Medtronic grew 13.7% in a quarter that had a 53rd week in it

by Henry Nakamura · September 1, 2026

Earnings Reporter, Earnings Dispatch

Medtronic reported results for the first quarter of its fiscal 2027 before the opening bell on Tuesday, September 1, and the headline figures are large. Worldwide revenue was $9.756 billion, up 13.7 percent. GAAP diluted earnings per share came in at $1.14, up 40.7 percent. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share — the measure the company leads with and the measure its guidance is stated on — were $1.45, up 15.1 percent. GAAP net income was $1.470 billion and non-GAAP net income was $1.860 billion. Alongside the results, Medtronic raised its full-year fiscal 2027 outlook.

The single most important sentence in the release is not in the headline. It is a disclosure about the calendar. "Fiscal year 2027 is a 53-week fiscal year, with the extra week occurring in the first fiscal month of the first quarter and included in reported first quarter results," the company said. "While it is difficult to calculate the impact of the extra week, the Company estimates the extra week benefited first quarter organic growth by approximately $570 million."

Medtronic did not publish a growth rate excluding that week, so the arithmetic is worth doing carefully and labelling as our own. The $570 million the company names is equal to about 5.8 percent of the $9.756 billion the quarter actually produced. The release puts the prior-year quarter at $8.578 billion; measured against that base, $570 million is worth about 6.6 percentage points of growth. Strip it out and the quarter grew at something on the order of 7.1 percent. Those figures are Earnings Dispatch's calculation from the numbers in Medtronic's release, not the company's own presentation, and the company itself cautions that the impact is difficult to calculate.

That derived figure is interesting mainly for where it lands. Medtronic's raised full-year organic revenue growth guidance is 7.25 percent to 7.75 percent. A quarter growing around 7 percent before the extra week is, on that reading, roughly consistent with the year the company is now promising — which is a very different story from a business that just accelerated to 13.7 percent. Readers comparing this quarter to prior periods or to competitors on a 13-week calendar should keep the extra week in view.

The gap between the GAAP and non-GAAP earnings figures is $0.31 a share, or $390 million at the net income line. Medtronic names the items it excludes: amortisation of intangible assets of $412 million, restructuring costs of $89 million, acquisition and divestiture items of $50 million, minority investment gains of $64 million, and a tax adjustment of $5 million. Added up as the release presents them, the pre-tax items are $551 million of costs added back against $64 million of gains removed, a gross swing of $487 million, which the tax effect of those adjustments then narrows to the $390 million difference between the two net income figures.

The same adjustments barely touch gross profit and substantially reshape the operating line. GAAP gross margin was 65.0 percent and non-GAAP gross margin 65.2 percent — two tenths of a point apart. GAAP operating margin was 18.1 percent against a non-GAAP operating margin of 23.7 percent, a gap of 5.6 percentage points. Almost the entire adjustment sits below gross profit, which is what you would expect when the largest single add-back is intangible amortisation.

One other divergence deserves flagging rather than smoothing over. GAAP diluted EPS grew 40.7 percent while non-GAAP diluted EPS grew 15.1 percent. The GAAP line is growing much faster because it is growing off a lower prior-year base, and the two measures answer different questions. Neither rate is the company's "real" growth rate on its own.

On guidance, Medtronic's own numbers are the hardest figures in the story. The company raised its FY27 organic revenue growth guidance to 7.25 percent to 7.75 percent, from a prior 6.75 percent to 7.25 percent — a clean 50 basis points at both ends — and raised its FY27 diluted non-GAAP EPS guidance to a new range of $5.94 to $6.00, from a prior $5.90 to $6.00. So the revenue raise is a full 50 basis points, but the earnings raise moved the floor up four cents and left the ceiling untouched. The midpoint went from $5.95 to $5.97 — two cents. Medtronic described the foreign currency assumption embedded in the outlook as neutral to roughly 1 percent accretive.

By segment, on the organic basis the company reports — and remembering that these rates carry the extra week too — Cardiovascular produced $3.927 billion, up 18.9 percent organically and 19.5 percent as reported, with Electrophysiology Therapies up 29.1 percent, Peripheral Vascular Health up 11.0 percent, CardioVascular Surgery up 8.1 percent and Interventional Cardiology Therapies up 6.5 percent. Neuroscience produced $2.678 billion, up 9.3 percent organically and 10.3 percent as reported, with Cranial and Spinal Technologies up 12.9 percent, Specialty Therapies up 7.4 percent and Neuromodulation up 3.3 percent.

Medical Surgical produced $2.279 billion, up 10.2 percent organically and 10.0 percent as reported, with Acute Care and Monitoring up 14.2 percent and Surgical and Endoscopy up 9.0 percent. Diabetes produced $843 million, up 14.9 percent organically and 16.9 percent as reported. Cash flow from operations was $1.793 billion and free cash flow was $1.290 billion.

On expectations: a Zacks-sourced preview carried on TradingView and accessed September 1 put the Zacks Consensus Estimate for the quarter at $1.39 a share on revenue of $9.47 billion, and said the earnings estimate had been unchanged for 60 days. That preview did not specify whether its per-share figure was on a GAAP or adjusted basis; Medtronic's comparable non-GAAP result was $1.45 on revenue of $9.756 billion. The earnings calendar published by Kiplinger, also accessed September 1, listed $2.31 for Science Applications on Monday and $1.39 for Medtronic on Tuesday; Kiplinger attributes its estimate data to Refinitiv, an LSEG business, via Yahoo Finance and to S&P Global Market Intelligence via Briefing.com, without saying which supplied any individual line. A consensus estimate is a private data vendor's product built from a particular panel of contributing analysts, not an objective fact, and two compilers will not always agree.

Chief executive Geoff Martha said in the release: "We are off to a strong start in fiscal 2027. What gives us confidence is not simply the strength of the quarter, but importantly, the breadth of performance across our businesses and the increasing contributions from newer growth platforms." Chief financial officer Thierry Piéton said: "The combination of strong operating performance and disciplined financial management drove revenue and adjusted EPS ahead of expectations, enabling us to raise our fiscal 2027 guidance." US markets were open when this article published and no closing price for Tuesday exists yet. Nothing here is investment advice.