S&P Global Inc Earnings - Q1 2026 Analysis & Highlights
S&P Global reported strong Q1 2026 results with double-digit revenue growth and margin expansion across all divisions, while navigating significant geopolitical disruption from the Iran conflict. The company is advancing its AI strategy through multiple distribution channels, maintaining disciplined capital allocation, and providing full-year guidance despite near-term energy sector headwinds.
Key Financial Results
Revenue grew 10% year-over-year on a reported basis, or 9% on an organic constant currency basis.
Adjusted diluted EPS increased 14% year-over-year in the quarter.
Operating margin expanded 140 basis points on a trailing 12-month basis.
Adjusted operating profit grew 12% with year-on-year margin expansion of 100 basis points to 51.8%.
Subscription revenue increased 6% year-over-year, driven by strong renewals and net sales across the franchise.
One-time revenue and volume-driven revenue grew 18% in aggregate in the quarter.
The company returned $1 billion to shareholders through share repurchases in addition to cash dividends in the quarter.
Business Segment Results
Market Intelligence revenue grew 8% with organic constant currency revenue growth of 6%. Subscription revenue increased 6% on both reported and organic bases. The division delivered 80 basis points of operating margin expansion to 33.6%.
Data, Analytics & Insights reported revenue increased 11%, driven by the With Intelligence acquisition contributing 6 percentage points, plus 5% organic growth from market data, valuations, CapIQ Pro, and Visible Alpha.
Enterprise Solutions reported revenue grew 3% after divestitures, but delivered very strong organic growth of 14% with double-digit growth across all major product lines.
Credit & Risk Solutions revenue grew 6%, driven by strong subscription sales of RatingsXpress and RatingsDirect.
Ratings revenue increased 13% year-over-year, exceeding internal expectations. Transactional revenue increased 15%, driven by strength in investment grade supported by hyperscaler and M&A transactions. Private markets revenues were up over 25%. Non-transactional revenue grew 11%, driven primarily by higher annual fees and Crisil revenue. The division achieved 160 basis points of margin expansion to 67.8%.
S&P Global Energy revenue grew 7% despite conflict-related disruption, benefiting from strong events revenue and spike in volume-driven transactional activity. Energy & Resources Data & Insights and Price Assessments grew 7% and 6% respectively. Advisory & Transactional Services revenue increased 15%, driven by strong conference and training revenue as CERAWeek delivered record-setting attendance. Global Trading Services grew close to 30% amid elevated energy market volatility. Upstream Data & Insights revenue declined 5% in the quarter. The division achieved 120 basis points of margin expansion to 49.3%.
S&P Dow Jones Indices revenue grew 17% with double-digit growth across all business lines. Asset-Linked Fees grew 18% driven by year-over-year equity market appreciation and net inflows. Exchange-Traded Derivatives revenue was up 18%, driven by strong volumes particularly in SPX. Data & Custom Subscriptions posted 12% revenue growth, largely driven by new business growth and end-of-day contracts. Operating margin expanded 90 basis points to 73.8%.
Mobility revenue grew 8% in the first quarter, with high single-digit growth in both Dealer and Financials & Other. Dealer revenue increased 9%, benefiting from momentum in new customer growth at CARFAX and automotiveMastermind. Manufacturing revenue grew 5%, driven by subscription growth and increased discretionary spending. Financials & Other grew 8%. Operating margin expanded 150 basis points year-over-year to 40%.
Capital Allocation
The company returned $1 billion to shareholders through share repurchases in addition to cash dividends in the quarter.
Management expects to increase repurchases from the expected 85% of adjusted free cash flow to at least 100% or to roughly $4.5 billion for the year.
The company expects to issue approximately $2 billion in debt at Mobility in conjunction with the spin, with proceeds expected to fund a cash payment to S&P Global for a combination of incremental share repurchases and some debt reduction.
The company maintains a target gross leverage range of 2 to 2.5 times trailing 12-month EBITDA.
Industry Trends and Dynamics
Billed issuance increased 14% year-over-year in the first quarter, primarily driven by strength in investment grade.
Investment grade benefited from hyperscaler investments in AI infrastructure.
Investment grade delivered healthy growth even without hyperscaler issuance, in part benefiting from several large M&A transactions.
Bank loan volumes declined high-teens as the company lapped a very difficult compare in the first quarter of 2025.
Spreads widened slightly in the quarter as a reaction to uncertainty around AI, private credit, and geopolitical conflicts, though spreads remain below historical norms.
CERAWeek hosted a record 11,000 attendees and more than 2,300 companies from over 90 countries.
Record-setting revenue in Global Trading Services and Energy was posted, and record quarterly average daily volumes for the S&P 500 in indices were achieved.
Private credit navigated increased scrutiny, wider spreads, and elevated redemptions this quarter.
Strong growth in private markets is expected over the medium term, but this growth will require increased transparency from data and benchmarks.
Competitive Landscape
The company emphasized its differentiated data and benchmarks, insights, and tools that customers are seeking with increased urgency to make timely and informed decisions.
Management highlighted that less than 5% of total revenue comes from undifferentiated data, with only 12% of Market Intelligence revenue from undifferentiated data.
The company noted that many of the datasets like Compustat and SNL are difficult to replicate because of the means by which they were aggregated, often requiring employees to physically scan microfiche and paper documents.
Many of these types of datasets are only available in digital formats from S&P Global.
The company demonstrated competitive advantages through proprietary and curated data, including intellectual property like the Global Industry Classification Standards (GICS) and LoanX IDs (LXIDs).
Macroeconomic Environment
The conflict in Iran has shocked energy markets and supply chains, leading to much higher energy and commodity prices while also elevating volatility.
The longer the duration of this conflict, the broader and more severe the impact on global supply chains and markets across sectors.
The conflict in Iran has brought considerable volatility and uncertainty to the energy markets that has persisted into the second quarter.
Some energy customers in the Middle East have experienced a direct impact to their facilities and many are facing supply chain and/or distribution disruptions.
The pace of technology innovation has only accelerated, with markets reacting aggressively to new AI frontier model headlines, shifts in diplomatic initiatives, and the unpredictability of the current environment.
Broad dispersion in the performance of different sectors in the equity markets, elevated volatility in equity and commodity markets, and shifting expectations for central bank actions have been observed.
The conflict in Iran has led to the largest energy shock since the 1970s.
Management's current outlook assumes the situation stabilizes by the end of the second quarter, though they acknowledge the risk of a protracted conflict.
The company assumes 3.2% global GDP growth, including 2.2% growth in the US, and 3.2% CPI growth in the US.
Near-term energy client demand is expected to remain suppressed given expectations for ongoing market uncertainty.
Sanctions continue to be a headwind, as previously called out, but the conflict in the Middle East is pressuring clients and could lead to slower growth in coming quarters.
Growth Opportunities and Strategies
The company is deploying AI-native solutions and tools like ChatAI and Document Intelligence for those seeking speed and scale on platforms.
More than a third of CapIQ Pro users engage with the AI features launched, including ChatIQ and Document Intelligence.
Nearly 150 customers across the Market Intelligence and Energy divisions were interacting with S&P Global data through AI applications like Claude and Copilot as of March.
The company now has more than 300 customers under contract or in trial periods for Kensho LLM-ready APIs.
The volume of API calls made by customers was more than five times the volume from just one quarter ago, with volumes doubling month over month from February to March.
ACV growth among customers who use AI solutions is outpacing growth from other customers by a wide margin, with 30% higher growth in Market Intelligence among AI customers and double the growth rate in Energy among AI customers.
25% of Chief Client Office customers are engaged with Kensho Labs technologists to explore opportunities to leverage technology and data.
The company is making its data accessible via standard protocols like MCP for customers seeking to build their own AI-enabled or agentic solutions.
Custom business logic and calculation engines, as well as tools in CapIQ Pro, will integrate with platforms like Copilot and Claude.
The company is continuing to make progress in private markets with partnerships with Cambridge Associates and Mercer.
The company unveiled CERA Titan, a new AI native upstream product for data and insights.
70 customers were able to demo the new platform and feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with one large strategic customer closing a large renewal with a meaningful increase in contract value.
The company signed an agreement to divest the software portfolio in the upstream business, expected to close in the second half of 2026 or early 2027.
The company is continuing to innovate within S&P Dow Jones Indices with the launch of iBoxx US Treasuries Index as the first major index available as a native digital asset on a blockchain.
The company launched an additional tokenized S&P 500 Index on blockchain in partnership with Centrifuge, and launched S&P Lincoln US and Europe Senior Debt indices.
The company rated the first esoteric ABS issuance backed by Bitcoin, continuing innovation leadership in digital asset finance.
The company is focused on decentralized finance and fixed income as strategic initiatives.
Management is committed to advancing market leadership, expanding into high growth adjacencies, and amplifying enterprise capabilities and AI.
The company is helping clients unlock the potential of AI through AI-native solutions and making data accessible through standard protocols.
Financial Guidance and Outlook
The company is reiterating guidance for organic constant currency revenue growth in the range of 6% to 8% for the full year.
The company is reiterating guidance for 50 to 75 basis points of margin expansion in 2026, excluding the impact of OSTTRA.
Adjusted EPS guidance is unchanged, as slightly higher expected interest expense is offset by lower share count due to additional repurchases.
For the Energy division, the company expects organic constant currency revenue growth in the range of 4.5% to 6%, 1 percentage point lower than previous guidance due to the Iran conflict and energy disruption.
The company's guidance assumes that the current elevated level of disruption in the energy market persists through the second quarter, though supply chain disruptions would not fully be resolved until later in the year.
For the Indices business, full year guidance is unchanged, with underlying assumptions adjusted to reflect current market dynamics, assuming equity markets roughly flat from current levels and low double-digit growth year-over-year in ETD volumes.
In Market Intelligence, the company expects some acceleration in subscription revenue in the second quarter, given customer traction and sales pipeline.
In Ratings, the company expects growth to remain strong in the second quarter but does not expect acceleration, and investment grade is expected to continue to represent a higher mix of issuance compared to historical averages.
For Energy, the company expects revenue growth in the second quarter to fall slightly below the guidance range for the full year before reaccelerating in the second half.
For Indices, the company expects continued robust growth in the second quarter before growth decelerates in the second half.
For Mobility, the company expects growth to accelerate slightly from first quarter levels with stronger growth expected in the second half.
On second quarter margins, the company expects margin expansion to be above the enterprise full year range for Ratings and Indices, slightly below the range for Mobility and Energy, and within the range for Market Intelligence.
The company remains on track for a planned separation of the Mobility business, including completion of the spin mid-2026.
The company will file its Form 10 publicly this quarter, and Mobility will host an Investor Day in New York City on May 12.
The company plans to launch a public debt offering for Mobility at some point this quarter, targeting an investment-grade rating.
Upon completion of the spin, the company intends to provide recast financials for the four quarters of 2025 and any 2026 periods reported, adjusted to exclude Mobility's contributions.
The company expects to issue updated 2026 guidance at the time of the spin, excluding Mobility.
Artificial Intelligence Strategy and Monetization
The company is building S&P MCP apps on platforms and plans to continue providing data through MCP integrations and APIs.
The company announced the S&P Global plugin, which is a series of agents that teach AI agents within platforms how to conduct specific tasks for AI-ready data.
A buy-side client working with Kensho cancelled their existing provider and went with S&P Global's data and plugin, even though it was about 20% more expensive.
The company is thinking about monetization through the lens of enterprise value, tracking usage, channels, the value created, and other metrics as part of discussions with clients on value and pricing.
Two financial clients at renewal were opting to get data available in an AI-ready format and were willing to pay in the range of 35% to 45% on the renewal increase to get AI access.
The company is seeing clients who are quite interested in the value brought through plugins, MCP, and AI-ready data.
Data Differentiation and Proprietary Content
Advisory, consulting and events constitute about 11% of Market Intelligence revenue, while workflow tools constitute about 37%.
Proprietary and curated data includes proprietary data based on intellectual property, as well as curated, contributory and reference data.
Contributory datasets include products like Visible Alpha and With Intelligence.
The company generates unique proprietary data from events, including private markets events, with the With Intelligence team collecting insights through engagement with LPs.
Capital IQ's value to customers extends far beyond the desktop to the data, business logic and tools housed within
