Smith & Nephew plc (SNN) Stock Price & How to Invest

Smith & Nephew sells implants and consumables into the operating room and the wound clinic, and it runs three global business units. Orthopaedics, the largest at $2,437 million of 2025 revenue, covers knee implants, hip implants, other reconstruction and a trauma and extremities line. Sports Medicine & ENT, $1,934 million in 2025, sells arthroscopic repair systems, the REGENETEN bioinductive implant for rotator cuff repair, visualisation and resection hardware, and ear, nose and throat instruments. Advanced Wound Management, $1,793 million, spans foam and antimicrobial dressings, negative pressure wound therapy devices such as PICO and RENASYS, and a bioactives portfolio that includes SANTYL and skin substitutes. Group revenue was $6,164 million in 2025, up 6.1% reported and 5.3% underlying, and the business employs roughly 17,000 people. Around half of sales come from the United States: US revenue was $1,591 million of the $3,097 million booked in the first half of 2026. Emerging markets, where the company grew 10.6% underlying in that half, are the fastest-moving geography and also the source of the China pricing risk described below. The customer is a hospital or a surgical centre, the sale is usually a consumable or an implant rather than a capital item, and revenue is therefore closely tied to elective procedure volumes in the United States, Europe and Japan.

What drives the numbers is the gap between the franchises. Sports Medicine & ENT and Advanced Wound Management earned 23.8% and 24.9% segment trading margins in 2025; Orthopaedics earned 14.9%, and in the first half of 2026 it ran at 13.0%. Orthopaedics has been the fix-it project for four years, first through the 12-Point Plan that ran to the end of 2025 and now under the RISE strategy launched in December 2025, which targets a 6% to 7% organic revenue CAGR and a 9% to 10% trading profit CAGR out to 2028. Trading profit, the company's own preferred profit measure, ran at $1,211 million in 2025 against reported operating profit of $794 million, and the difference is restructuring, acquisition amortisation and legal charges that have recurred every year. The market is paying about 20 times trailing reported earnings and roughly 14 times adjusted earnings for that mix, with the shares near their 52-week low after management cut 2026 revenue growth guidance from around 6% to around 4% on August 4. Trading profit, free cash flow and return guidance were left alone, which is the whole argument in one sentence: the cost work is landing, the top line is not.

The clearest risk is that US Orthopaedics does not turn. Knee implants fell 7.2% in the US in the second quarter of 2026 and the fix depends on launches, principally LANDMARK and wider LEGION MS set deployment, that mostly land in 2027. Launches slip, surgeons switch slowly, and a competitor with four times the revenue can out-spend the response. Advanced Wound Bioactives is the second pressure point: revenue fell 8.1% underlying in the first half after the January 2026 US reimbursement reset on skin substitutes, and the full-year headwind is now expected toward the upper end of a $20 million to $40 million range. China is a third. Volume-based procurement has already compressed sports medicine pricing, the ENT tender process has been delayed into the second half of 2026, and the company has been running down channel inventory ahead of it, so the reported growth in that market is not a clean read on demand. Execution risk sits on top of all of it: hitting full-year guidance now requires second-half growth of 5.0% to 5.5% against 2.3% delivered in the first half. There is a governance gap as well. CFO John Rogers resigned on August 19, 2026 and leaves on September 30 with a search under way, and Pierre Palassian is interim. Cevian's 14.2% position could force portfolio action or leave a large overhang if the thesis is abandoned. Legacy metal-on-metal hip claims still carry provisions, adjusted net debt to EBITDA was 1.8 times at the half, and $350 million of corporate bonds plus $140 million of private placement debt fall due in the first half of 2027.

5 analysts publish price targets on SNN, averaging $33.66 against a $29.26 price as of August 2026, or +15.0%. The published targets run from $30.00 to $38.00, a narrow spread, and the ratings split 2 buy, 3 hold, 0 sell. Over the last six months there has been 1 raise and 3 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 SNN 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 Smith & Nephew plc. 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. Sports Medicine is doing the compounding. Sports Medicine & ENT grew 7.7% underlying in the first half of 2026 to $1,017 million, and 8.6% in the second quarter alone, while the rest of the group was roughly flat. The most optimistic published target, $38.00, assumes this works close to its best case.

The case against. The clearest risk is that US Orthopaedics does not turn. The most pessimistic target, $30.00, is roughly what SNN is worth if this bites instead.

Read the full bull and bear case on SNN, 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 Smith & Nephew plc's investor relations page or your broker.

• Revenue (TTM): ~$6.30 billion for the twelve months to June 27, 2026, derived from 2025 revenue of $6,164 million plus first-half 2026 revenue of $3,097 million less first-half 2025 revenue of $2,961 million. Full-year 2025 revenue grew 6.1% reported and 5.3% underlying, from $5,810 million in 2024 and $5,549 million in 2023. First-half 2026 growth was 4.6% reported but only 2.3% underlying, with a 230 basis point currency tailwind and one fewer trading day. Everything here is reported in US dollars, the company's actual reporting currency, so no conversion from sterling is involved.
• Earnings and adjusted earnings: Attributable profit of ~$635 million for the twelve months to June 27, 2026, giving basic EPS of ~74.2 cents per ordinary share, or roughly $1.48 per ADS at the two-for-one ratio. Full-year 2025 EPS was 72.1 cents, up 52.8%, on operating profit of $794 million. The company's preferred measure runs well above that: trading profit was $1,211 million in 2025 (19.7% margin) and ~$1,254 million on a trailing basis, with adjusted EPS of 102.0 cents per ordinary share in 2025 and ~106.8 cents trailing, about $2.14 per ADS. The gap between operating and trading profit, roughly $440 million, is restructuring, acquisition amortisation and legal items.
• Franchise mix and margins: 2025 revenue split Orthopaedics $2,437 million, Sports Medicine & ENT $1,934 million and Advanced Wound Management $1,793 million, with segment trading margins of 14.9%, 23.8% and 24.9% respectively. In the first half of 2026 that became Orthopaedics $1,213 million (down 0.1% underlying, 13.0% margin), Sports Medicine & ENT $1,017 million (up 7.7%, 24.7% margin) and Advanced Wound Management $867 million (down 0.1% underlying, 22.0% margin). Geographically, US revenue was $1,591 million of the $3,097 million half, other established markets $958 million, and emerging markets $548 million growing 10.6% underlying.
• Cash flow and balance sheet: Free cash flow of ~$823 million on a trailing basis, after $836 million in 2025 against a $625 million internal target. First-half 2026 cash from operations was $605 million, up 6.9%, while free cash flow slipped to $231 million on ~$51 million of extra capex for a new UK wound factory and IT upgrades. Net debt was $3,019 million at June 27, 2026 (including $197 million of lease liabilities), up from $2,747 million at December 31, 2025, and adjusted net debt to EBITDA was 1.8 times. In June 2026 the group issued a EUR 500 million 4.25% bond due 2038. Nothing matures in the second half of 2026; $350 million of corporate bonds and $140 million of private placement notes fall due in the first half of 2027.
• Market pricing: The ADS traded around $29 in late August 2026, against a 52-week range of ~$28.56 to ~$38.79, close to the low after a 2025 in which the shares rose 28%. There were 840,515,838 ordinary shares outstanding on July 23, 2026, equivalent to roughly 420 million ADSs, for a market capitalisation of ~$12.3 billion and enterprise value of ~$15.3 billion including net debt. On those figures the shares trade at ~20 times trailing reported EPS, ~14 times adjusted EPS, ~2.4 times EV to sales and roughly 9 times EBITDA implied by the disclosed 1.8 times leverage. The 2025 dividend of 39.1 cents per ordinary share (78.2 cents per ADS) is a yield of ~2.7%, and the 2026 interim was raised 4.0% to 15.6 cents.
• Guidance and 2028 targets: Full-year 2026 revenue growth was cut to around 4% from around 6% on August 4, 2026, implying second-half growth of 5.0% to 5.5%. Trading profit guidance was held at around $1.3 billion post-acquisition (roughly 8% growth excluding acquisitions), free cash flow at around $800 million, and adjusted ROIC above 10% excluding Integrity Orthopaedics, funded partly by an extra $50 million of savings taking the 2026 total to around $200 million. The RISE strategy of December 2025 targets a 6% to 7% organic revenue CAGR and 9% to 10% trading profit CAGR through 2028, against 2025 adjusted ROIC of 8.3%.

The multiple sits well below the large-cap orthopaedic peer group, and the reason is visible in the segment table rather than in any accounting subtlety: the largest franchise earns the lowest margin and is not growing. Investors buying at ~14 times adjusted earnings are paying for the RISE targets to close that gap, or for someone to force the issue on portfolio structure.

Other names that sit close to SNN: 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 SNN 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 SNN sits alongside other stocks that express the same thesis.

Walnut takes the portfolio route. Describe a thesis where SNN 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.

As of August 2026, SNN is a three-franchise medtech company where Sports Medicine compounds, wound care absorbs a US reimbursement reset, and Orthopaedics is fixing its margin faster than its revenue. The stock sits near its 52-week low while Cevian Capital, holding about 14.2% on an activist 13D, keeps buying.

Whether SNN 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 SNN a buy or a sell?, and where the stock could go from here in the SNN stock forecast.

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