform riding the same wave as Lilly and Novo.
Q1 FY26 showed the cost of the surgery and the pulse underneath it. Revenue was $608.10 million (+3.8% YoY), the net loss was -$92.11 million with EPS of -$0.40, dragged by $33.49 million in restructuring charges. But subscribers grew to nearly 2.6 million (+9% YoY), international revenue exploded 969% YoY to $78.19 million, and management raised full-year guidance to $2.80B-$3.00B in revenue and $275M-$350M in Adjusted EBITDA, with a 2030 target of at least $6.5 billion in revenue and $1.3 billion in Adjusted EBITDA.
CEO Andrew Dudum said “2026 is a defining year for Hims & Hers. We’re not just growing, we’re pulling away from the field on our path to becoming the world’s largest consumer health platform.” Shares are down 50% over the past year, the analyst target sits at $26.61, and a former Netflix CFO just bought $1.2M of stock, which flipped r/wallstreetbets sentiment to 72 (bullish) on June 1. The next earnings report lands August 10, 2026.
The Bottom Line The Prof G thesis is not subtle: GLP-1s are chemically resetting the addressable market of every business that sells calories on impulse. Lilly and Novo make the molecule, Hims puts it in the consumer’s mailbox, Amazon owns the delivery rail and the next-gen pharmacy, and Sprouts feeds the patients who now plan every plate around protein and produce. The fast food incumbents have three earnings cycles to figure out a response. The capital is already moving. Position before the August prints, or read about it after.
Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE:QSR) on Wednesday posted stronger-than-expected quarterly results.
The company reported first-quarter adjusted earnings per share of 86 cents, beating the analyst consensus estimate of 82 cents. Quarterly sales of $2.264 billion outpaced the Street view of $2.240 billion.
Restaurant Brands expects 2026 segment G&A expenses, excluding Restaurant Holdings, to range between $600 million and $620 million, while Restaurant Holdings adjusted operating income is projected at approximately $10 million to $20 million.
Restaurant Brands shares gained 2.3% to trade at $78.96 on Thursday.
These analysts made changes to their price targets on Restaurant Brands following earnings announcement.
Baird analyst David Tarantino maintained Restaurant Brands with a Neutral and raised the price target from $72 to $80. Wells Fargo analyst Zachary Fadem maintained the stock with an Equal-Weight rating and raised the price target from $75 to $80. Considering buying QSR stock? Here’s what analysts think:
Photo via Shutterstock
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Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 8, 2026) - Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company"), a leading consolidator of emerging restaurant brands, is pleased to announce that our multi-unit franchisee David Lamph has secured his 8th Heal location in the City of Vaughan, Ontario. This location further advances Heal's disciplined, asset-light growth strategy as the brand continues to expand across Ontario's high-growth urban and suburban markets. Heal Wellness is a fast-growing quick-service restaurant ("QSR") brand specializing in fresh smoothie bowls, açaí bowls, and smoothies, built around clean ingredients and a better-for-you lifestyle.
Happy Belly 1
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"The securing of our newest location in the City of Vaughan reflects our continued focus on expanding Heal into strong, community-oriented markets with favourable demographic and high-traffic fundamentals," said Sean Black, Chief Executive Officer of Happy Belly Food Group. "Vaughan, Ontario, is one of Canada's fastest-growing cities and a major economic hub within York Region, supported by a growing residential population, a dynamic business community, strong commuter patterns, and access to key transportation networks. These characteristics create a compelling environment for Heal Wellness as we continue to bring our clean-ingredient, better-for-you offering to high-density suburban markets across the GTA."
Located in the heart of the Greater Toronto Area, Vaughan brings together established family neighbourhoods, employment corridors, retail destinations, sports and recreation amenities, and a young, active customer base. This makes it a natural fit for Heal's acai and smoothie wellness brand, serving residents, professionals, athletes, busy parents, students, and visitors seeking convenient, health-forward food options. These characteristics align well with Heal's functional, grab-and-go offering and support sustainable, long-term unit performance.
Heal Wellness continues to gain momentum as consumer demand for wellness-focused QSR concepts accelerates across major Canadian cities. With a scalable format, strong unit economics, and an expanding network of experienced franchise partners, Heal is well positioned to deepen its presence across Ontario while expanding into additional Canadian and U.S. markets.
Happy Belly 2
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"Heal Wellness continues to expand rapidly across Canada and into the United States, solidifying its position as a leading açaí and smoothie bowl brand. With 39 locations open and more than 169 in development, Heal contributes to Happy Belly's broader portfolio of 686 contractually committed retail franchise locations across multiple emerging brands in various stages of development, construction, and operation. Our predictable and disciplined growth engine continues to deliver measurable results as we expand our brands across Canada and the U.S. to create long-term value for our shareholders."
"We are just getting started", said Sean Black.
About Heal Wellness
Heal Wellness was founded with a passion and mission to provide quick, fresh wellness foods that support a busy and active lifestyle. We currently offer a diverse range of smoothie bowls and smoothies. We take pride in meticulously selecting every superfood ingredient on our menu to fuel the body, including acai smoothie bowls, smoothies, and super-seed grain bowls. Our smoothie bowls are crafted with real fruit and enriched with superfoods like acai, pitaya, goji berries, chia seeds, and more.
Franchising
For franchising inquiries please see www.happybellyfg.com/franchise-with-us/ or contact us at [email protected].
About Happy Belly Food Group
Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company") is a leader in acquiring and scaling emerging food brands across Canada.
Happy Belly 3
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Sean Black
Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer
Shawn Moniz
Co-founder, President
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management.
All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-Looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur and include the future performance of Happy Belly and her subsidiaries. Forward-Looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the business plans for Happy Belly described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are posted on www.sedarplus.ca.
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/296625
Source: Happy Belly Food Group Inc.
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ToplineEarnings from the first three months of 2026 show food businesses leaning on value menus and price cuts are gaining share as mid-tier fast food chains like Wingstop and Popeyes are losing, with executives warning they expect low-income consumers to pull back even more as rising gas prices from the Iran War and inflationary pressure heighten anxiety about spending.
A McDonald's Big Mac Combo Meal is shown. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Key FactsReporting U.S. same-store sales growth of 3.9% in the first quarter—which the company attributed to its Extra Value Meals and McValue menus—McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski warned Thursday that elevated gas prices will disproportionately impact low-income consumers and fast food visits from households earning $45,000 or less are continuing to decline.
Restaurant Brands International reported Wednesday Burger King US same-store sales growth of 5.8% in the first quarter, roughly double analyst expectations of about 3%, driven by value items including the $3.99 King Junior Meal, while Popeyes same-store sales declined 6.5% in the quarter.
Last week, Yum Brands reported Taco Bell same-store sales growth of 8% in the first quarter largely due to its Luxe Value Menu, while its other portfolio brands KFC and Pizza Hut lagged behind as CEO Chris Turner said the company is planning on adopting Taco Bell’s value playbook across its other brands to capture customers again.
Last week, Wingstop reported domestic same-store sales down 8.7% year-over-year, with management citing rising fuel prices that "stressed the balance sheet of the lower-income consumer that our business overindexes to."
In April, PepsiCo reported first-quarter net revenue growth of 8.5%, after the company cut prices on Lay's, Tostitos, Doritos and Cheetos by as much as 15% in February to win back cost-conscious shoppers.
Wendy's reported Friday same-store sales fell 7.8% year-over-year, with chief accounting officer Suzie Thuerk adding that the company is “performing better with the higher income consumer than the lower income consumer” as they expect continued pressure on low-income consumers.
Crucial Quote“They’re literally running out of money at the end of the month,” Kraft Heinz’s new CEO Steve Cahillane told Bloomberg. “We’re seeing negative cash flows in the lower-income brackets where they’re dipping into savings.” In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Cahillane added that while the food and beverage industry has been battling to be as affordable as possible, consumers haven’t been able to handle even that.
Key BackgroundThe pattern unfolding across fast food earnings is the clearest evidence yet of a bifurcated consumer that economists and CEOs have dubbed the “K-shaped economy”–where higher-income households’ gains widen while lower-income households’ losses widen, like the two diverging strokes of the letter K. The logic goes that higher-income households earning more than $125,000 a year, buoyed by stock market gains, home equity and stable white-collar jobs keep spending, while lower and middle-income households, squeezed by years of cumulative inflation on essentials like rent, groceries and insurance, continue to pull back as the financial burdens mount. The term gained traction in 2023, when the wealthy bounced back almost immediately after the pandemic while service workers and renters struggled once pandemic stimulus checks dried up. In practice, the K-shaped economy indicates national averages such as GDP growth, consumer spending and the unemployment rate can look healthy driven by the top spenders even as a large slice of the country feels like it's in a recession. The top 10% of earners account for nearly half of all U.S. consumer spending, according to Moody’s Analytics.
Tangent Consumer sentiment hit another all-time low Friday, dropping to 48.2 in May from a previous record low of 49.8 in April, with one-third of respondents citing gas prices due to the Iran War and 30% mentioning President Donald Trump’s tariffs, according to the University of Michigan consumer sentiment index. Facing economic pressure, consumers are taking on debt to make ends meet: Car loans in the U.S. were at a record $1.68 trillion at the end of 2025, surging 23.5% from 2020. Average credit card balance per consumer stands at $6,519, up 2.3% year over year, with a larger share of borrowers becoming either superprime with a credit score of 780 or higher, or subprime, with a credit score below 600, according to a TransUnion report released April 30.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 11, 2026) - Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company"), a leader in acquiring and scaling emerging food brands is pleased to announce that, further to its May 28th, 2025 news release announcing the signing of a franchise agreement for Heal Wellness in the province of Nova Scotia, Heal Wellness ("Heal"), its fresh smoothie bowls, acai bowls, and smoothies quick-serve restaurant ("QSR") brand, has secured a real estate location in the City of Halifax, Nova Scotia. This location represents the first of two planned Heal Wellness locations in Halifax for multi-unit franchisee Wade Bruce and is expected to open in Q3 2026.
Figure 1
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Halifax, Nova Scotia is an attractive market for Heal Wellness, supported by strong population growth, a young and active demographic profile, and a growing demand for convenient, better-for-you food options. As the largest urban centre in Atlantic Canada, Halifax continues to attract students, young professionals, families, and newcomers, creating a strong customer base for Heal's fresh smoothie bowls, acai bowls, smoothies, and wellness-focused quick-serve menu. With a significant working-age population, a vibrant downtown core, major universities, healthcare and government employment hubs, and an increasingly health-conscious consumer base, Halifax provides an ideal environment for Heal Wellness to expand its presence in Atlantic Canada as we further advance our disciplined, asset-light growth strategy .
"We are very pleased to announce that Wade has secured real estate for his first Heal Wellness location in Halifax," said Sean Black, Chief Executive Officer of Happy Belly. "This is an important next step following the previously announced signing of his franchise agreement for the city. Halifax continues to be an important city for our Atlantic Canada expansion. Each secured real estate location strengthens our national growth pipeline and brings us one step closer to bringing Heal's product offering to more cities in Atlantic Canada. As we continue to scale Heal and the rest of Happy Belly's portfolio of emerging brands, our focus remains on executing with the 3Ps: People, Product, and Process."
Figure 2
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"Heal Wellness continues to expand rapidly across Canada and into the United States, solidifying its position as a leading açaí and smoothie bowl brand. With 39 locations open and more than 169 in development, Heal contributes to Happy Belly's broader portfolio of 686 contractually committed retail franchise locations across multiple emerging brands in various stages of development, construction, and operation. Our predictable and disciplined growth engine continues to deliver measurable results as we expand our brands across Canada and the U.S. to create long-term value for our shareholders."
"We are just getting started", said Sean Black.
About Heal WellnessHeal Wellness was founded with a passion and mission to provide quick, fresh wellness foods that support a busy and active lifestyle. We currently offer a diverse range of smoothie bowls and smoothies. We take pride in meticulously selecting every superfood ingredient on our menu to fuel the body, including acai smoothie bowls, smoothies, and super-seed grain bowls. Our smoothie bowls are crafted with real fruit and enriched with superfoods like acai, pitaya, goji berries, chia seeds, and more.
FranchisingFor franchising inquiries please see www.happybellyfg.com/franchise-with-us/ or contact us at [email protected].
About Happy Belly Food Group
Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company") is a leader in acquiring and scaling emerging food brands across Canada.
Figure 3
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Sean Black
Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer
Shawn Moniz
Co-founder, President
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management.
All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-Looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur and include the future performance of Happy Belly and her subsidiaries. Forward-Looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the business plans for Happy Belly described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are posted on www.sedarplus.ca.
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/296883
Source: Happy Belly Food Group Inc.
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Yum China's primary brands are KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell, of which it has exclusive rights to operate and sub-license in China (paying a 3% systemwide sales royalty back to its former parent company). Yum China increased its revenue from $7.2 billion in FY 2017 to $11.8 billion in FY 2025. That's a compound annual growth rate of 6.4%. Yum China has a stellar financial position. The company carries essentially no long-term debt at all.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 13, 2026) - Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company"), a leader in acquiring and scaling emerging food brands is pleased to announce its unaudited financial results and corporate update for the fiscal quarter ended March 31st, 2026.
Q1 2026 Financial and Recent Business Highlights
System-wide sales across Quick Service Restaurants (QSR") totalled $19.3M in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, up 80.4% versus the same quarter last year (2025 - $10.7M). The increase is attributed to organic baseline restaurant growth, alongside increased restaurant count, which reached 87 operating restaurants at the end of Q1 2026, up 74.0% versus 50 in the prior year.
Total operating revenues, services, interest income and rebates totalled $6.0M in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, up 82.2% versus the same quarter last year (2025 - $3.3M). Year-over-year growth was driven by continued sales growth in QSR, multiple business acquisitions in the past twelve months, and net new restaurants (10 new openings in Q1).
Total product sales totalled $4.7M in the first quarter of 2026, up 70.3% versus the same quarter last year (2025 - $2.8M). In addition, royalties and franchise fee revenues reached $0.97M during the quarter, up 118% from the prior year (2025 - $0.45M), which was driven by an increase in royalties collected from added franchised restaurants in the system.
Adjusted EBITDA was $(0.17M) or (2.9%) in the first quarter of fiscal 2026 versus $0.14M or 4.2% in the same quarter last year.
Total cash and cash equivalents remain healthy at $6.2M as of March 31, 2026 (2025 - $3.0M).
As of April 30, 2026, subsequent to fiscal 2025, the Company has opened and is operating 17 additional restaurants.
Management Commentary "Happy Belly continued to deliver strong growth in the first quarter of fiscal 2026, with system-wide sales across our Quick Service Restaurant portfolio increasing 80.4% year over year to $19.3 million. This growth reflects continued organic baseline restaurant performance, the contribution of recent acquisitions, and the expansion of our operating restaurant base to 87 locations at quarter end, up 74.0% from the prior year," said Sean Black, Chief Executive Officer of Happy Belly Food Group. "During the quarter, we opened 10 new restaurants, further demonstrating the strength and repeatability of our growth model. Subsequent to quarter end, we continued that momentum, with 7 additional restaurants opened and operating. This continued expansion reinforces the demand for our brands and the effectiveness of our area developer and franchise platform."
"Total operating revenues also increased 82.2% year over year to $6.0 million, while total product sales increased 70.3% to $4.7 million. Importantly, royalties and franchise fee revenues grew 118% to $0.97 million, driven by the continued expansion of franchised restaurants across our system. This is a key metric for us as we scale towards 100+ operating locations in the first half of this year. As our restaurant footprint grows, these higher-margin revenue streams become an increasingly important contributor to our financial profile."
"With $6.2 million in cash at quarter end, and less than $60,000 in total secured debt, we remain well positioned to continue executing our strategy without having to slow down. We are proud of the progress made in Q1 2026 and remain focused on disciplined growth, operational execution, and scaling Happy Belly as a leading acquirer and operator of emerging food brands. Our expanding franchise system provides increased royalty and franchise fee revenues providing a strong foundation for long-term shareholder value creation. Moving forward in 2026 we anticipate delivering significant organic growth, surpassing our original expectations for the full year. With cash in the bank, building the business in the back half of 2026 is going to be a lot of fun".
"We are just getting started," said Sean Black.
Full details of the financial reports and operating results for the first quarter of fiscal 2026, are described in the Company's consolidated financial statements with accompanying notes and related Management's Discussion and Analysis, available on SEDAR+ at www.sedarplus.ca.
FOOTNOTES:
1. Adjusted EBITDA Is a non-IFRS financial measure which does not have a standardized meaning prescribed by IFRS. Adjusted EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA Margin are used by management as supplemental measures to review and assess operating performance and to provide a more complete understanding of factors and trends impacting the Company's business. Management believes Adjusted EBITDA are useful measures of operating performance and the Company's ability to generate cash-based earnings, as they provide a more relevant position of operating results by excluding the effects of financing and investing activities, which removes the effects of interest, depreciation and amortization expenses as well as other expenses, as described, that are not reflective of the Company's underlying business. This non-IFRS measure is intended to provide additional information and should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for measures of performance prepared in accordance with IFRS.
Adjusted EBITDA is defined as net comprehensive income or (loss), excluding interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), adjusted for share-based compensation, gain (loss) on equity investments and sublease, expected credit loss and non-recurring expenses.
Franchising
For franchising inquiries please see www.happybellyfg.com/franchise-with-us/ or contact us at [email protected].
About Happy Belly Food Group
Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company") is a leader in acquiring and scaling emerging food brands across Canada.
Sean Black
Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer
Shawn Moniz
Co-founder, President
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management.
All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-Looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur and include the future performance of Happy Belly and her subsidiaries. Forward-Looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the business plans for Happy Belly described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are posted on www.sedarplus.ca.
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/297276
Source: Happy Belly Food Group Inc.
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Restaurant Brands International has outperformed McDonald's Corporation recently, driven by stronger U.S. sales growth and market share gains. My valuation-driven “Flipping Burger” strategy proposes rotating between QSR and MCD as their valuation premium narrows or widens. QSR delivered 5.8% U.S. same-store sales growth in Q1 versus MCD's 3.9%, and QSR's EPS grew 14.5% versus MCD's 6%.
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Burger King president Tom Curtis told Business Insider it could take decades to fully execute the chain's comeback strategy. Burger King; Sergi Alexander/Sergi Alexander/Eyeworks Production Burger King wants to be crowned the top burger chain — and while company leadership says its turnaround effort could take decades, it's already showing results.
"'Reclaim the Flame' is, frankly, a two-decade strategy because of everything that has to be done," Burger King US and Canada president Tom Curtis said during a press briefing attended by Business Insider.
The "Reclaim the Flame" initiative, launched in 2022 after years of declining sales and operational struggles, is Burger King's turnaround plan aimed at boosting traffic and franchisee profitability through restaurant remodels, operational improvements, and investments in the Whopper, the chain's signature burger.
At the time, the company pledged to invest $400 million into the effort over the following two years. (For comparison, Red Lobster's comeback plan was backed by $60 million in funding.)
As of August 2025, Burger King still ranked third among US burger chains by sales, according to QSR Magazine, behind McDonald's and Wendy's.
"We've been really working the last four years to improve the restaurant experience — our operations, our technology in the restaurants, remodeling — and we're also elevating our food," Burger King chief marketing officer Joel Yashinsky told Business Insider.
Yashinsky said the company is also trying to make customers feel more connected to the brand by leaning into Burger King's long-standing emphasis on customization, dating back to its "Have It Your Way" slogan introduced in 1974.
"We want the guest to have ownership in the brand," Yashinsky said. "Burger King was the first to really realize people liked customization."
Burger King has doubled down on the Whopper, betting big on its signature burger to fuel the chain's comeback
Burger King recently updated its Whopper with a new box, bun, and mayonnaise. Erin McDowell/Business Insider This renewed focus includes recent campaigns to improve the Whopper's presentation and listening to customer feedback on how to elevate it, rather than solely introducing new menu items.
"We found an interesting way to do it through listening and taking action, and consumers see us listening to the feedback," Curtis told Business Insider.
For example, Burger King had been receiving feedback that Whoppers often ended up smushed in the bag because they were wrapped only in paper. As of February, the Whopper is now served in a cardboard box. The chain also upgraded some of its components, adding a creamier mayonnaise and a new, glossier bun.
"It's all about putting the guest first and delivering what they're looking for from Burger King," Yashinsky said. "We just want to be a brand that really authentically listens and acts to what the guests are looking for."
Yashinsky said the company is also trying to improve quality without raising prices for customers. Burger King kept the Whopper at the same price even as it upgraded the burger and its packaging.
"The fact that we're investing and not shrinking value through cutting sizes or cutting cost in different ways, but actually investing in the packaging and investing in a better bun, those little things matter, and customers notice that," he said.
Despite a challenging market, the comeback is showing positive signs
Reality star Kyle Cooke promoted "Wednesdays should be fun" to support Whopper Wednesday on April 15, 2026 Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Burger King Curtis described Burger King's position several years ago as dire, saying the brand faced an "existential threat." He said that when he joined Burger King in 2021, a former boss showed him an article predicting the chain would disappear within a decade.
But four years after launching "Reclaim the Flame," the turnaround plan is taking shape.
The chain, like others in the QSR industry, has focused much of its marketing on value, with campaigns such as "Whopper Wednesday," $5 Duos, and $7 Trios to draw in customers.
In the first quarter, Burger King reported 5.8% same-store sales growth in the US, outperforming its competitors in the QSR burger segment. (McDonald's same-store sales increased 3.9%, while Wendy's sales declined by 7.8% in Q1.)
It's also a notable increase from the same period last year, when the chain reported a 1.6% same-store sales growth.
Company leadership cited new, family-focused initiatives, like the chain's King Junior meals and its SpongeBob-themed meal collaboration, as part of the reason for the growth. Curtis said in the earnings call that kids' meal sales had risen about 40% over the past six months, CNBC reported.
Whopper sales are also up.
QSR Magazine reported that, in the last quarter, Burger King restaurants posted their highest average Whopper sales per location in more than three years.
Looking ahead, Yashinsky told Business Insider that Burger King plans to continue modernizing restaurants, expanding its franchisee network, launching new innovations, and elevating its most popular menu items while staying true to the chain's roots.
"Burger King will feel different [in five years] than it does today pretty significantly, but we're not changing who we are," he said. "We're going back more toward 'Have It Your Way.'"
Read next
Erin McDowell You're currently following this author! Want to unfollow? Unsubscribe via the link in your email.
Erin McDowell is a reporter on Business Insider's editorial partnerships team. She covers food, lifestyle, and entertainment for Business Insider and its partner sites, including MSN, Apple News, and Yahoo.She graduated from Elon University in January 2019, where she studied strategic communications and digital art. She has written for V Magazine, Milk.XYZ, OUT.com, Brides Magazine, and more. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and can be found on LinkedIn. Please send all inquiries, comments, or tips to [email protected] stories:
Celebrity-chef restaurants and Applebee's are using the same playbookChain restaurants like Chili's are coming for fast-food giants in the latest bout of the value warsI tried double cheeseburgers from 13 fast-food chains. I thought the best burger was also the best deal.I ate at the first Applebee's and IHOP hybrid restaurant in the US. Its plan to attract younger diners could just work.The chicken sandwich wars are over. Make way for the chicken tender battle.I ate the same meal at TGI Fridays and Chili's. It's clear why only one is thriving.I compared 2 world-famous barbecue spots in Texas. Both had impressive meat options, but the sides at one were way better.How 'The Bachelor' franchise went from a cultural phenomenon to a relic of reality televisionMeet Jacob Knowles, a 5th-generation Maine lobsterman who is sharing his unique career with legions of online fans Burger King Fast Food
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - May 20, 2026) - Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company"), a leading consolidator of emerging restaurant brands, is pleased to announce that our multi-unit franchisee David Lamph has secured his 9th Heal location, located in the City of Waterloo, Ontario. This location further advances Heal's disciplined, asset-light growth strategy as the brand continues to expand across Ontario's high-growth urban and suburban markets. Heal Wellness is a fast-growing quick-service restaurant ("QSR") brand specializing in fresh smoothie bowls, açaí bowls, and smoothies, built around clean ingredients and a better-for-you lifestyle.
Happy Belly 1
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"The securing of our newest location in the City of Waterloo reflects our continued focus on expanding Heal into strong, community-oriented markets with favourable demographics and high-traffic fundamentals," said Sean Black, Chief Executive Officer of Happy Belly Food Group. "Positioned between the University of Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University, this location places Heal Wellness in the heart of one of Canada's most attractive student markets, with access to a dense, walkable customer base of students, faculty, staff, and young professionals."
With more than 41,000 full- and part-time students at the University of Waterloo and over 17,500 undergraduate and graduate students at Laurier's Waterloo campus, Heal Wellness will be located near approximately 58,500 students within the immediate university area. This demographic aligns strongly with the Heal Wellness concept, as today's students increasingly seek quick, healthy, customizable, and portable food options that support their active lifestyles. Our menu of açai bowls, smoothies, protein add-ons, fresh fruit, and wellness-focused offerings is designed to meet that demand.
Heal Wellness continues to gain momentum as consumer demand for wellness-focused QSR concepts accelerates across major Canadian cities. With a scalable format, strong unit economics, and an expanding network of experienced franchise partners, Heal is well positioned to deepen its presence across Ontario while expanding into additional Canadian and U.S. markets.
Happy Belly 2
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"Heal Wellness continues to expand rapidly across Canada and into the United States, solidifying its position as a leading açaí and smoothie bowl brand. With 39 locations open and more than 169 in development, Heal contributes to Happy Belly's broader portfolio of 686 contractually committed retail franchise locations across multiple emerging brands in various stages of development, construction, and operation. Our predictable and disciplined growth engine continues to deliver measurable results as we expand our brands across Canada and the U.S. to create long-term value for our shareholders."
"We are just getting started", said Sean Black.
About Heal WellnessHeal Wellness was founded with a passion and mission to provide quick, fresh wellness foods that support a busy and active lifestyle. We currently offer a diverse range of smoothie bowls and smoothies. We take pride in meticulously selecting every superfood ingredient on our menu to fuel the body, including acai smoothie bowls, smoothies, and super-seed grain bowls. Our smoothie bowls are crafted with real fruit and enriched with superfoods like acai, pitaya, goji berries, chia seeds, and more.
FranchisingFor franchising inquiries please see www.happybellyfg.com/franchise-with-us/ or contact us at [email protected].
About Happy Belly Food Group
Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company") is a leader in acquiring and scaling emerging food brands across Canada.
Happy Belly Food Group
To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
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Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management.
All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-Looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur and include the future performance of Happy Belly and her subsidiaries. Forward-Looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the business plans for Happy Belly described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are posted on www.sedarplus.ca.
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/298178
Source: Happy Belly Food Group Inc.
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, /PRNewswire/ - Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE/TSX: QSR, TSX: QSP) ("RBI") announced today that Patrick Doyle, Executive Chairman, and Josh Kobza, Chief Executive Officer will participate in a fireside chat at the Bernstein 42nd Annual Strategic Decisions Conference in New York City on May 28, 2026 at 9:00am Eastern Time.
A live audio webcast will be available on the company's investor relations website (http://rbi.com/investors) and a replay will be available for a limited time following the event.
About Restaurant Brands International Inc.
Restaurant Brands International Inc. is one of the world's largest quick service restaurant companies with nearly $48 billion in annual system-wide sales and roughly 33,000 restaurants in more than 120 countries and territories. RBI owns four of the world's most prominent and iconic quick service restaurant brands – TIM HORTONS®, BURGER KING®, POPEYES®, and FIREHOUSE SUBS®. These independently operated brands have been serving their respective guests, franchisees and communities for decades. Through its Restaurant Brands for Good framework, RBI is improving sustainable outcomes related to its food, the planet, and people and communities.
RBI's principal executive offices are in Miami, Florida. In North America, RBI's brands are headquartered in their home markets where they were founded decades ago: Canada for Tim Hortons and the U.S. for Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs. To learn more about RBI, please visit the company's website at www.rbi.com.
A shift is underway in the quick-service restaurant sector (QSR). Yum! Brands NYSE: YUM is in exclusive talks to divest its Pizza Hut division to private equity firm LongRange Capital in a deal valued between $3.6 billion and $4.3 billion. This strategic move signals a pivot forced by macro headwinds such as wage inflation and shifts in consumer behavior driven by GLP-1 weight-loss drugs.
Yum! Brands Today
$153.20 +2.12 (+1.40%)
As of 06/11/2026 03:59 PM Eastern
This is a fair market value price provided by Massive. Learn more.
52-Week Range$137.33▼
$169.39Dividend Yield1.96%
P/E Ratio24.71
Price Target$176.12
By shedding a legacy asset, Yum! Brands is creating a leaner, higher-margin entity and, in doing so, has established a new valuation benchmark that immediately impacts its closest peer, Restaurant Brands International NYSE: QSR.
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This divestiture provides a clear roadmap for unlocking shareholder value, prompting institutional capital to ask which industry giant is the next domino to fall. The initial catalyst at Yum! Brands is only the first part of the trade. The more nuanced opportunity lies in front-running the inevitable capital rotation into its most logical alternative.
A Balance Sheet on a DietThe primary driver behind the Pizza Hut sale is balance sheet optimization. The transaction is set to be a transformative deleveraging event for Yum! Brands. With proceeds earmarked for debt reduction, Yum! Brands’ net long-term debt is projected to fall from $9.3 billion to approximately $5.3 billion. This move will compress leverage to a much more manageable 1.7x trailing 12-month earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), fundamentally de-risking Yum! Brands for equity holders.
Overall MarketRank™92nd Percentile
Analyst RatingModerate Buy
Upside/Downside15.0% Upside
Short Interest LevelHealthy
Dividend StrengthStrong
News Sentiment0.88 Insider TradingSelling Shares
Proj. Earnings Growth9.73%
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Operationally, the benefits are just as compelling. Pizza Hut has been a significant drag on performance, posting 10 consecutive quarters of declining U.S. comparable sales and diluting corporate margins. Its removal allows the high-growth, high-margin profiles of Taco Bell and KFC to dominate the consolidated financials.
This streamlined focus not only improves the quality of earnings but also secures the capital return program. The Yum! Brands annualized dividend of $3, yielding roughly 2% with a 48% payout ratio, becomes substantially safer post-transaction, providing a stable footing for income-oriented investors. While insider trading has been skewed towards sales under programmed 10b5-1 plans, the recent accumulation by major institutions signals a clear vote of confidence in this strategic direction.
Valuation Floor: The Hidden Value in Legacy BrandsPrivate equity transactions involving legacy brands are exceptionally telling. When a firm like LongRange Capital places a multi-billion-dollar valuation on a struggling asset, it establishes a hard valuation floor for every comparable asset in the public markets.
This is the essence of a Sum-of-the-Parts (SOTP) re-rating. The multiple paid for Pizza Hut, an asset with demonstrable performance issues, forces the market to immediately recalculate the intrinsic value of healthier, growing brands. If a lagging asset commands, for example, a 4x EBITDA multiple, it forces investors to question the implied valuation of a thriving brand like Popeyes, which could reasonably command a 6x or 7x multiple on its own.
This catalyst ripples directly to Restaurant Brands International, whose portfolio includes Burger King, Tim Hortons, Popeyes, and Firehouse Subs. Restaurant Brands International just posted 3.2% same-store sales growth and expanded its operating margins to a robust 26.8% in Q1 2026.
Suppose the market accepts a premium valuation for the lagging Yum! Brands pizza chain, then the stronger, more resilient brands under the Restaurant Brands International umbrella appear fundamentally undervalued at their current trading multiples. This valuation discrepancy is the core of the sympathy play.
An Obvious Destination for Rotational CapitalAs Yum! Brands’ stock price absorbs the positive news from the divestiture, its valuation will stretch. Institutional allocators seeking to maintain sector exposure without overpaying will naturally rotate capital from the newly expensive Yum! Brands into its closest, and now relatively cheaper, competitor. Restaurant Brands International is the optimal destination for this capital migration for several key reasons.
Restaurant Brands International Today
QSR
Restaurant Brands International
$73.90 +0.70 (+0.96%)
As of 06/11/2026 03:59 PM Eastern
This is a fair market value price provided by Massive. Learn more.
52-Week Range$61.33▼
$81.96Dividend Yield3.52%
P/E Ratio26.02
Price Target$83.54
First, its business model is a direct parallel to Yum! Brands, making it an easy analytical switch for portfolio managers. Second, Restaurant Brands International is already engaged in aggressive shareholder-friendly actions, including a newly authorized $500 million share repurchase program and a formidable 3.5% dividend yield.
This robust shareholder return profile acts as a powerful magnet for institutional funds. Finally, despite its own macro challenges, such as elevated beef costs impacting Burger King’s restaurant-level margins, Restaurant Brands International is demonstrating operational resilience.
Burger King U.S. and International delivered approximately 6% comparable sales growth in the last quarter, proving its core brands can perform under pressure.
The Next Domino to FallThe pressures forcing the hand of Yum! Brands are not unique. The entire fast-food industry is navigating a complex environment defined by shifting consumer tastes and persistent inflation. These headwinds make portfolio optimization less of a choice and more of a necessity for survival and growth. Wall Street’s positive reaction to the Pizza Hut sale sends a clear message to the management and board of every multi-brand operator: trim the fat, or an activist investor will do it for you.
Investors might consider that this places Restaurant Brands International squarely in the spotlight. The market will begin to dissect its portfolio, looking for potential spin-off candidates to unlock a similar SOTP value proposition.
By recognizing this dynamic early, investors can position themselves in Restaurant Brands International not just as a value play relative to Yum! Brands, but as a proactive investment in the sector’s next major strategic overhaul. The trade is no longer just about what Yum! Brands is doing today; it’s about anticipating where the money, and the market’s focus, will move tomorrow.
Should You Invest $1,000 in Yum! Brands Right Now?Before you consider Yum! Brands, you'll want to hear this.
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, /PRNewswire/ - Restaurant Brands International Inc. (NYSE: QSR) (TSX: QSR) ("RBI") today announced the results of the vote on the election of directors at its Annual Meeting of Shareholders held on June 3, 2026.
The total number of eligible votes represented in person or by proxy at the meeting was 403,178,212 representing 88.29% of all eligible votes.
RBI's proxy circular provided for ten nominees to the Board of Directors. The ten individuals nominated by the Board of Directors for election as directors of RBI were elected, each to hold office until the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their respective successors are elected or appointed. Each nominee other than Ms. Smith was an incumbent director.
The votes cast with respect to each nominee were as follows:
Director Nominee
Votes For
%
Votes Against
%
Alexandre Behring
386,544,846
97.21 %
10,905,772
2.74 %
Maximilien de Limburg Stirum
396,984,644
99.83 %
616,474
0.16 %
J. Patrick Doyle
393,548,187
98.97 %
4,058,404
1.02 %
Cristina Farjallat
396,848,192
99.80 %
759,417
0.19 %
Ali Hedayat
393,457,494
98.95 %
4,142,830
1.04 %
Marc Lemann
391,720,662
98.51 %
5,882,501
1.48 %
Jason Melbourne
396,839,982
99.80 %
763,563
0.19 %
Daniel S. Schwartz
396,469,148
99.70 %
1,131,612
0.28 %
Marcia Smith
397,229,186
99.90 %
376,898
0.09 %
Thecla Sweeney
394,889,035
99.31 %
2,671,526
0.67 %
Final voting results on all matters at the Annual Meeting of Shareholders will be filed with Canadian and U.S. securities regulators.
About Restaurant Brands International Inc.
Restaurant Brands International Inc. ("RBI") is one of the world's largest quick service restaurant companies with nearly $48 billion in annual system-wide sales and roughly 33,000 restaurants in more than 120 countries and territories. RBI owns four of the world's most prominent and iconic quick service restaurant brands – TIM HORTONS®, BURGER KING®, POPEYES®, and FIREHOUSE SUBS®. These independently operated brands have been serving their respective guests, franchisees and communities for decades. Through its Restaurant Brands for Good framework, RBI is improving sustainable outcomes related to its food, the planet, and people and communities.
RBI's principal executive offices are in Miami, Florida. In North America, RBI's brands are headquartered in their home markets where they were founded decades ago: Canada for Tim Hortons and the U.S. for Burger King, Popeyes and Firehouse Subs. To learn more about RBI, please visit the company's website at www.rbi.com.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - June 4, 2026) - Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company"), a leading consolidator of emerging restaurant brands, is pleased to announce the grand opening of its newest Heal Wellness ("Heal") restaurant, marking the opening of our 40th Heal Wellness location this Saturday, June 6th, 2026, at 994 Ottawa Street, Griffintown, Montreal, Quebec. Heal Wellness is a fast-growing quick-service restaurant ("QSR") brand specializing in fresh smoothie bowls, açaí bowls, and smoothies, built around clean ingredients and a better-for-you lifestyle.
Happy Belly 1
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The Griffintown location is operated by an existing Happy Belly multi-branded, multi-unit operator, further demonstrating the strength of the Company's platform and the confidence its partners have in expanding alongside its brands.
"Opening Heal in Griffintown marks another meaningful milestone in our Quebec expansion strategy," said Sean Black, Chief Executive Officer of Happy Belly Food Group. "This grand opening is especially significant because it reflects the continued confidence of an existing franchise partner who is already operating one of our other brands in Montreal. To see a franchisee expand with us across multiple brands and multiple units is a strong validation of our operating model, the quality of our brand portfolio, and the long-term opportunity we are building at Happy Belly."
Griffintown is one of Montreal's fastest growing and most desirable neighborhoods, known for its dense residential base, strong daytime traffic, mixed-use development, and health-conscious consumer demographic. The area's walkability, urban energy, and concentration of professionals and young families make it a highly attractive market for Heal's fresh, wellness-focused menu of smoothie bowls, acai bowls, and smoothies.
Happy Belly 2
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"Heal Wellness continues to expand rapidly across Canada and into the United States, solidifying its position as a leading acai and smoothie bowl brand," said Sean Black. "With 40 locations now open and more than 168 in development, Heal remains a key driver of growth within Happy Belly's broader portfolio of 686 contractually committed retail franchise locations across multiple emerging brands in various stages of development, construction, and operation. We continue to build a predictable and disciplined growth engine designed to create long-term shareholder value."
"We are just getting started," said Sean Black.
About Heal WellnessHeal Wellness was founded with a passion and mission to provide quick, fresh wellness foods that support a busy and active lifestyle. We currently offer a diverse range of smoothie bowls and smoothies. We take pride in meticulously selecting every superfood ingredient on our menu to fuel the body, including acai smoothie bowls, smoothies, and super-seed grain bowls. Our smoothie bowls are crafted with real fruit and enriched with superfoods like acai, pitaya, goji berries, chia seeds, and more.
FranchisingFor franchising inquiries please see www.happybellyfg.com/franchise-with-us/ or contact us at [email protected].
About Happy Belly Food Group
Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company") is a leader in acquiring and scaling emerging food brands across Canada.
Happy Belly 3
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Sean Black
Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer
Shawn Moniz
Co-founder, President
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management.
All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-Looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur and include the future performance of Happy Belly and her subsidiaries. Forward-Looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the business plans for Happy Belly described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are posted on www.sedarplus.ca.
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/300089
Source: Happy Belly Food Group Inc.
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Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - June 5, 2026) - Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company"), a leading consolidator of emerging restaurant brands, is pleased to announce the grand opening of its newest Heal Wellness ("Heal") restaurant location this Saturday, June 6th, 2026, at 860 Dundas St, Unit 2, Woodstock, Ontario. This location further advances Heal's disciplined, asset-light growth strategy as the brand continues to expand across Ontario's high-growth urban and suburban markets. Heal Wellness is a fast-growing quick-service restaurant ("QSR") brand specializing in fresh smoothie bowls, açaí bowls, and smoothies, built around clean ingredients and a better-for-you lifestyle.
Happy Belly 1
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Woodstock serves as a regional hub in Southwestern Ontario, benefiting from its strategic location along the Highway 401 corridor and its role as a growing employment and retail center. The city's expanding residential developments, established retail nodes, and increasing focus on wellness-oriented lifestyles provide a compelling backdrop for Heal's smoothie and smoothie bowl products. This location offers strong visibility, accessibility, and proximity to daily-use retail, positioning Heal to capture consistent demand throughout the day.
"Opening Heal in Woodstock marks another meaningful milestone in our Ontario expansion strategy," said Sean Black, Chief Executive Officer of Happy Belly Food Group. "This location reflects our continued focus on expanding Heal into strong, community-oriented markets with favorable demographic and traffic fundamentals. Woodstock benefits from steady population growth, a growing commercial base, and a well-balanced mix of residents, commuters, and families seeking convenient, health-forward food options. These characteristics align well with Heal's functional, grab-and-go offering and support sustainable, long-term unit performance."
Happy Belly 2
To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
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"Heal Wellness continues to expand rapidly across Canada and into the United States, solidifying its position as a leading acai and smoothie bowl brand," said Sean Black. "With 41 locations now open and more than 167 in development, Heal remains a key driver of growth within Happy Belly's broader portfolio of 686 contractually committed retail franchise locations across multiple emerging brands in various stages of development, construction, and operation. We continue to build a predictable and disciplined growth engine designed to create long-term shareholder value."
"We are just getting started", said Sean Black.
About Heal WellnessHeal Wellness was founded with a passion and mission to provide quick, fresh wellness foods that support a busy and active lifestyle. We currently offer a diverse range of smoothie bowls and smoothies. We take pride in meticulously selecting every superfood ingredient on our menu to fuel the body, including acai smoothie bowls, smoothies, and super-seed grain bowls. Our smoothie bowls are crafted with real fruit and enriched with superfoods like acai, pitaya, goji berries, chia seeds, and more.
FranchisingFor franchising inquiries please see www.happybellyfg.com/franchise-with-us/ or contact us at [email protected].
About Happy Belly Food Group
Happy Belly Food Group Inc. (CSE: HBFG) (OTCQB: HBFGF) ("Happy Belly" or the "Company") is a leader in acquiring and scaling emerging food brands across Canada.
Happy Belly Food Group
To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
https://images.newsfilecorp.com/files/6625/300309_907235442462992a_004full.jpg
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this press release, which has been prepared by management.
All statements in this press release, other than statements of historical fact, are "forward-looking information" with respect to the Company within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-Looking information is frequently characterized by words such as "plan", "expect", "project", "intend", "believe", "anticipate", "estimate" and other similar words, or statements that certain events or conditions "may" or "will" occur and include the future performance of Happy Belly and her subsidiaries. Forward-Looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements. There are uncertainties inherent in forward-looking information, including factors beyond the Company's control. There are no assurances that the business plans for Happy Belly described in this news release will come into effect on the terms or time frame described herein. The Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking information if circumstances or management's estimates or opinions should change except as required by law. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. For a description of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company and its business and affairs, readers should refer to the Company's Management's Discussion and Analysis and other disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulators, which are posted on www.sedarplus.ca.
To view the source version of this press release, please visit https://www.newsfilecorp.com/release/300309
Source: Happy Belly Food Group Inc.
Ready to Announce with Confidence? Send us a message and a member of our TMX Newsfile team will contact you to discuss your needs.
A month has gone by since the last earnings report for Restaurant Brands (QSR - Free Report) . Shares have lost about 9.2% in that time frame, underperforming the S&P 500.
But investors have to be wondering, will the recent negative trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is Restaurant Brands due for a breakout? Before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late, let's take a quick look at the latest earnings report in order to get a better handle on the important drivers.
Restaurant Brands Q1 Earnings Beat Estimates, Rise Y/YRestaurant Brands reported first-quarter 2026 results, with earnings and revenues beating the Zacks Consensus Estimate and increasing on a year-over-year basis.
QSR’s Q1 Earnings & Revenue DiscussionThe adjusted earnings per share (EPS) of 86 cents beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of 82 cents by 4.9%. The reported figure grew 14.7% from the year-ago quarter’s adjusted EPS of 75 cents.
Quarterly net revenues of $2.26 billion beat the consensus mark by 1%. The top line increased 7.3% on a year-over-year basis.
QSR Converts Sales Lift Into Higher ProfitabilitySystem-wide sales were $11.51 billion, and system-wide sales growth was 6.2% on a constant-currency basis. Comparable sales increased 3.2%, up from 0.1% a year ago.
Net restaurant growth was 2.6%, taking the system restaurant count to 32,985 at quarter’s end. Adjusted operating income rose to $610 million from $539 million, and adjusted EBITDA increased to $706 million from $642 million.
Restaurant Brands Sees Burger King OutperformanceBurger King delivered system-wide sales of $2.85 billion, up from $2.70 billion in the prior-year quarter. Comparable sales increased 5.8% versus a 1.3% decline a year ago, reflecting stronger guest engagement in the U.S. market.
The segment reported total revenues of $365 million compared with $356 million in the year-ago quarter. Adjusted operating income improved to $115 million from $103 million, aided by higher system-wide sales and lower segment G&A, partially offset by the impact of refranchising activity.
QSR Faces Popeyes Pressure, but Firehouse HoldsPopeyes’ results remained pressured in the quarter. System-wide sales declined to $1.42 billion from $1.48 billion, and comparable sales fell 6.5% following a 4.0% decline in the year-ago quarter due to weaker demand trends in the United States.
Total revenues for Popeyes were $190 million, down from $194 million a year ago, and adjusted operating income edged down to $57 million from $60 million. Firehouse Subs provided a steadier backdrop, with system-wide sales rising to $347 million from $322 million and adjusted operating income increasing to $14 million from $11 million.
Restaurant Brands Benefits From International AccelerationThe International segment was the largest growth engine, with system-wide sales up 11.1% on a constant-currency basis to $5.15 billion. Comparable sales improved 5.7% versus 2.6% in the prior-year quarter, supported by brand momentum across markets.
International total revenues increased to $254 million from $218 million, and adjusted operating income surged to $196 million from $138 million, helped by revenue growth and lower segment F&P expenses. Tim Hortons also posted a positive quarter, with comparable sales up 1.6% and system-wide sales of $1.74 billion, while adjusted operating income increased to $229 million from $220 million.
QSR Highlights Cash Flow, Leverage and Capital ReturnsNet cash provided by operating activities from continuing operations was $227 million, up from $118 million in the year-ago quarter. Free cash flow increased to $169 million from $54 million, and net leverage improved to 4.2x from 4.7x a year ago.
The company declared a quarterly dividend of $0.65 per common share and partnership exchangeable unit of RBI LP for the second quarter of 2026, payable July 7, to its holders of record June 23. QSR repurchased 463,442 common shares for $34 million in the quarter and bought back an additional 337,204 shares for $26 million through April 30, leaving $940 million under its authorization. For 2026, management reiterated expectations for segment G&A (excluding RH) of $600-$620 million, adjusted interest expense of $500-$520 million and total capex and cash inducements of around $400 million, while remaining on track for its long-term targets of 3%+ comparable sales and 8%+ organic adjusted operating income growth.
How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?In the past month, investors have witnessed a downward trend in fresh estimates.
VGM ScoresAt this time, Restaurant Brands has a average Growth Score of C, though it is lagging a lot on the Momentum Score front with an F. However, the stock has a score of C on the value side, putting it in the middle 20% for this investment strategy.
Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of D. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in.
OutlookEstimates have been broadly trending downward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions indicates a downward shift. Notably, Restaurant Brands has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We expect an in-line return from the stock in the next few months.
Performance of an Industry PlayerRestaurant Brands belongs to the Zacks Retail - Restaurants industry. Another stock from the same industry, Cheesecake Factory (CAKE - Free Report) , has gained 5% over the past month. More than a month has passed since the company reported results for the quarter ended March 2026.
Cheesecake Factory reported revenues of $978.83 million in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +5.6%. EPS of $1.05 for the same period compares with $0.93 a year ago.
For the current quarter, Cheesecake Factory is expected to post earnings of $1.13 per share, indicating a change of -2.6% from the year-ago quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate has changed -1.9% over the last 30 days.
The overall direction and magnitude of estimate revisions translate into a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) for Cheesecake Factory. Also, the stock has a VGM Score of B.
Square today announced that Coffee Dose, a specialty coffee brand and dining destination founded in 2018 by Jeni and Oscar Castro, is further expanding with Square as its unified commerce platform. Coffee Dose operates four locations across Southern California and is opening two additional concepts this year: Coffee Dose Brunch Club in Encinitas in June 2026, and a 3,600-square-foot flagship in Palm Springs in the fall. Square’s infrastructure is utilized across live locations and will support the brand’s new venues as it scales.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260611677338/en/
Photo of Coffee Dose Brunch Club taken by Jordan Shiley
Founded in 2018 with no coffee industry experience but an ambitious commitment to clean ingredients and irreverent branding, the Castro’s have built a loyal following around their nontraditional approach. Customers seek out Coffee Dose’s distinct menu of therapeutic lattes, house-made syrups, ingredients including charcoal and collagen, and seed oil free, vegan- and keto-friendly food. Since first onboarding Square in 2021, Coffee Dose has scaled from an 88 square foot pop-up occupying the corner of a hair salon into an eight-figure hospitality company, with each location in its growing portfolio possessing a unique identity.
A Commerce Platform Built for Continued Growth
Coffee Dose operates a range of quick-service restaurant (QSR) concepts: a flagship café, a drive-thru called MicroDose, and a walk-up café inside a pink shipping container called Dose in the Box. Across each location, Coffee Dose relies on Square to seamlessly manage operations and maintain a cohesive overview. With two boundary-pushing concepts coming this year, Coffee Dose is further leveraging Square for its ease of use, reporting and analytics capabilities, and partner integrations.
"I don’t see Square as just our point-of-sale system," said Jeni Castro, Co-Founder and CEO of Coffee Dose. "I see it as a partner that helps me scale my business in the most impactful way. The tools are easy for my team to use, the data and reporting help us make informed decisions across locations, and we can bring Square into each new opening without starting from scratch. That matters a lot when you’re growing as quickly as we are and have a thousand details to keep organized."
Coffee Dose’s Square usage spans a blend of hardware and software, including Square Register, Square Handheld, Kitchen Display System (KDS), online ordering for menu items and merchandise, gift cards, and loyalty. This ecosystem gives Coffee Dose operators the tools to run high-volume counter service, manage order flow across channels, and maintain critical customer engagement programs. The Per Diem integration is another key component of Coffee Dose’s technology stack, enabling mobile order-ahead and loyalty rewards for guests. From their café counter to a drive-thru lane to a walk-up shipping container window, Square’s platform supports all of the brand’s formats under a single account structure, giving Coffee Dose centralized visibility into sales, inventory, and customer data regardless of location model.
Supporting a Multi-Format, Multi-Location Operation
As Coffee Dose brings its Encinitas Brunch Club and Palm Springs flagship to life in 2026, both locations will run on Square from day one. The Palm Springs location, at 3,600 square feet on an acre of desert land, will be the brand’s largest destination to date and will include a drive-thru and walk-up window, in addition to full interior service – a multi-channel format that maximizes the flexibility Square was designed to unlock.
"Coffee Dose has built a popular, multi-location business that requires a technology platform able to keep pace across distinct formats: from a diner, to a café, to a drive-thru venue," said James Schonzeit, Head of Food & Beverage at Square. "They came to Square in 2021 and have grown significantly since. With two more openings this year, Square gives them the operational foundation to expand with confidence while preserving their standout brand identity across new concepts."
To learn more about how Square powers coffee and food and beverage (F&B) businesses, visit squareup.com/restaurants.
About Coffee Dose
Coffee Dose is a specialty coffee and dining destination founded in 2018 by Jeni and Oscar Castro in Costa Mesa, California. The brand operates four locations across Orange County, with two additional concepts, in Encinitas and Palm Springs, CA, opening in 2026. Coffee Dose is known for its house-made syrups, Rx Lattes, and proprietary Anti Bitch Blend roast, and serves a menu of seed oil free, vegan- and keto-friendly food alongside its core beverage program. For more information, visit coffeedose.cafe.
About Square
Square helps businesses turn transactions into connections and businesses into neighborhood favorites.
In 2009, Square started with a simple invention – the first mobile card reader, which changed how the entire financial system thinks about small businesses. Square has since grown into a global business platform helping millions of sellers of all sizes participate and thrive in their communities.
Whether independently run or a global chain, Square understands that sellers succeed when they have the freedom to focus on the experiences that keep customers coming back. From point of sale and payments to online commerce, staff management, cash flow tools, and more, Square brings together the tools sellers need to run and grow on one intelligent platform. For more information, visit squareup.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260611677338/en/
Italian defense firm Leonardo said it is "positioned on a path of strong growth" on Thursday, as European defense companies stand to gain business from the war in Iran, as they have been boosted by the war in Ukraine.
Leonardo unveiled plans to double profits by 2030, the day after German peer arms maker Rheinmetall forecast its sales could grow as much as 45% this year, as both companies have record-high order backlogs.
Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani told investors that war was "getting faster and more dangerous," and warned of the rise of hybrid threats that "increase uncertainty and operational complexity."
Rheinmetall said that it was in a "prime position" to arm the U.S. amid the war in Iran, with CEO Armin Papperger telling investors that "over the next 10 years, there is a huge need" for its products.
Rheinmetall shares fell 8% after the guidance, which was described as "realistic but soft" by a Jefferies analyst, who added investors had high expectations for a share price that has risen 1,700% since the start of 2022.
The war in Iran, which has entered its 13th day, has renewed focus on defense companies, which are seeing increased demand regardless of their specific focus within the sector.
Leonardo is positioning itself as a digital defense player, investing in defense electronics and interconnected platforms such as the "Michelangelo Dome," which can detect and neutralize air threats similar to Israel's Iron Dome. Rheinmetall is a leading supplier of land systems like tanks and ammunition.
Sweden's Saab specializes in fighter jets, while Britain's Bae Systems, the largest of the European defense firms by sales and market cap, has a broad portfolio of military equipment from nuclear submarines to the Eurofighter Typhoon jet.
Annual revenue for Rheinmetall, Leonardo, Bae Systems, France's Thales, Germany's Hensoldt, and Saab rose an average of 57% between 2021 and 2025.
These companies also saw big increases in their order intake, an indication of future sales, over the same period.
Rheinmetall and Saab have seen the most explosive growth of 323% and 284%, respectively, based on unaudited 2025 figures.
On average, order intake grew 135%. Thales' order intake grew 27% between 2021 and 2025.
Barclays analysts earlier this week upgraded their recommendation on Leonardo to Overweight from Neutral, saying that the U.S.-Iran conflict helps the narrative of a booming defense sector in the short-term, but Leonardo has greater earnings momentum relative to peers.
Its diversified portfolio and low exposure to Ukraine also offer resilience to potential impact from a cease-fire, they added.
Saab AB is upgraded from hold to buy, driven by robust backlog growth and sustained revenue visibility. SAABF's backlog now covers 3.5x 2025 sales, with significant order inflows and multi-year delivery extensions supporting elevated earnings duration. The 2023-2027 CAGR target is raised to 22%, with EBIT growth expected to outpace sales and margin expansion anticipated as programs mature.
The first Gripen fighter jet assembled in Brazil, christened by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva during Embraer and Swedish defence company Saab's presentation, at the Gaviao... Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more
GAVIAO PEIXOTO, Brazil, March 25 (Reuters) - Swedish defense firm Saab (SAABb.ST), opens new tab is pressing on with a campaign to sell its Gripen fighter jets to Peru despite political turbulence and signs the country was leaning toward the competing F-16 made by Lockheed Martin (LMT.N), opens new tab.
Saab Chief Executive Micael Johansson said on Wednesday the company had made a "cost-efficient and competitive" offer to Peru and was in close contact with the country's air force.
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After a 2014 deal to sell 36 aircraft to Brazil, Saab has long viewed Peru as a potential Gripen customer alongside Colombia, which placed an order last year.
"Since these decisions are on a political level, when things are a bit turbulent you may get sort of a pause or hibernation on the process," Johansson told reporters on the sidelines of an event introducing the first Gripen assembled in Brazil.
PRESIDENTIAL TURNOVERSince 2018, Peru has cycled through a rapid succession of presidents, exposing fissures between the executive branch and Congress.
Last month, Congress ousted President Jose Jeri over a corruption scandal only four months into his term and just before elections scheduled for April 12. Lawmaker Jose Balcazar has been serving as interim president.
Johansson said that Peru had taken decisions toward funding a fighter jet program.
"Now it's more about how do they launch it, and of course it's a competition, so they have to select. But we are still campaigning in Peru, definitely," the executive noted.
The U.S. State Department said last year it approved the potential sale of F-16 aircraft and related elements of logistics and program support to Peru in a deal estimated at $3.4 billion.
Peru's government said last week that the process had not yet concluded, following media reports it had selected the F-16.
PRODUCTION SITES, TWO-SEAT VERSIONJohansson said Saab did not expect to expand its Gripen manufacturing footprint significantly beyond its existing sites in Sweden and Brazil.
"I think Sweden, Brazil and maybe one more," he said. "If Canada selects to go dual-fleet and not only (Lockheed's) F-35, Canada might be that country."
The CEO reiterated Saab expects its production line at Brazilian planemaker Embraer's (EMBJ3.SA), opens new tab Gaviao Peixoto plant in Sao Paulo state to serve as an exporting hub.
Johansson also said Saab plans to roll out the Gripen F, a two-seat version of the fighter, in Sweden in June.
Reporting by Gabriel Araujo; Editing by Brad Haynes and Andrea Ricci
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Gabriel is a Sao Paulo, Brazil-based reporter covering Latin America's financial and breaking news from the region's largest economy. A graduate of the University of Sao Paulo, joined Reuters while in college as a Commodities & Energy intern and has been with the firm ever since. Previously covered sports - including soccer and Formula One - for Brazilian radios and websites.
Sweden's Air Force Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighter takes off during the AFX 18 exercise in Amari military air base, Estonia May 25, 2018. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SummaryCompaniesSaab on track to meet medium-term targetsAll business areas achieve double-digit sales growthOrder backlog SEK 274 billionSTOCKHOLM, April 23 (Reuters) - Swedish aerospace and defence group Saab (SAABb.ST), opens new tab reported a larger than expected rise in first-quarter operating profit on Thursday and said it was on track to deliver on medium-term targets.
Saab, which makes products ranging from Gripen fighter jets and submarines to missiles and advanced electronics, reported a 32% rise in first-quarter operating profit to 1.92 billion Swedish crowns ($208 million), beating expectations of 1.71 billion crowns in an LSEG poll of analysts.
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The group is scaling up production to meet demand from Europe and beyond as Russia's invasion of Ukraine and conflict in the Middle East drive a continued rise in arms expenditure.
"It's full speed ahead," CEO Micael Johansson told Reuters. "There's a lot of activity in the market and we have a lot in the pipeline."
All business areas delivered sales growth in double-digit percentages and the company is on course to meet the medium-term targets, he added.
Saab's medium-term targets for 2023-2027 project organic sales growth of about 22%, operating income growth above sales growth and a cash conversion ratio of more than 60%.
Sales amounted to 19.16 billion crowns, up from 15.79 billion crowns in the first quarter of 2025. That equated to organic sales growth of 23.6%, just shy of the estimated 19.82 billion crowns.
Johansson said Saab's supply chains have not yet been affected by the war in Iran but there has been high demand from the Gulf region for its missile and drone detecting sensors.
Order bookings amounted to 18.24 billion crowns in the quarter and the backlog stood at 274 billion crowns.
($1 = 9.2357 Swedish crowns)
Reporting by Johan Ahlander Editing by Essi Lehto and David Goodman
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
, /PRNewswire/ -- The two-seat fighter, developed in partnership with Brazilian industry, accelerates training and enhances operational performance.
On 2 June Saab had a rollout of the first Gripen F fighter to the Brazilian Air Force during a ceremony held at Saab´s facilities in Linköping, Sweden.
Gripen F is the two-seat variant of the Gripen E series and has been developed to meet the training and operational requirements of modern air forces by combining conversion training and combat capability on the same platform.
As the launch customer, Brazil played an active role in the co development of the two-seat variant, enabling direct industrial participation and long-term cooperation. Through an extensive transfer-of-technology programme, Brazil has trained hundreds of engineers and technicians while strengthening the advanced design and development expertise within its national industrial base.
"The rollout of Gripen F represents a shared achievement between Saab, Brazilian industry and the Brazilian Air Force, reflecting the deep trust we have built together over many years. Developing this aircraft together demonstrates the maturity of this collaboration. It represents not only a highly capable fighter for the Brazilian Air Force, but also the tangible outcome of sustained joint development and shared ambition," says Lars Tossman, head of Saab's business area Aeronautics.
Designed for an era of rapid transformation, Gripen F delivers world-class performance, sensors, and revolutionary architecture, mirroring Gripen E. The addition of a fully independent second cockpit enables instructor-guided missions in a fully operational fighter, giving trainee pilots realistic live mission conditions. Consequently, pilot conversion and preparatory training can be dramatically accelerated compared to conventional time, while enhancing operational effectiveness in high-threat environments through shared workload and improved mission command.
Before final delivery to the Brazilian Air Force the aircraft will be transferred to Saab's Flight Test Centre in Sweden, where it will start a dedicated flight test campaign.
The 2014 contract with the Brazilian government covers the development and production of 36 fighter aircraft: 28 Gripen E and eight Gripen F. Deliveries began in 2020 and to date 11 aircraft have been handed over. Saab has also received Gripen F orders from Thailand and Colombia.
Contact
Saab´s Press Center
+46 (0)734 180 018
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Saab is a leading defence and security company with an enduring purpose, to help nations keep their people and society safe. Empowered by its 28,000 talented people, Saab constantly pushes the boundaries of technology to create a safer and more sustainable world. Saab designs, manufactures and maintains advanced systems in aeronautics, weapons, command and control, sensors and underwater systems. Saab is headquartered in Sweden. It has major operations all over the world and is part of the domestic defence capability of several nations.
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Item 1 of 2 Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson welcomes Brazilian Defence Minister Jose Mucio during a ceremony outside the Government Offices Rosenbad in Stockholm, Sweden, June 4, 2026, ahead of a bilateral meeting. Jonas Ekstromer/TT News Agency via REUTERS
[1/2]Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson welcomes Brazilian Defence Minister Jose Mucio during a ceremony outside the Government Offices Rosenbad in Stockholm, Sweden, June 4, 2026, ahead of a bilateral... Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab Read more
STOCKHOLM, June 4 (Reuters) - Brazil has expressed interest in purchasing 20 additional Gripen model E and F fighter jets from Sweden's Saab (SAABb.ST), opens new tab, Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson said on Thursday.
The aircraft would be manufactured in Brazil, Jonson told a joint press conference in Stockholm with his Brazilian counterpart, Defence Minister Jose Mucio.
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Brazil in 2014 agreed to buy 36 Gripen fighter jets, and in 2023 Brazil's Embraer SA (EMBJ3.SA), opens new tab and Saab launched a production line in Brazil for the aircraft, with the South American country saying it may place more orders.
The first jets of the original deal have already been delivered and the remainder are expected to be handed over by 2027.
On Thursday, Jonson and Mucio signed a declaration of intent to deepen the defence cooperation between the two countries, the Swedish minister told reporters.
"Brazil expresses an interest in going beyond the 36 Gripen... and purchasing an additional 20 Gripens," Jonson added.
Saab would also set up a research and development unit in Brazil as part of the deeper collaboration, he added.
During Mucio's visit to Sweden, Saab showcased its first Gripen F, a two-seat version of the jet developed for Brazil.
Reporting by Johan Ahlander and Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Emelia Sithole-Matarise
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Saab is rated a buy, with a $64.74 price target and 15% upside potential based on 2027 earnings expectations. Backlog visibility is strong, with 84% of 2026 and over 70% of 2027 expected revenues already booked, driven by short-cycle work. Q1 sales grew 21.4% and EBIT rose 32%, but free cash flow is pressured by elevated capital expenditures and ongoing ramp-up investments.
Item 1 of 2 A scale model of the Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS / SCAF), Europe's next-generation fighter jet, is seen in Paris, France, February 20, 2020. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo
[1/2]A scale model of the Franco-German-Spanish Future Combat Air System (FCAS / SCAF), Europe's next-generation fighter jet, is seen in Paris, France, February 20, 2020. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SummaryCompaniesGermany and France ditch FCAS fighter projectAirbus has held exploratory talks with Saab, sources saySaab says any fighter decision would be for governmentsPARIS/BERLIN, June 10 (Reuters) - Airbus (AIR.PA), opens new tab is increasingly looking to Sweden's Saab as a preferred future partner as the collapse of a Franco-German fighter programme reshapes European defence alliances, three people familiar with the matter said.
Teaming up on warfare with the maker of Gripen combat jets is not the only option for Airbus, which represents Germany and Spain in the fighter market. There have also been high-level contacts on a separate project involving Britain, Italy and Japan.
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But Airbus and Saab (SAABb.ST), opens new tab have been in broad exploratory talks for at least six months, buoyed by improving defence relations between Germany and Sweden, the people said.
Saab said any cooperation would be a political decision. "That said, we have an open-door policy and are open to collaboration with many defence industry players," a spokesperson said.
Airbus had no immediate comment.
Until now, talks have been largely conceptual to avoid pre-empting the breakdown of the FCAS fighter project, sources said.
But this week's divorce between Airbus and Dassault Aviation (AM.PA), opens new tab - expected to be made official at the Berlin Airshow - could allow Airbus to pursue a Nordic partnership more openly.
Speaking to Reuters in Berlin, Airbus Defence & Space CEO Michael Schoellhorn confirmed Saab was among potential partners but said it was too early to rule out other options.
"There are potential partners, e.g. Saab. It will also be up to the (German) air force ... to restate what they actually need."
On Tuesday, Leonardo (LDOF.MI), opens new tab opened the door to Airbus and its defence paymaster Germany joining the separate GCAP project between Britain, Italy and Japan.
Berlin would be a "particularly valid partner," CEO Lorenzo Mariani told Reuters.
Analysts say the collapse of FCAS after nine years deals a blow to European defence cooperation. Decisions over what comes next will shape European air power for decades.
"It demonstrates how difficult it is to align military, political and industrial priorities," said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at IISS.
POTENTIAL HURDLESSweden remained independent during the last round of fighter development, building the Gripen while France produced the Rafale and Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy co-developed the Eurofighter.
For the next generation it has yet to show its hand, having initially partnered with Britain and now conducting research on a Gripen successor, with political decisions due in 2030.
People familiar with the matter said Sweden has both the will and technology to team up with Airbus if requested.
The two sides have been inching closer for months.
Visiting Germany last September, Swedish Defence Minister Pal Jonson said industrial co-operation was "blossoming".
In December, Reuters reported Saab and Airbus had begun discussing co-operation on unmanned technology.
Those talks focused on supporting existing crewed fighters such as the Eurofighter and Gripen E, but sources said they could become a springboard for deeper cooperation.
Still, hurdles remain whichever path Berlin takes.
Just as France and Germany have historically differed over the role of their fighters - an issue that led France to leave the Eurofighter in the 1980s to build the Rafale - it remains unclear how far German and Swedish requirements align.
Insiders say GCAP is constrained by a tight 2035 deadline agreed with Japan, making it difficult to offer Germany more than a junior role.
Questions also remain whether any country can go it alone.
Dassault, the only European firm to have developed a fighter from scratch using domestic engines, says it is ready to do so again, though French public finances are strained.
At the air show, an Airbus-led alliance is set to make a lobbying push for German firms, though sources denied this marked the start of a new project.
Schoellhorn played down the prospect of going solo. "Germany has been clear on numerous occasions, also on the political side, that we continue to think European," he said.
With limited domestic demand to keep costs down and fiscal pressures across the continent, analysts say European fighter-producing nations other than France will keep pursuing alliances, potentially extending to the Middle East.
"It doesn't make the product cheap but it makes it affordable. Some of this stuff is really difficult to do on your own, except for the Americans or Chinese," Barrie said.
Additional reporting by Johan Ahlander, Ludwig Burger, Angelo Amante, Sarah Young, Joanna Plucinska, Michel Rose. Editing by Mark Potter
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
A logo of Embraer is seen at the 55th International Paris Airshow at Le Bourget Airport near Paris, France, June 17, 2025. REUTERS/Benoit Tessier Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
SAO JOSE DOS CAMPOS, Brazil, June 10 (Reuters) - Brazilian planemaker Embraer (EMBJ3.SA), opens new tab has no plans to develop a fighter jet, CEO Francisco Gomes Neto told reporters on Wednesday, adding the company was satisfied with its partnership with Sweden's Saab (SAABb.ST), opens new tab in the segment.
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Embraer and Saab unveiled in March the first Gripen assembled at Embraer's Gaviao Peixoto plant as part of a contract with Brazil.
Gomes Neto said the plant could support production for new sales Saab eventually makes in South America and "maybe even in other countries, if they need additional capacity."
Brazil has expressed interest in purchasing 20 additional Gripen jets, according to Sweden.
Embraer focused on products such as military cargo jet C-390 Millennium and light attack aircraft Super Tucano.
Gomes Neto spoke after the of a flagship Franco-German fighter jet project.
Fellow planemaker Airbus (AIR.PA), opens new tab is increasingly looking to Saab as a preferred future partner, Reuters reported, citing sources.
Reporting by Gabriel Araujo
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab
Gabriel is a Sao Paulo, Brazil-based reporter covering Latin America's financial and breaking news from the region's largest economy. A graduate of the University of Sao Paulo, joined Reuters while in college as a Commodities & Energy intern and has been with the firm ever since. Previously covered sports - including soccer and Formula One - for Brazilian radios and websites.
Wall Street analysts make their living by taking a close look at companies' financials and offering informed advice on their stocks. As part of this advice, they commonly set one-year price targets for stocks to give investors an idea of where the stock's price could be heading. These targets can range widely from analyst to analyst and should be looked on as educated guesses.
Any one guess is subject to error, but if multiple analysts are all guessing similarly, the average can be useful as part of a broader analysis for or against a stock. For SoundHound AI (SOUN +3.93%), a survey of 16 analysts put the low share price target at $8, while the high was $20. On average, it's $14, indicating over 56% upside from today's stock price.
A 56% gain in one year is impressive, and if that pans out, SoundHound AI will be a top performer in the coming year. But is this target realistic? Let's take a look.
Image source: Getty Images.
SoundHound AI has major potential SoundHound AI is a rare, pure-play artificial intelligence (AI) investment that looks promising. Its technology incorporates audio recognition technology with AI, which opens up a huge market. Basically, anywhere a human normally talks to another human for service is a potential for expansion, and it has already conquered one sector. SoundHound AI has a major foothold in the restaurant industry. While that's not a massive use case, and the number of requests at a drive-thru window is normally limited to the restaurant's menu, it's a solid starting point.
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If SoundHound AI can expand to other areas like insurance, finance, and healthcare, it could become a major player in multiple industries. It has already signed several customers in these industries, and the next few years should tell the success of these endeavors.
In the meantime, SoundHound AI is putting up solid 52% year-over-year revenue growth. While it's still a long way from profitability, that shouldn't come as a surprise given that SoundHound AI is in a growth phase.
As for valuation, SoundHound AI no longer has a massive premium attached to it.
Data by YCharts.
A little over 18 times sales is fairly cheap for a company with incredible prospects and a strong growth rate like SoundHound AI. Normally, I'd expect to see a stock like this trading in the 30 times sales range, which would nearly account for the 56% gain in share price that Wall Street projects.
I think if SoundHound AI can beat growth expectations and continue to expand into some of the major opportunities ahead, it will be a solid stock to own and can easily deliver the growth that investors are looking for. However, if another company comes along and tries to steal market share from SoundHound AI, don't be surprised to see the stock take a major hit.
The past few months haven't been kind to SoundHound AI (SOUN +3.93%) shareholders. The company posted record revenue in the first quarter, but that wasn't enough to offset concerns about its pending acquisition of another company.
As of this writing, shares are down roughly 29% over the last six months. The good news is that if SoundHound successfully integrates that acquisition into its business, its momentum could be reignited, sending the stock price higher.
Image source: Getty Images.
A wise purchase or a risky gamble? The company that SoundHound is looking to buy (at an equity value of $43 million) is LivePerson (LPSN +1.92%) -- it believes the target's digital engagement suite will complement its current business. SoundHound's focus and strength are in audio-enabled artificial intelligence (AI), which it can use to embed its tech in everything from vehicles to restaurant drive-thrus. LivePerson operates primarily through messaging with its AI agents, such as answering a question in a chat box on a website or sending a reminder via text message.
If the acquisition closes as expected in the second half of this year, SoundHound plans to cross-sell products, opening a potentially significant new revenue source; in 2025, LivePerson generated $243.7 million in revenue, while SoundHound generated just under $169 million.
It sounds like a good fit on paper, but there are two issues that investors seem worried about with this deal. One is that SoundHound is paying for LivePerson and settling the target's outstanding debt with its own stock, which dilutes SoundHound shareholders. That can create short-term pressure, but it could be resolved so long as this deal provides long-term value.
That potential long-term value, however, is the other issue weighing on the stock. LivePerson reported a net loss of more than $67 million in 2025, and SoundHound itself is unprofitable. That means one unprofitable company will have to successfully integrate into its operations another unprofitable company that has been struggling for years.
The long-term outlook for SoundHound
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SoundHound expects LivePerson to add $100 million to its revenue in 2027, bringing the total to between $350 million and $400 million. SoundHound currently has no debt and expects to be debt-free after the acquisition.
At the time of its Q1 report, management reiterated its forecast for 2026 revenue of between $225 million and $260 million, so hitting the upper end of that $400 million range in 207 would require a solid jump. The company will still have to work on profitability, but it's still a growth stock in an aggressive expansion phase for now. That's going to create a lot of short-term volatility. In order for the stock price's momentum to improve over the rest of the year, there would either need to be a broad market rally for the stock to get swept up in, or SoundHound would need to boost its 2026 revenue guidance in one of its next earnings reports.
Over the longer term, if SoundHound can successfully integrate LivePerson into its operations, the deal could add meaningful value to the company. It's still liable to remain a volatile stock, however. So even if you're among the most aggressive of investors and (after weighing the risks and potential rewards) you want to add it to your portfolio, you'd be best advised to make it a relatively small position.
A big challenge for SoundHound AI (SOUN +3.93%) may be keeping up with larger players in the tech sector as it looks to expand its business. There's considerable competition in artificial intelligence (AI) and in the voice AI services that SoundHound offers. And those concerns may be part of the reason why the stock has struggled to rally this year; it's down around 10% thus far in 2026.
But SoundHound's management remains confident about its opportunities, and its CEO believes that, unlike larger tech companies, it doesn't need to spend excessively and waste money on AI. Here's why.
Image source: Getty Images.
SoundHound's CEO is confident that the company will not be as wasteful as other tech giants On SoundHound's most recent earnings call, its CEO Keyvan Mohajer suggested that the AI company may not be as wasteful as hyperscalers and big tech because it isn't looking to overcomplicate the task at hand.
"Unlike some companies that are throwing billions to avoid missing out, we know what we are doing. We know our training recipe. We have the data, and our models will be specialized for what they will be used for. Importantly, we believe that models that handle a customer service inquiry do not need to also solve quantum physics problems or answer history questions in haiku."
By having a narrower approach in its AI strategy, SoundHound believes it can help keep its costs lower, thus potentially putting it on a stronger path to profitability. And that's important because while the business has generated strong growth in recent quarters, the challenge is in being efficient and reducing unnecessary spend, in order to get to profitability. In each of the past four quarters, the company's operating expenses have totaled more than $60 million -- exceeding its revenue.
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The company, however, still has a lot to prove While management may be confident of its approach, SoundHound's financials remain underwhelming. Acquisitions have helped the business grow and diversify, but they also add complexity and costs, making it challenging for the company to improve its bottom line.
And during the first three months of the year, the company burned through $26.3 million from its day-to-day operating activities, which is more than the $19.2 million it used up during the same period last year. That's a concerning sign for a company that's still in the midst of its early growth and that needs to generate strong positive cash flow to show growth investors that it's on the right path.
Investors should take a CEO's confidence with a grain of salt, however, because ultimately it's the financials and the numbers that matter most. And until they improve for SoundHound and show significant improvement, the stock is going to remain a risky buy, which is why I'd continue to take a wait-and-see approach with it.
Finding a dirt-cheap stock, loading up on shares, and having a meager investment transform into $1 million is a dream of many investors. While many stocks promise to fulfill this lofty goal, I think there's one $8 stock that could make it happen: SoundHound AI (SOUN +3.93%).
SoundHound AI trades for a little more than $8, but I believe it could lead to phenomenal returns over the next few years as its vision takes shape.
Image source: Getty Images.
SoundHound AI could be a major player in AI SoundHound AI combines audio recognition technology with AI, allowing it to automate several tasks that humans normally do. It has already successfully deployed its technology in a few key areas, such as restaurant automation. If you've had an order taken by an AI agent at a drive-thru, chances are high that it was SoundHound AI's technology powering that interaction. While the fast food market isn't a huge space, there are much larger industries with armies of customer service agents that SoundHound AI could automate.
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Finance, healthcare, and insurance are some of the major targets, and SoundHound AI already has deals with several of them to explore integrating its product into its clients' systems. To support this, it rolled out OASYS, which helps the AI interact with itself and improve in real time to tackle new situations it's encountering. That's a major development, and could be a piece of the puzzle that SoundHound AI needs to become a millionaire-maker stock.
What exactly needs to happen to turn this $8 stock into a $800 stock? The biggest thing is to continue growing its business at a steady pace. In Q1, its revenue rose at a 52% clip. That's a solid growth rate for SoundHound AI, but it needs to keep that up over several years to deliver 100x returns. Over that time frame, SoundHound AI also needs to generate a profit. It shouldn't surprise investors that it's currently highly unprofitable, as it's spending every penny it can to innovate and develop a platform that can automate several roles. In Q1, its operating loss was nearly $23 million compared to $44 million in revenue. That means it's spending about 50% more than it's bringing in the door, which is unsustainable.
If SoundHound AI can grow into a major market opportunity, achieve profitability, and sustain its rapid growth rate over the next decade, it could deliver millionaire-maker returns. However, there's no guarantee of success, as another AI competitor could easily tackle this market sector and be a major competitor. Time will tell where SoundHound AI ends up, but I think it's worth a small investment to see what happens.
Keithen Drury has positions in SoundHound AI. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends SoundHound AI. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Key Takeaways SOUN launched OASYS to auto-build and improve AI agents, cutting deployment from months to minutes.SoundHound says OASYS will lean on Polaris and in-house models to replace costly third-party AI.SOUN expects LivePerson deal to add vast interaction data to boost training and automation outcomes. SoundHound AI (SOUN - Free Report) is making a significant strategic push toward proprietary artificial intelligence models as it seeks to strengthen its competitive position in the rapidly evolving conversational and agentic AI market. The company believes owning the full AI stack can improve performance, lower costs and create a sustainable competitive advantage.
The clearest example of this strategy is OASYS, SoundHound’s newly launched self-learning agentic AI platform. Management describes OASYS as a system where AI can automatically create, orchestrate, evaluate and improve AI agents, reducing deployment times from months to minutes. The platform is designed to operate across voice, text, web, kiosks, vehicles and other channels, creating a unified AI ecosystem for enterprise customers.
A key reason behind this push is cost efficiency. During the first quarter of 2026 earnings call, SoundHound highlighted that OASYS will increasingly rely on Polaris, its proprietary speech foundation model, along with internally developed specialized large language models and speech synthesis technologies. Management stated that most customer interactions could eventually be powered by SoundHound’s own models rather than expensive third-party frontier models, generating meaningful long-term cost savings.
The company also believes proprietary models can deliver better performance for targeted enterprise use cases. Rather than building general-purpose AI systems, SoundHound is developing specialized models focused on customer service, order processing, financial transactions and workflow automation. According to management, these models can outperform larger frontier models in specific applications while operating at lower costs.
The planned acquisition of LivePerson further strengthens this strategy. By combining SoundHound’s voice AI with LivePerson’s digital messaging platform, the company expects to gain access to tens of billions of annual customer interactions, creating a powerful proprietary data foundation that can improve model training and automation outcomes.
With first-quarter 2026 revenue rising 52% year over year to $44.2 million and demand growing across multiple industries, SoundHound is betting that proprietary AI models will help drive faster innovation, higher margins and stronger long-term growth.
What Sets SoundHound Apart in Enterprise AITwo notable competitors in the enterprise conversational AI space are NICE Ltd. (NICE - Free Report) and Five9, Inc. (FIVN - Free Report) . Both NICE and Five9 have invested heavily in AI-powered customer engagement platforms, but their strategies differ from SoundHound’s growing focus on proprietary AI models.
NICE primarily integrates advanced AI capabilities into its customer experience platform to automate service workflows and improve contact center efficiency. While NICE benefits from a large enterprise customer base and deep industry expertise, it often relies on a broader ecosystem of AI technologies. NICE continues to expand its AI offerings, but its approach is more platform-centric than model-centric.
Five9 has also emerged as a major force in cloud contact center automation. Five9 leverages AI to enhance agent productivity and customer interactions across voice and digital channels. However, Five9’s strategy centers on orchestration and workflow automation rather than building a fully proprietary AI stack.
This is where SoundHound seeks differentiation. By developing its own speech foundation model, specialized AI models and the OASYS platform, SoundHound aims to reduce dependence on third-party AI providers. As enterprises increasingly prioritize cost efficiency, customization and data control, SoundHound believes its vertically integrated AI approach could provide an edge over both NICE and Five9.
SOUN’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesSoundHound shares have lost 7.2% year to date (YTD), outperforming the industry, as shown below:
SOUN’s YTD Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, SOUN trades at a forward price-to-sales (P/S) multiple of 16, above the industry’s average of 13.48.
SOUN’s P/S Ratio (Forward 12-Month) vs. Industry
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Over the past 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for SoundHound’s 2026 loss per share has widened to 18 cents, as shown below. The expected loss also remains wider than the previous year’s loss of 13 cents.
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Shareholders should contact the firm immediately as there may be limited time to enforce your rights.
, /PRNewswire/ -- Halper Sadeh LLC, an investor rights law firm, is investigating whether certain officers and directors of SoundHound AI, Inc. (NASDAQ: SOUN) breached their fiduciary duties to shareholders.
If you currently own SoundHound stock and are a long-term shareholder, you may be able to seek corporate governance reforms, the return of funds back to the company, a court-approved financial incentive award, or other relief and benefits. Please click here to learn more about your legal rights and options or contact Daniel Sadeh or Zachary Halper at (212) 763-0060 or [email protected] or [email protected].
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I always thought Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? was a silly name for a game show. Of course everyone who isn't already a millionaire (or billionaire) wants to be one!
The good news is, the stock market has made far more people into millionaires than the TV game show, and right now, AI stocks are outperforming the broader market.
Here are three AI stocks that have serious millionaire-maker potential, and you don't even have to phone a friend to ask for the answers.
1. Nvidia
Image source: Nvidia.
Yes, it already has a $5 trillion market cap. Yes, it's already up more than 1,250% in the past five years. But the thing about winners is that they tend to keep on winning unless something comes along to dislodge them from their perch. And right now, when it comes to AI processors, Nvidia (NVDA +2.30%) is the undisputed leader in the industry. No other company has even come close to mounting a serious challenge.
Normally, once a company reaches megacap size, its growth tends to plateau. But you'd never know that from Nvidia's recently released fiscal 2027 Q1 financials. Revenue was up 85% from the year-ago quarter, and non-GAAP net income grew by a jaw-dropping 139%, with further growth expected. That's the kind of growth that tiny tech start-ups dream of. In spite of all that, the stock is down 6% from its highs, giving Nvidia serious millionaire-making potential from here.
2. Alphabet Alphabet (GOOGL +0.60%) (GOOG +0.92%) isn't so much an AI company as an everything company, but its AI bona fides go back to 2016, when its AlphaGo AI defeated a top-ranked player at the Chinese board game Go, a feat considered more impressive than Deep Blue's 1997 chess victory over international grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
Since then, Alphabet has rolled out a number of AI-focused improvements across its ecosystem, including the Google Gemini AI chatbot, AI-powered Google Search, and its Waymo self-driving car initiative.
A few years ago, many onlookers believed that Alphabet's core Google Search business would be hurt by diminishing ad revenue as AI chatbots grew in popularity, but the company has overcome those concerns. Instead, thanks to its moves to enhance Google Search with AI features, that business has continued to thrive, with ad revenue climbing 19% to $60.4 billion in Q1 2026 alone. Meanwhile, Google Cloud revenue increased 63% to $20 billion, largely due to growth in enterprise AI solutions and AI infrastructure.
As one of the largest companies in the world, with a market capitalization of $4.7 trillion, Alphabet, like Nvidia, might seem too big to be a growth stock, but it continues to assert itself as a dominant force in the AI world. Alphabet's stock should continue to produce market-crushing returns worthy of a millionaire-maker portfolio.
Image source: Getty Images.
3. SoundHound AI To explain why AI voice chat specialist SoundHound AI (SOUN +3.93%) could make you a millionaire, we need to revisit the story of AlphaGo's victory at the board game Go.
Go's 19x19 board is much larger than chess's 8x8 board, and it has an exponentially higher number of possible moves, which is why it took almost 20 years longer for an AI to beat a top-ranked human player at Go than at chess.
To win at chess, Deep Blue -- after executing some preprogrammed opening moves -- compared every possible series of moves and selected the path with the best probability of winning. But the number of possible Go moves is too high for even an advanced AI to compare them all, so AlphaGo didn't even try. Instead, AlphaGo played tens of millions of games against itself, and it drew on the outcomes of those games to make its decisions.
Any customer service interaction has infinitely more possibilities than a game of Go. All those possibilities make it very difficult to train an AI customer service agent to human-level capability. But SoundHound AI is taking a leaf out of AlphaGo's playbook. It has just released a new agentic AI platform called OASYS, which not only deploys AI agents to perform specific tasks, but also coordinates multiple agents, evaluates them, and automatically improves those agents based on their past interactions. It's the equivalent of AlphaGo training itself to become more efficient.
SoundHound AI is still struggling to achieve consistent profitability, and its stock is 66% off its high.
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But its revenue keeps growing, and it seems to be successfully making inroads into industries beyond its core restaurant and automotive customers. If SoundHound's OASYS AI agents can beat larger AI companies to the punch in delivering human-level customer service interactions, it could easily become a millionaire-maker stock.
SoundHound AI, Inc. (SOUN - Free Report) has been one of the most searched-for stocks on Zacks.com lately. So, you might want to look at some of the facts that could shape the stock's performance in the near term.
Over the past month, shares of this company have returned -16.8%, compared to the Zacks S&P 500 composite's +5.5% change. During this period, the Zacks Computers - IT Services industry, which SoundHound AI falls in, has gained 4.5%. The key question now is: What could be the stock's future direction?
Although media reports or rumors about a significant change in a company's business prospects usually cause its stock to trend and lead to an immediate price change, there are always certain fundamental factors that ultimately drive the buy-and-hold decision.
Revisions to Earnings EstimatesHere at Zacks, we prioritize appraising the change in the projection of a company's future earnings over anything else. That's because we believe the present value of its future stream of earnings is what determines the fair value for its stock.
We essentially look at how sell-side analysts covering the stock are revising their earnings estimates to reflect the impact of the latest business trends. And if earnings estimates go up for a company, the fair value for its stock goes up. A higher fair value than the current market price drives investors' interest in buying the stock, leading to its price moving higher. This is why empirical research shows a strong correlation between trends in earnings estimate revisions and near-term stock price movements.
SoundHound AI is expected to post a loss of $0.05 per share for the current quarter, representing a year-over-year change of -66.7%. Over the last 30 days, the Zacks Consensus Estimate has changed -31%.
For the current fiscal year, the consensus earnings estimate of -$0.18 points to a change of -38.5% from the prior year. Over the last 30 days, this estimate has changed -22.3%.
For the next fiscal year, the consensus earnings estimate of $0.17 indicates a change of +6.7% from what SoundHound AI is expected to report a year ago. Over the past month, the estimate has changed +240%.
Having a strong externally audited track record, our proprietary stock rating tool, the Zacks Rank, offers a more conclusive picture of a stock's price direction in the near term, since it effectively harnesses the power of earnings estimate revisions. Due to the size of the recent change in the consensus estimate, along with three other factors related to earnings estimates, SoundHound AI is rated Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).
The chart below shows the evolution of the company's forward 12-month consensus EPS estimate:
12 Month EPS
Projected Revenue GrowthWhile earnings growth is arguably the most superior indicator of a company's financial health, nothing happens as such if a business isn't able to grow its revenues. After all, it's nearly impossible for a company to increase its earnings for an extended period without increasing its revenues. So, it's important to know a company's potential revenue growth.
In the case of SoundHound AI, the consensus sales estimate of $52.61 million for the current quarter points to a year-over-year change of +23.3%. The $233.14 million and $270.1 million estimates for the current and next fiscal years indicate changes of +38% and +15.9%, respectively.
Last Reported Results and Surprise HistorySoundHound AI reported revenues of $44.19 million in the last reported quarter, representing a year-over-year change of +51.7%. EPS of -$0.06 for the same period compares with -$0.06 a year ago.
Compared to the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $42.71 million, the reported revenues represent a surprise of +3.48%. The EPS surprise was -20%.
Over the last four quarters, SoundHound AI surpassed consensus EPS estimates two times. The company topped consensus revenue estimates each time over this period.
ValuationWithout considering a stock's valuation, no investment decision can be efficient. In predicting a stock's future price performance, it's crucial to determine whether its current price correctly reflects the intrinsic value of the underlying business and the company's growth prospects.
While comparing the current values of a company's valuation multiples, such as price-to-earnings (P/E), price-to-sales (P/S), and price-to-cash flow (P/CF), with its own historical values helps determine whether its stock is fairly valued, overvalued, or undervalued, comparing the company relative to its peers on these parameters gives a good sense of the reasonability of the stock's price.
The Zacks Value Style Score (part of the Zacks Style Scores system), which pays close attention to both traditional and unconventional valuation metrics to grade stocks from A to F (an A is better than a B; a B is better than a C; and so on), is pretty helpful in identifying whether a stock is overvalued, rightly valued, or temporarily undervalued.
SoundHound AI is graded F on this front, indicating that it is trading at a premium to its peers. Click here to see the values of some of the valuation metrics that have driven this grade.
Bottom LineThe facts discussed here and much other information on Zacks.com might help determine whether or not it's worthwhile paying attention to the market buzz about SoundHound AI. However, its Zacks Rank #4 does suggest that it may underperform the broader market in the near term.
An easy way for a company to get bigger and add market share is to acquire other businesses. And many businesses rely on mergers & acquisitions (M&A) as a core part of their long-term growth strategy. But it isn't always easy to pull off, and it includes adding more employees and costs along the way.
SoundHound AI (SOUN +3.93%) is an example of a company that's leaned heavily on M&A. It's a small player in the voice artificial intelligence (AI) market, but it has acquired multiple companies in recent years. And in doing so, it's gotten a whole lot bigger. Its CEO believes it has things figured out when it comes to M&A. But is that really the case? After all, the stock is down more than 20% over the past year, despite the company achieving some impressive growth. Let's take a look at the numbers to see if M&A has been working well for SoundHound AI.
Image source: Getty Images.
SoundHound's CEO believes the company has a winning formula Integrating acquired businesses effectively and efficiently can be a challenge, as there needs to be synergies for the integration to pay off, and there's the uncomfortable part of eliminating redundancies and employees along the way. It can be a costly and time-consuming process. However, on SoundHound's recent earnings call, CEO Keyvan Mohajer was confident the company has things figured out when it comes to taking on struggling businesses and helping them grow.
We now have a proven track record when it comes to M&A--a repeatable formula of turning pre-merger decline to post-merger growth by taking complementary business models and technology stacks and integrating them with SoundHound AI, Inc.'s own, emerging together as a formidable force in conversational and agentic AI.
SoundHound recently announced its planned acquisition of LivePerson, a company involved in conversational AI. It has acquired multiple companies in recent years to grow its top line, including Amelia, which helped it drastically diversify and grow its customer base.
In 2023, the company's revenue totaled just under $46 million, and its business is almost at that level today, but on a quarterly basis. During the first three months of 2026, SoundHound's revenue topped $44 million. It's impressive how far SoundHound has come, as acquisitions have clearly helped.
But where the tech company has fallen short is on the bottom line. Its operating expenses this past quarter totaled more than $106 million, when excluding changes in the fair value of contingent acquisitions. That's more than twice its top line. And that's worse than a year ago, when it would have reported operating expenses of around $77 million, excluding changes in fair value. While acquisitions have helped it grow, they haven't made SoundHound a better, more financially sound business to invest in.
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Investors remain unconvinced of SoundHound's strategy, and rightfully so While there is a lot of excitement around AI these days, SoundHound's stock isn't taking off. And a big part of the reason is likely because investors aren't convinced of its strategy. While M&A can help grow revenue, it can also weigh down the bottom line with additional costs, which is what's happened with SoundHound.
This is why, despite the CEO's positive spin, SoundHound arguably hasn't shown that it has a winning strategy with respect to AI when considering all the numbers. Investors should continue to tread carefully with the stock as cash burn remains a problem, and continual stock offerings and dilution are an inevitable risk with this investment.
SoundHound AI is a speculative buy for risk-tolerant investors, given its unique position in enterprise voice AI and automation trends. SOUN's rapid revenue growth and strategic LivePerson acquisition offer significant upside, but deep operating losses, governance concerns, and heavy dilution temper conviction. The LivePerson deal could be transformative, unlocking access to 18,000 enterprise customers and potentially $100M+ in incremental revenue by FY27 if integration succeeds.
SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 09, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SoundHound AI, Inc. (Nasdaq: SOUN), a global leader in voice and agentic AI, today announced that it will be participating in the D.A. Davidson 2026 Technology & Consumer Conference on Thursday, June 11, 2026, in Nashville, Tennessee.
Keyvan Mohajer, SoundHound’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, will participate in a fireside chat to be broadcast live at 12:20 PM PT / 2:20 PM CT / 3:20 PM ET.
The presentation will be streamed live, with a webcast registration link available in advance of the event on SoundHound’s investor relations website at investors.soundhound.com.
About SoundHound AI
SoundHound AI is a voice and agentic AI company that enables businesses to deliver natural, end-to-end conversational experiences across digital and physical channels, including phones, kiosks, chat, smart devices, drive-thrus, TVs, in-vehicle, and more. Its agentic platform, OASYS, is a self-learning, orchestrated AI system where organizations can build and deploy conversational AI agents to handle transactions, tasks, and workflows on behalf of customers and employees. Built on proprietary technology backed by 400+ patents and years of AI research, SoundHound serves leading brands across industries including automotive, financial services, healthcare, retail, telecommunications, and more. It powers millions of products and processes billions of interactions annually for enterprise customers worldwide. www.soundhound.com.
SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 10, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- SoundHound AI, Inc. (Nasdaq: SOUN), a global leader in voice and agentic AI, has been recognized as the overall Leader in the 2026 ISG Buyers Guide™ for Conversational AI Emerging Providers.
As well as being named as the overall Leader, SoundHound secured a Leader designation in every specific category assessed, including Product Experience, Capability, Platform, and Customer Experience. According to the report, leaders in the latter, “best communicate commitment and dedication to customer needs.”
“Being recognised as the overall Leader in ISG Research across all categories — especially Customer Experience — reflects our team's relentless dedication to solving real-world problems for our major enterprise clients,” said Mike Zagorsek, Chief Operations Officer at SoundHound AI. “As businesses increasingly look to deploy fully autonomous AI agents, SoundHound’s new OASYS platform is uniquely positioned to handle the complexities, transactions, and natural conversations that modern enterprises demand."
The research is an evaluation of software providers across key capability areas, including platform architecture, NLP accuracy, generative and agentic AI integration, workflow execution, analytics and insights, governance and security controls, communication administration and enterprise integration.
"The shift toward artificial intelligence-enabled software is transforming how enterprises interact with data, systems and users," said David Menninger, Executive Director and Distinguished Analyst, ISG Research. "Conversational AI platforms support information access, task execution and guided workflows. SoundHound AI was rated the Overall Leader in the 2026 ISG Conversational AI Emerging Providers Buyers Guide."
According to the report, ISG Research defines conversational AI as technology that enables users to interact with systems through natural language, using natural language processing (NLP), large language models (LLMs) and generative AI (GenAI) to interpret intent, provide responses and execute actions. Conversational AI supports information access, task execution and guided workflows across enterprise environments, improving productivity by reducing reliance on structured navigation and manual processes. These capabilities are increasingly embedded into enterprise applications, enabling conversational interfaces to function as both engagement and execution layers.
OASYS
OASYS is SoundHound AI's new category-defining agentic platform, and the world's first self-learning AI system where AI builds AI. Unlike traditional build-and-deploy approaches that demand constant manual upkeep, OASYS autonomously creates, orchestrates, evaluates, and improves entire fleets of conversational AI agents — enabling businesses to do in minutes what once took months. The platform continuously refines itself based on real-world usage, so businesses get smarter and more efficient AI over time without the maintenance burden.
OASYS also enables enterprises to meet customers and employees wherever they are. Agents built on the platform can be deployed seamlessly across phones, web chat, in-store kiosks, drive-thrus, social media, smart TVs, and in-vehicle infotainment – maintaining context across channels, devices, and languages throughout every interaction. Backed by enterprise-grade guardrails and SoundHound's patented Human Assisted Resolution (HAR) technology, OASYS handles everything from complex insurance claims and retail orders to prescription refills and outbound customer engagement, delivering fluid, conversational experiences that get better the more they're used.
Learn more about OASYS here: https://www.soundhound.com/voice-ai-blog/meet-oasys/
Read the full report: https://www.soundhound.com/isg-buyers-guide-conversational-ai-emerging-providers-2026/
About SoundHound AI
SoundHound AI (Nasdaq: SOUN) is a voice and agentic AI company that enables businesses to deliver natural, end-to-end conversational experiences across digital and physical channels, including phones, kiosks, chat, smart devices, drive-thrus, TVs, in-vehicle, and more. Its agentic platform, OASYS, is a self-learning, orchestrated AI system where organizations can build and deploy conversational AI agents to handle transactions, tasks, and workflows on behalf of customers and employees. Built on proprietary technology backed by 400+ patents and years of AI research, SoundHound serves leading brands across industries including automotive, financial services, healthcare, retail, telecommunications, and more. It powers millions of products and processes billions of interactions annually for enterprise customers worldwide. Learn more at: www.soundhound.com
Investors often turn to recommendations made by Wall Street analysts before making a Buy, Sell, or Hold decision about a stock. While media reports about rating changes by these brokerage-firm employed (or sell-side) analysts often affect a stock's price, do they really matter?
Let's take a look at what these Wall Street heavyweights have to say about SoundHound AI, Inc. (SOUN - Free Report) before we discuss the reliability of brokerage recommendations and how to use them to your advantage.
SoundHound AI currently has an average brokerage recommendation (ABR) of 1.67, on a scale of 1 to 5 (Strong Buy to Strong Sell), calculated based on the actual recommendations (Buy, Hold, Sell, etc.) made by nine brokerage firms. An ABR of 1.67 approximates between Strong Buy and Buy.
Of the nine recommendations that derive the current ABR, six are Strong Buy, representing 66.7% of all recommendations.
Brokerage Recommendation Trends for SOUN
Check price target & stock forecast for SoundHound AI here>>>
While the ABR calls for buying SoundHound AI, it may not be wise to make an investment decision solely based on this information. Several studies have shown limited to no success of brokerage recommendations in guiding investors to pick stocks with the best price increase potential.
Do you wonder why? As a result of the vested interest of brokerage firms in a stock they cover, their analysts tend to rate it with a strong positive bias. According to our research, brokerage firms assign five "Strong Buy" recommendations for every "Strong Sell" recommendation.
In other words, their interests aren't always aligned with retail investors, rarely indicating where the price of a stock could actually be heading. Therefore, the best use of this information could be validating your own research or an indicator that has proven to be highly successful in predicting a stock's price movement.
Zacks Rank, our proprietary stock rating tool with an impressive externally audited track record, categorizes stocks into five groups, ranging from Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) to Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell), and is an effective indicator of a stock's price performance in the near future. Therefore, using the ABR to validate the Zacks Rank could be an efficient way of making a profitable investment decision.
Zacks Rank Should Not Be Confused With ABRAlthough both Zacks Rank and ABR are displayed in a range of 1--5, they are different measures altogether.
Broker recommendations are the sole basis for calculating the ABR, which is typically displayed in decimals (such as 1.28). The Zacks Rank, on the other hand, is a quantitative model designed to harness the power of earnings estimate revisions. It is displayed in whole numbers -- 1 to 5.
Analysts employed by brokerage firms have been and continue to be overly optimistic with their recommendations. Since the ratings issued by these analysts are more favorable than their research would support because of the vested interest of their employers, they mislead investors far more often than they guide.
In contrast, the Zacks Rank is driven by earnings estimate revisions. And near-term stock price movements are strongly correlated with trends in earnings estimate revisions, according to empirical research.
In addition, the different Zacks Rank grades are applied proportionately to all stocks for which brokerage analysts provide current-year earnings estimates. In other words, this tool always maintains a balance among its five ranks.
Another key difference between the ABR and Zacks Rank is freshness. The ABR is not necessarily up-to-date when you look at it. But, since brokerage analysts keep revising their earnings estimates to account for a company's changing business trends, and their actions get reflected in the Zacks Rank quickly enough, it is always timely in indicating future price movements.
Is SOUN a Good Investment?Looking at the earnings estimate revisions for SoundHound AI, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the current year has declined 18.3% over the past month to -$0.18.
Analysts' growing pessimism over the company's earnings prospects, as indicated by strong agreement among them in revising EPS estimates lower, could be a legitimate reason for the stock to plunge in the near term.
The size of the recent change in the consensus estimate, along with three other factors related to earnings estimates, has resulted in a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell) for SoundHound AI. You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>>
Therefore, it could be wise to take the Buy-equivalent ABR for SoundHound AI with a grain of salt.
I've been pretty skeptical of SoundHound AI (SOUN +3.93%). Compared with heavy hitters in artificial intelligence (AI) such as Anthropic and OpenAI, the AI-powered voice chatbot company has a small niche and a tiny cash balance. And yet it somehow still has a $3 billion market cap, although that's fallen more than 60% from its 2025 high.
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Over the last few quarters, though, I've started to rethink my bearish position on SoundHound. The company has been executing well, and against all odds, it seems to be making headway. Here's why I think SoundHound might be worth a second look for AI investors.
The bear case SoundHound is essentially combining an old technology (voice recognition) with a very new one (AI).
Image source: Getty Images.
Phone voice recognition systems predate Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa, which debuted in 2010 and 2014, respectively. SoundHound's major innovation was developing voice recognition technology that performs better in environments with heavy background noise, making it a favorite of drive-thrus and in-car audio systems.
The company opened a new market by expanding its agentic AI restaurant ordering systems from drive-thru windows to phone systems, which are used today by major chains like White Castle, Chipotle, Five Guys, Panda Express, and Applebee's. It also provides in-car voice systems for Kia, Hyundai, Lucid, and all of Stellantis' brands, including Chrysler, Dodge, and Jeep. And in Q1, it signed a global agreement with "a prominent Japanese manufacturer" for its vehicle voice assistant.
But although SoundHound has a solid, growing presence in these niches, they're comparatively easy niches for an AI chatbot to fill. To really unlock major growth, SoundHound needs to expand into general customer service applications, where there are many more potential customers, but also more potential for error. Plus, on a customer service phone line, SoundHound's background noise-reducing technology isn't as important, putting it at greater risk from competitors.
The bull case SoundHound's apparent lack of a proprietary moat worried me at first. But just because a technology is widely used doesn't mean a deep-pocketed competitor will necessarily deploy it in this industry to clear the field.
Image source: Getty Images.
It's no surprise that SoundHound has plenty of competition in this space. An effective agentic AI customer service voice agent platform would have several advantages over human agents beyond cost-effectiveness, including the ability to answer all calls quickly regardless of call volume, 24/7 global availability, multilingual support, and near-instant data retrieval. But it's a very fragmented market with lots of small start-ups operating alongside major players, including Amazon Quick for AWS and Salesforce's Agentforce.
In Q1, SoundHound grew its revenue by 52% year over year to $44.2 million and signed new or expanded deals with at least two dozen customers. It's also been very acquisitive and just agreed to purchase enterprise conversational AI provider LivePerson in April.
If SoundHound can continue to grow its revenue and consolidate market share through new contracts and acquisitions at this pace, it could very easily become a long-term winner. Smart investors should keep an eye on SoundHound.
John Bromels has positions in Amazon, Apple, and Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Salesforce, and SoundHound AI. The Motley Fool recommends Stellantis and recommends the following options: short June 2026 $36 calls on Chipotle Mexican Grill. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Key Takeaways SOUN expects the LivePerson deal to close in 2H 2026, marking its fifth acquisition.LivePerson would add hundreds of customers across more than 30 countries to SoundHound.SOUN says the combined business could reach $500M based on the existing customer base alone. SoundHound AI, Inc. (SOUN - Free Report) is expanding its enterprise AI footprint through the planned acquisition of LivePerson, a move that could significantly increase its customer reach, cross-selling opportunity and revenue scale.
The company expects the LivePerson transaction to close in the second half of 2026, marking its fifth strategic acquisition. LivePerson would bring hundreds of enterprise and mid-market customers across more than 30 countries. The combined customer base would include 12 of the top 15 global banks, four of the top five global airlines, four of the top five global automakers, 10 leading global telecommunications providers and 25 Fortune 100 companies.
This expanded customer base strengthens SoundHound’s opportunity to sell voice AI, digital messaging and agentic AI capabilities across a broader enterprise platform. Management noted that Voice AI is among the most frequently requested capabilities from LivePerson’s customer base, creating an immediate cross-selling opportunity for SoundHound following the deal’s close. The company also sees an opportunity to sell unified digital-and-voice omnichannel solutions to its existing customers.
The revenue framework makes the deal an important part of SOUN’s growth narrative. SoundHound expects 2026 revenues of $225 million to $260 million. Assuming the LivePerson acquisition closes in the second half of the year, the company expects a minimum 2027 revenue range of $350 million to $400 million, including at least $100 million from LivePerson’s long-tenured customers. Management also stated that the combined business could reach $500 million based on the existing customer base alone.
For SOUN, the next phase of the growth narrative likely depends on integration execution. LivePerson has been under pressure, and SoundHound will need to stabilize customer relationships, modernize the platform and convert cross-selling opportunities into recognized revenues. If the company can retain key LivePerson customers and expand adoption of its Voice AI and omnichannel solutions, the acquisition could provide a larger base for revenue growth in 2027 and beyond.
SOUN’s Price Performance, Valuation & EstimatesSoundHound’s shares have lost 28.7% in the past year compared with the industry’s fall of 30.2%. At the same time frame, other industry players, including C3.ai, Inc. (AI - Free Report) , have declined 55.6%, while BigBear.ai Holdings, Inc. (BBAI - Free Report) has gained 5%.
SOUN’s Stock One-Year Price Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
SOUN stock is currently trading at a discount. It is currently trading at a forward 12-month price-to-sales (P/S) multiple of 11.63, below the industry average of 11.95. Then again, other industry players, such as C3.ai and BigBear.ai, have P/S ratios of 6.90 and 12.58, respectively.
SOUN’s P/S Ratio (Forward 12-Month) vs. Industry
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SoundHound’s 2026 loss per share has widened from 9 cents to 18 cents in the past 60 days.
EPS Trend of SOUN Stock
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The company is likely to report dismal earnings, with projections indicating a 38.5% fall in 2026. Conversely, industry players like BigBear.ai are likely to witness growth of 69.5% year over year in 2026 earnings. C3.ai is likely to project a rise of 36.3% in fiscal 2027 earnings.
