Palantir Technologies (NASDAQ: PLTR) shares were quoted nearly 8% lower early Tuesday after the company’s third-quarter earnings, released after Monday’s market close, showed slower growth in newly signed contract value and a decline in long-term remaining performance obligations despite revenue rising 96%.
The stock traded near $164.15 at 08:00 a.m. ET, approximately 8% below Monday’s closing price, according to Yahoo Finance. Palantir reported quarterly revenue of $2.313 billion and adjusted earnings of $0.44 per share, both exceeding analysts’ expectations.
However, total contract value (TCV) grew just 6% YoY to $2.918 billion, versus 49% growth in the second quarter. U.S. commercial TCV rose 11% to $1.463 billion, down sharply from 153% annual growth in the previous quarter.
The slowdown was also evident in quarterly comparisons. Total contract value was approximately 13.5% lower than the second-quarter figure of $3.373 billion, while U.S. commercial TCV was about 31.4% lower than its second-quarter level of $2.132 billion. Palantir closed 212 deals worth at least $1 million, down from 220 in the second quarter.
TCV measures the potential value of signed contracts, including unexercised customer options, rather than revenue the company has recognized.
Palantir’s Long-Term RPO Balance Falls $70 Million
Palantir’s third-quarter investor presentation showed that long-term remaining performance obligations (RPO) declined from $2.81 billion in the second quarter to $2.74 billion, a decrease of approximately 2.5%.
Total RPO slipped from $4.90 billion to $4.88 billion, while short-term obligations increased from $2.09 billion to $2.14 billion. The decline in reported long-term RPO outweighed the increase in short-term RPO. Total RPO nevertheless remained approximately 88% above its year-earlier level of $2.60 billion.
RPO represents non-cancelable contracted revenue that Palantir has not yet recognized. However, the company excludes contracts with original terms of 12 months or less from this disclosure, meaning the measure does not capture its entire contract backlog.
Chief Financial Officer David Glazer said RPO also excludes obligations beyond termination-for-convenience clauses, which are common in the company’s government contracts. He said the measure therefore primarily reflects Palantir’s commercial business.
Palantir separately reported that U.S. commercial remaining deal value increased 79% year-over-year and 4% sequentially to $6.517 billion. That broader contract measure includes potential future revenue not necessarily reflected in RPO.
During Monday’s earnings call, Glazer said Palantir signed multiple eight-figure Sovereign AI contracts with shorter-than-usual durations as customers began adopting the company’s AI capabilities.
Glazer said management expects both the size and duration of those contracts to increase over time as customer adoption progresses. Palantir did not attribute the decline in long-term RPO to those shorter contracts.
Palantir Shares Extend Five-Session Decline Despite Stronger Revenue Outlook
Palantir shares closed Monday’s regular session at $178.34, down 3.13%, marking their fifth consecutive daily decline. The stock lost approximately 10.3% over those sessions and finished about 16.2% below its 52-week high of $212.94.
Meanwhile, Palantir Tokenized bStocks (PLTRB), a tokenized product linked to Palantir shares, was trading at $164.14, down 12% over the preceding 24 hours, according to CoinMarketCap. The tokenized instrument trades separately from the Nasdaq-listed shares, and its 24-hour percentage change is not directly comparable with the stock’s premarket or regular session performance.
Despite the slower growth in contract signings, Palantir forecast fourth-quarter revenue of $2.649 billion to $2.653 billion, above analysts’ consensus of $2.46 billion. The midpoint implies sequential revenue growth of about 14.6%, compared with the 20% increase recorded in the third quarter.
The company also raised its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to between $8.530 billion and $8.534 billion, up from its previous forecast of $8.150 billion to $8.158 billion.