Title: 📊 PRO: This Week in Visuals (#521) — MRVL PDD INTU SNPS ADSK WDAY VEEV ZM AFRM OKTA RBRK BBY NTNX ESTC HQY Show: App Economy Insights / How They Make Money (appeconomyinsights.com) — Saturday PRO edition Guest: Bertrand Seguin (author) Date: 2026-08-29 URL: https://www.appeconomyinsights.com/p/pro-this-week-in-visuals-521 Length: written post — no timestamps Note: Paid (PRO) written post; text captured verbatim via Stephen's logged-in session. Earnings-visual charts not reproduced; the text carries the analysis.
Welcome to the Saturday PRO edition of How They Make Money.
Today at a glance: 📶 Marvell: Custom Silicon Breakout 📦 PDD: Growth Slows Again ✅ Intuit: DIY Price Reset 🧠 Synopsys: EDA Reaccelerates 🏗️ Autodesk: MaintainX Lands Cleanly 👔 Workday: AI Mix Jumps 🧑⚕️ Veeva: Falcon Lands Early Adopters 🖥️ Zoom: Enterprise Momentum Returns 🌈 Affirm: Growth Meets Leverage 🔐 Okta: Agent Deals Arrive 🔷 Rubrik: ARR Picks Up 🛒 Best Buy: PC Prices Do The Work ☁️ Nutanix: Hardware Workarounds Scale 🔍 Elastic: AI Penetration Jumps 🏥 HealthEquity: Margins Keep Climbing
1. 📶 Marvell: Custom Silicon Breakout
Marvell Q2 FY27 revenue (ending August 1st) rose 37% Y/Y to a record $2.74 billion ($30 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $0.94 ($0.01 beat).
Data Center revenue jumped 46% to $2.17 billion, representing 79% of total sales, as demand for AI infrastructure remained exceptionally strong.
Custom silicon should bring the next leg of growth. Management expects a significant acceleration beginning in H2 FY27, followed by custom silicon revenue more than doubling in FY28 as hyperscalers increasingly design their own AI chips. Marvell also expanded its partnership with Google across AI accelerators, storage, networking, and near-memory compute, backed by a six-year warrant agreement.
Connectivity remains a major driver. Demand for optical interconnects is accelerating as AI clusters require more bandwidth, while Marvell called its CXL memory-expansion business a "home run" with deployments across multiple hyperscalers.
Marvell now expects FY27 revenue of roughly $12 billion (up from $11.5 billion previously) and raised its FY28 target to $18 billion (up from $16.5 billion). Q3 revenue guidance of $3.15 billion was also well ahead of consensus and implies another ~15% sequential jump.
Bottom Line: Marvell's AI story is broadening from connectivity into custom compute. With custom silicon set to accelerate sharply, management is raising expectations faster than the current quarter alone would suggest. But expectations are already enormous: the stock trades over 50x forward earnings, and much of the Google opportunity through FY28 was already embedded in guidance. That helps explain why shares fell despite Marvell raising both FY27 and FY28 outlooks.
2. 📦 PDD: Growth Slows Again
PDD Q2 revenue rose 8% Y/Y to $16.6 billion ($0.3 billion miss), decelerating from 11% in Q1, while non-GAAP EPADS of $2.85 beat by $0.12.
Both revenue engines remain subdued.
Online Marketing Services grew just 3% to $8.5 billion.
Transaction Services grew 13% to $8.1 billion, slowing from 20% in Q1.
Domestic competition remains intense as Pinduoduo battles Alibaba, JD, and social-commerce platforms for increasingly cautious Chinese consumers.
Temu is also losing some of the structural advantages behind its early international expansion. The end of duty-free treatment for low-value parcels in the US and new European import fees are increasing fulfillment costs and reducing the appeal of shipping inexpensive products directly from China. Management warned of slower fulfillment and higher costs in affected markets and is responding by building more local warehousing and fulfillment infrastructure.
Meanwhile, the transformation outlined in Q1 continues. PDD stepped up merchant support, supply-chain investment, platform governance, and R&D, while its new first-party brand initiative is progressing more slowly than initially expected. The balance sheet provides plenty of runway, with cash and short-term investments reaching $67 billion and operating cash flow rising 19% to $3.8 billion.
Bottom Line: Q2 shows that growth is slowing. Pinduoduo's advertising engine remains sluggish, Temu faces structurally higher cross-border costs, and the first-party push is taking longer to ramp. PDD has enormous financial capacity to fund the transition, but investors are still waiting for evidence that all this spending can restart the growth engine.
3. ✅ Intuit: DIY Price Reset
Intuit Q4 revenue rose 14% Y/Y to $4.35 billion ($130 million beat), with adjusted EPS of $4.03 ($0.44 beat). Global Business Solutions grew 14%. Consumer increased 14%, primarily driven by Credit Karma. Yet shares fell sharply as FY27 guidance called for revenue growth of just 9%–10%, down from 14% in FY26.
The biggest reset is TurboTax. Management acknowledged that price has become the #1 reason DIY customers leave, particularly among filers earning around $50,000. Intuit now plans to accept lower revenue per customer to win those users back. It would potentially include more free offerings. As a result, TurboTax revenue is expected to grow just 2%–3% in FY27.
The same customer-acquisition push is reaching QuickBooks. Intuit launched QuickBooks Free, with more than 20,000 customers already using it or converting to paid products. The idea is to acquire businesses cheaply upfront and monetize them later through payments, payroll, lending, and other services.
Meanwhile, Mailchimp remains the weak spot, with FY27 revenue expected to be flat to down 1%.
Intuit expects FY27 revenue of $23.3–$23.5 billion, below consensus, with Global Business Solutions growing 13%–14% and Credit Karma 11%–13%. The huge FY27 EPS shortfall relative to consensus is less concerning than it looks because Intuit will begin including stock-based compensation in its non-GAAP results, making the new EPS guidance incomparable with prior estimates.
Bottom Line: Q4 shows management responding aggressively to the customer-acquisition problem in DIY tax, even if that means sacrificing near-term pricing and growth. The bet is that cheaper entry products can undercut competition and bring customers into Intuit's broader ecosystem and monetize them over time. FY27 now becomes a test of whether this is a deliberate reset before reacceleration or evidence that competition is structurally weakening Intuit's pricing power.
4. 🧠 Synopsys: EDA Reaccelerates
Synopsys Q3 revenue rose 42% Y/Y to $2.5 billion ($40 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $3.91 ($0.24 beat). The Ansys acquisition still drives much of the headline growth, but core EDA revenue grew 8.5%, with management now expecting double-digit organic growth in Q4.
Design IP returned to growth, rising 11% Y/Y to $474 million after falling 6% in Q2. AI infrastructure is helping, with Synopsys winning more than 95% of PCIe 7 opportunities and its die-to-die IP business on pace to double this year.
The Ansys integration is also moving into commercialization. Synopsys launched its first Multiphysics Fusion products, while its agentic AI platform now has more than 30 active customer engagements. Meaningful revenue contribution from these newer products is expected in FY27.
Synopsys raised FY26 revenue guidance by $50 million to ~$9.715 billion.
Bottom Line: Q2 left investors waiting for stronger organic growth. Q3 delivered it, with EDA accelerating and Design IP back in growth mode. The September Investor Day now becomes the key test for how much Multiphysics Fusion and AI can lift FY27 growth.
5. 🏗️ Autodesk: MaintainX Lands Cleanly
Autodesk Q2 revenue rose 16% Y/Y to $2.05 billion ($40 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $3.30 ($0.18 beat). Constant-currency growth was a bit softer at 14%. Operating margin expanded to 29% (up 4pp).
The core business remains healthy despite the ongoing go-to-market reorganization. cRPO grew 12%, overall RPO reached $7.4 billion, and management raised its underlying growth expectations. Construction and emerging markets remained particularly strong.
Autodesk completed the $3.6 billion MaintainX acquisition just after quarter-end. MaintainX is expected to contribute roughly $60 million of FY27 revenue, while Autodesk says operating leverage and sales efficiencies should fully offset the acquisition's non-GAAP margin dilution.
The first concrete validation of the broader "design-to-operate" strategy also emerged, with a major global retailer adopting Forma for construction data and Tandem for digital twins.
Autodesk raised FY27 revenue guidance by ~$135 million to $8.295–$8.345 billion, partly reflecting the MaintainX acquisition, while keeping its non-GAAP margin outlook intact. Q3 revenue guidance came in ahead of consensus, although EPS was slightly below.
Bottom Line: The core business remains resilient, margins are improving, and MaintainX has closed without changing the long-term profitability trajectory. The next test is whether Autodesk can turn that operational-data acquisition into meaningful cross-sell rather than simply a larger TAM story.
6. 👔 Workday: AI Mix Jumps
Workday Q2 revenue rose 13% Y/Y to $2.65 billion ($10 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $2.75 ($0.14 beat). Subscription revenue grew 14% to $2.47 billion. Operating margin slightly expanded and was ahead of expectations.
The AI traction became much more tangible. AI products generated more than $100 million in new ACV (Annual Contract Value), accounting for over 25% of all new ACV in the quarter. More than 5,500 customers now use at least one Workday agent, up 35% Q/Q, while AI SKUs are approaching $600 million in ARR, up more than 200% Y/Y.
The catch is the timing of monetization. Only a little over 200 customers have signed up for Flex Credits, despite thousands already using agents, as Workday is deliberately prioritizing adoption before metering some AI usage. Management still sees Flex Credits as the answer to potential seat compression, but called it a "delayed gratification" model whose revenue impact may take months to appear.
Workday maintained FY27 subscription revenue growth at ~13% and raised adjusted operating margin guidance by 0.5pp to 31%. More notably, management expects FY28 subscription growth of roughly 11%, along with at least 2 points of margin expansion. Total subscription backlog grew only 8% to $27.4 billion.
Bottom Line: Q2 showed AI adoption becoming economically relevant, driving more than a quarter of new business. But Workday is still giving much of that usage away before Flex Credits ramp, while backlog and FY28 guidance point to slower core growth. The next test is whether today's AI adoption turns into enough consumption revenue to offset that deceleration.
7. 🧑⚕️ Veeva: Falcon Lands Early Adopters
Veeva Q2 revenue rose 18% Y/Y to $928 million ($23 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $2.35 ($0.13 beat). Subscription revenue grew 16% to $767 million, and shares jumped after Veeva raised its full-year outlook.
Veeva Falcon now has five early adopters, with the first go-lives expected this year. Veeva also launched Falcon MLR for automated marketing content reviews and acquired Copli to expand its platform. Importantly, this is still early adoption rather than meaningful revenue contribution.
Vault CRM had its best quarter yet, crossing 180 live customers from 150+ in Q1. Five top-20 biopharmas are now live, while total top-20 commitments reached 12 in August. One top-20 customer also deployed Veeva's Agentic Call Report across its entire US field team, providing a more tangible example of AI moving from product roadmap to production.
Momentum extends beyond CRM. Veeva Safety crossed 100 customers, Quality added more than 30, and newer R&D products are increasingly taking over growth from mature applications such as eTMF and QualityDocs.
Veeva raised FY27 revenue guidance again to $3.682–$3.687 billion (from $3.635–$3.645 billion).
Bottom Line: Q2 brought the first evidence that Falcon could generate real customer adoption, and agentic AI is already live inside a major biopharma's CRM workflow. Vault CRM remains the near-term growth engine, but Veeva's agentic-labor opportunity is starting to move beyond the concept stage.
8. 🖥️ Zoom: Enterprise Momentum Returns
Zoom Q2 revenue rose 5% Y/Y to $1.28 billion ($10 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $1.55 ($0.07 beat). Enterprise revenue accelerated to 8% growth, its fastest pace in three years, and now represents 62% of total revenue. Online revenue grew just 1%, while monthly churn held roughly steady at 2.9%.
AI is increasingly driving enterprise expansion. Licensed monthly active users of AI features grew 125% Y/Y, while Zoom Virtual Agent customers surged 256%. The broader Customer Experience suite continues to grow at a high-double-digit rate, with AI included in 9 of Zoom's 10 largest CX deals. Zoom Phone is also taking share, with all 10 of its largest deals involving competitive replacements.
Zoom continues broadening beyond meetings. Workvivo crossed $100 million in ARR, while the acquisition of Common Room adds buyer-intelligence capabilities to Zoom Revenue Accelerator. The goal is increasingly to connect collaboration, customer service, sales, and employee experience through a common AI layer.
Zoom raised FY27 revenue guidance by $23 million to $5.090 billion at the midpoint and increased adjusted EPS guidance from ~$5.98 to ~$6.10. Q3 guidance was less exciting, with revenue roughly in line with consensus and EPS slightly below.
Bottom Line: Q2 provides better evidence that AI adoption is translating into business momentum, with Enterprise growth reaching a three-year high and Virtual Agent adoption more than tripling. But Zoom is still a roughly 5% grower overall. The next step is proving that these newer AI and CX products can become large enough to meaningfully accelerate the top line.
9. 🌈 Affirm: Growth Meets Leverage
Affirm Q4 revenue rose roughly 34% Y/Y to $1.17 billion ($90 million beat), while GMV jumped 36% to $14.1 billion, comfortably ahead of the $13.4 billion consensus. Adjusted operating margin expanded to 30% (from 27% a year ago). GAAP EPS of $4.77 was distorted by a $1.45 billion tax benefit, so it isn't particularly meaningful.
The growth engine remained broad. Direct merchant integrations generated roughly half of GMV growth, while direct-to-consumer products, including Affirm Card, drove much of the rest. Card penetration has reached roughly 19% of active consumers, while Pay-in-4 continues benefiting from merchants adopting evergreen 0% financing programs.
Active consumers grew 21% to 27.8 million, funding capacity reached $30 billion, and management described credit performance as stable. Affirm says it would slow originations before allowing underwriting standards to deteriorate.
For FY27, Affirm expects more than $64 billion of GMV, up from $50.2 billion in FY26, with revenue above ~$5.4 billion and adjusted operating margin above 30.5%.
Bottom Line: Affirm is showing it can sustain momentum as Pay-in-4 comparisons became harder. The story is increasingly less about one product carrying growth and more about building a broader payments network across merchant checkout, Card, and new geographies.
10. 🔐 Okta: Agent Deals Arrive
Okta Q2 revenue rose 11% Y/Y to $805 million ($12 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $1.05 ($0.09 beat). Free cash flow reached $227 million. Shares surged after Okta raised its FY27 outlook.
Okta for AI Agents closed dozens of deals in Q2, including several worth more than $1 million, and average AI deal sizes remain above the company average. But management was equally clear that AI-specific revenue is still immaterial and is unlikely to become meaningful in FY27. Instead, the bigger near-term benefit is that AI-agent security concerns are prompting customers to modernize their broader identity infrastructure.
That broader platform strategy is gaining traction. New products represented 30% of bookings, up from 25% in Q1, and deals including them carry roughly 40% higher ACV. Customers spending more than $1 million annually grew over 20% to more than 600, helping Q2 become Okta's strongest non-Q4 bookings quarter ever. Identity Governance remains the largest contributor among the newer products. Current RPO accelerated to 14% growth from 12% in Q1.
Okta raised FY27 revenue guidance to $3.216–$3.226 billion, implying 10%–11% growth, and lifted free cash flow margin guidance to 28%–29%. The guidance still absorbs roughly a one-point revenue headwind from moving professional services to partners.
Bottom Line: Q2 delivered the first concrete evidence that the AI-agent pipeline could turn into actual business. AI itself remains too small to move the numbers, but it is increasingly acting as a catalyst for larger identity modernization projects. If that continues, the more important AI payoff may arrive first through Okta's existing platform rather than a standalone agent-security revenue line.
11. 🔷 Rubrik: ARR Picks Up
Rubrik Q2 revenue rose 38% Y/Y to $427 million ($31 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $0.20 ($0.16 beat). Subscription ARR grew 33% Y/Y to $1.66 billion, accelerating from 32% in Q1, while net retention remained above 119%. Customers spending $100K+ in ARR grew 23% to 3,084.
Rubrik Agent Cloud added support for Claude Code, while five major consulting firms joined Project Hourglass to deploy agent-security capabilities for enterprises. Rubrik also acquired Strata Identity, adding technology designed to keep identity systems operational during cyberattacks. Importantly, Strata contributed no ARR in Q2 and is excluded from FY27 guidance.
Profitability is also improving. Subscription ARR contribution margin expanded roughly 460 basis points to 14%, while free cash flow reached $66 million at a 15% margin.
Rubrik raised FY27 subscription ARR guidance by ~$25 million to $1.88 billion, implying roughly 29% growth, and revenue guidance by ~$46 million to $1.69 billion. Free cash flow is now expected to reach $323–$333 million.
Bottom Line: Q2 was encouraging. ARR growth reaccelerated even before Strata contributes, while Rubrik continues building out the broader agentic cyber-resilience platform. The next test is whether these newer products can keep ARR growth near 30% as the base approaches $2 billion.
12. 🛒 Best Buy: PC Prices Do The Work
Best Buy Q2 revenue rose 4% Y/Y to $9.8 billion ($190 million beat), with adjusted EPS of $1.47 ($0.09 beat). Comparable sales accelerated to 4.1%, well above the ~1% outlook, with positive comps across nearly every major category despite lapping last year's Switch 2 launch.
Computing remained the biggest contributor, but the mix matters. Average PC selling prices rose by the mid-teens as memory costs increased, while unit volumes fell by the high single digits. Home theater also strengthened, while emerging categories such as AI glasses and collectibles more than doubled, contributing roughly one point of comp growth.
The higher-margin businesses continue gaining scale. Best Buy Marketplace reached $300 million in quarterly GMV, with FY27 expectations raised to $1.3 billion, while Best Buy Ads also contributed to gross margin expansion. Best Buy has also completed its OpenAI commerce integration and launched Ask Blue, its own conversational shopping assistant.
Best Buy raised FY27 comparable-sales guidance to 1.9%–3% (from -1% to +1%). Q3 comps are expected to remain positive at 1%–3% even as the company laps stronger Windows 10-driven computing demand.
Bottom Line: Best Buy kept growing despite lapping the Switch 2 launch, with comps actually accelerating. But PC growth is increasingly price-led rather than unit-led, making Marketplace, Ads, and newer hardware categories more important as computing comparisons get tougher in H2.
13. ☁️ Nutanix: Hardware Workarounds Scale
Nutanix Q4 revenue rose 16% Y/Y to a record $757 million ($19 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $0.60 ($0.11 beat). The reported performance was polluted by a massive non-recurring $1.2 billion tax benefit. ARR growth accelerated to 16% at $2.5 billion, while free cash flow margin reached 37%. Nutanix added more than 3,000 customers in FY26.
The server shortage remains a real constraint, but customers are increasingly routing around it. External storage and NC2 bookings both jumped sharply Q/Q, allowing customers to adopt Nutanix without replacing existing hardware or by moving workloads into the cloud. NetApp support is already helping win large deals, while management expects these alternatives to accelerate further in FY27.
That matters because hardware pressure isn't going away yet. Server lead times are stabilizing, but Nutanix expects shortages and price increases to persist throughout FY27, with more customers consequently delaying contract start dates.
Nutanix guided FY27 revenue to $3.18–$3.23 billion, implying roughly 12%–13% growth, with non-GAAP operating margin of 24%–25% and free cash flow of $850–$950 million.
Bottom Line: Q4 suggests the company is adapting to server shortages. ARR accelerated despite the constraint as external storage and NC2 gave customers more ways to migrate without waiting for new servers. Supply remains a headwind in FY27, but increasingly looks like a timing problem rather than a demand problem.
14. 🔍 Elastic: AI Penetration Jumps
Elastic Q1 revenue rose 15% Y/Y to $478 million ($8 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $0.70 ($0.12 beat). Sales-led subscription revenue grew 18% to $399 million, while cRPO accelerated to 21% and total RPO grew 27%.
The AI story is becoming more tangible. Elastic ended Q1 with 670+ $100K ACV customers using AI, up roughly 70 Q/Q, while AI penetration within that high-value cohort reached 37% (from ~21% a year ago). Management says these AI users continue to grow faster than customers who are not using AI.
Large-customer momentum also strengthened, with 80+ net additions to the $100K ACV cohort, taking the total above 1,800. Elastic is simultaneously expanding Observability with a new Columnar Mode that cuts time-series storage costs by roughly 20%, while the acquisition of Deductive AI adds automated incident investigation for an emerging "agentic SRE" offering.
Elastic raised FY27 revenue guidance by $12 million to $1.998–$2.010 billion, implying ~15% growth, with sales-led subscription revenue expected to grow ~17%. Non-GAAP operating margin guidance also moved up to 19%.
Bottom Line: Q1 showed growth reacceleration might be back-half weighted, with sales-led subscriptions growing 18%, cRPO accelerating, and AI adoption spreading rapidly through Elastic's largest customers. The next test is whether that higher AI penetration can push overall revenue growth meaningfully above the mid-teens as FY27 progresses.
15. 🏥 HealthEquity: Margins Keep Climbing
HealthEquity Q2 revenue rose 8% Y/Y to $351 million ($1 million beat), with non-GAAP EPS of $1.24 ($0.05 beat). Adjusted EBITDA increased 11% to $167 million, pushing margin to a record 48% from 46% a year ago. Shares nevertheless fell sharply after the print.
The HSA flywheel remains healthy, although asset growth moderated from Q1. HSA assets grew 14% to $37.9 billion, while accounts reached a record 10.7 million and Q2 new-account sales also hit a record. Custodial revenue grew 10% to $176 million.
Technology is increasingly helping the margin story. Mobile monthly active users jumped 62% Y/Y to 1.4 million, while AI now resolves 85% of routine chat inquiries and handles 55% of card-related phone contacts without an employee. Marketplace active members also increased to 14,000 (from "10,000+" in Q1), although management says revenue remains immaterial.
HealthEquity nudged FY27 revenue guidance higher to $1.411–$1.421 billion and raised adjusted EBITDA guidance to $628–$636 million.
Bottom Line: Q2 showed more operating leverage, with a record 48% EBITDA margin as automation lowers service costs and member engagement rises. HSA asset growth has cooled from 19% to 14%, so the next test is whether these efficiency gains can keep earnings compounding faster than the high-single-digit top line.
Disclosure (Bertrand): I own ESTC, HQY, INTU, RBRK, VEEV, and ZM in App Economy Portfolio. I share my ratings (BUY, SELL, or HOLD) with App Economy Portfolio members.