NetApp, Inc. (NTAP) Stock Price & How to Invest

NetApp, founded in 1992 and headquartered in San Jose, sells the systems and software enterprises use to store, protect and move their data. The core asset is ONTAP, a storage operating system that has been developed for three decades and now runs on NetApp's own all-flash arrays (the performance-oriented A-series, the capacity-oriented C-series, and the newer disaggregated AFX line), on commodity hardware, and, unusually, as a native first-party service inside the three largest public clouds. Azure NetApp Files, Amazon FSx for NetApp ONTAP and Google Cloud NetApp Volumes are sold by the hyperscalers themselves, which means NetApp collects revenue whether a customer's data sits in its own rack or in someone else's. Reporting splits into two segments: Hybrid Cloud, which is the on-premises systems, support and Keystone storage-as-a-service business and generated ~$6.24 billion in fiscal 2026, and Public Cloud, which covers the cloud services and generated ~$688 million. A large installed base of support contracts sits underneath both, visible as ~$4.85 billion of deferred revenue. The fiscal year ends in late April, so fiscal 2026 closed on April 24, 2026 and the numbers below are the most recent full-year figures as of August 2026.

The investment picture in mid-2026 is a growth story and a cost story arguing with each other. Fiscal 2026 was a record year on almost every line: revenue up ~5% to ~$6.93 billion, non-GAAP operating margin up ~190 basis points to ~30.2%, non-GAAP EPS up ~12% to ~$8.13, and free cash flow up ~40% to ~$1.87 billion. Growth accelerated into the fourth quarter, where revenue rose ~12% year over year to ~$1.95 billion and all-flash array revenue rose ~18% to ~$1.22 billion, with management attributing the outperformance to large deals and to enterprise AI moving from pilots to actual infrastructure budgets. Against that, NetApp guided fiscal 2027 gross margin down to ~68.5% to ~69.5% from ~71.3%, because NAND and DRAM contract prices have surged and storage vendors buy that memory before they sell it. The stock has responded to the growth rather than the margin warning: shares reached an all-time high near ~$193 in early August 2026 and are up roughly 89% over the prior year, giving a market cap of ~$36.5 billion. That combination, record demand paired with compressing input economics and a multiple that has already re-rated, is the tension anyone underwriting NTAP is taking a view on.

The dominant near-term risk is input cost: NAND and DRAM contract prices have risen sharply through 2026, and because storage vendors buy memory well ahead of shipping product, NetApp guided fiscal 2027 non-GAAP gross margin down to ~68.5% to ~69.5% from ~71.3% in fiscal 2026. Management has said it expects the July 2026 quarter to be the margin trough with recovery as price increases work through the system, but that depends on customers accepting higher prices, and NetApp has deliberately taken a more measured pricing stance than some rivals in order to protect gross profit dollars and relationships rather than fully pass costs through. Competition is structural rather than episodic: Dell and HPE bundle storage into much larger infrastructure relationships, Pure Storage competes hard on flash-native architecture and subscription pricing, and AI-specialist filesystem vendors are attacking exactly the high-performance tier NetApp is targeting with AFX. Demand itself is lumpy, since revenue depends on large enterprise deals and public-sector budgets that can slip a quarter for reasons unrelated to the product, and the fourth-quarter beat was explicitly attributed in part to large-deal timing. Finally, the shares sit near an all-time high after roughly doubling over a year, so the valuation already embeds a good deal of the AI storage thesis, and shareholders' equity of ~$1.35 billion is thin after years of buybacks, which leaves reported book value an unhelpful anchor if sentiment turns.

16 analysts publish price targets on NTAP, averaging $177.25 against a $185.82 price as of August 2026, or -4.6%. The published targets run from $137.00 to $200.00, a moderate spread, and the ratings split 8 buy, 11 hold, 1 sell. Over the last six months there have been 12 raises and 0 cuts among the published actions. A price target is what an analyst published on a date, not a prediction, and sell-side ratings skew positive across the whole market.

Read the full NTAP forecast and price target for the target table, the recent rating actions by firm, and how the consensus has shifted.

We give no verdict on NetApp, Inc.. Both cases are real, which is why the question is contested at all, so here is the strongest version of each.

The case for buying. AI workloads pulling storage along with them. NetApp reported roughly 500 AI and data-preparation wins in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026 alone and more than 1,100 across the full year, including a ~$20 million deal with a global financial institution building AI fraud detection and personalisation. The most optimistic published target, $200.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. The dominant near-term risk is input cost: NAND and DRAM contract prices have risen sharply through 2026, and because storage vendors buy memory well ahead of shipping product, NetApp guided fiscal 2027 non-GAAP gross margin down to ~68.5% to ~69.5% from ~71.3% in fiscal 2026. The most pessimistic target, $137.00, is roughly what NTAP is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on NTAP, including what would have to change to break either one. Walnut is not an investment adviser.

A simple financial snapshot. These are approximations and refresh quarterly; for current figures see NetApp, Inc.'s investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (FY2026, ended April 2026): ~$6.93B (+5% YoY, a company record)
• Q4 FY2026 revenue: ~$1.95B (+12% YoY, an acceleration)
• EPS (FY2026): ~$8.13 non-GAAP (+12%), ~$6.35 GAAP
• Non-GAAP operating margin (FY2026): ~30.2% (+190 bps YoY)
• Free cash flow (FY2026): ~$1.87B (+40% YoY)
• FY2027 guidance: revenue ~$7.33B to ~$7.58B, non-GAAP EPS ~$8.70 to ~$9.00

At a market cap of ~$36.5 billion, NetApp trades at roughly 22 times fiscal 2026 non-GAAP EPS of ~$8.13, near 29 times GAAP EPS of ~$6.35, and about 20 times the ~$8.85 midpoint of fiscal 2027 guidance, with free cash flow of ~$1.87 billion putting the enterprise value near 19 times cash generation. The guidance itself carries an important asymmetry: revenue is guided up roughly 8% at the midpoint while non-GAAP gross margin is guided down to ~68.5% to ~69.5% from ~71.3%, so earnings growth in fiscal 2027 leans on volume and operating leverage rather than on unit economics. The quarterly dividend of ~$0.52 per share works out to roughly ~1.1% on the recent price, which is a supplement to the buyback rather than the reason to own the stock.

Other names that sit close to NTAP: same theme, named as a direct competitor, or held beside it in the same funds. Each entry says which. Worth a look if you are thinking about diversification within a thesis rather than concentration on one ticker.

There are three common ways to get NTAP exposure. Buy shares (or fractional shares) directly at any major broker. Hold an ETF that includes it, which spreads the position across many companies. Or build it into a focused thematic portfolio, so NTAP sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where NTAP fits (for example “AI infrastructure” or “dividend-growth large-caps”) and the AI proposes 5 to 6 constituents with target weights. You review the plan and fund it through your own broker when you're ready.

New to this? Start with how to invest in stocks, see how to analyze a stock with AI, or compare the best AI stock analyzers.

NetApp is a cash-generative storage incumbent riding a real AI-driven refresh cycle, and the live question is whether memory cost inflation is a one-year dent in margins or a structural reset of its economics.

Whether NTAP is worth buying today depends more on your time horizon and what you already hold than on any single call. We walk through valuation, what would have to go right, and the risks in is NTAP a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the NTAP stock forecast.

For income investors, whether NTAP pays a dividend and how the payout looks is covered in does NTAP pay a dividend? And to weigh NTAP against a peer, read the full side-by-side comparisons: NTAP vs DELL and NTAP vs HPE.