Carrier Global Surprises with Q2 Orders Surge, Raises 2026 Forecast

CARR raised its full-year outlook after an order book that came in far stronger than expected. Second-quarter orders rose roughly 40% year over year, led by about 65% growth in commercial HVAC, while data center orders quadrupled. Backlog now exceeds $8 billion, up roughly 40% year over year and 20% sequentially.

Management lifted full-year revenue guidance to approximately $23 billion at the midpoint, above the roughly $22.31 billion analysts had modeled, and raised adjusted EPS guidance to $2.90 against a $2.81 consensus. For the third quarter Carrier guided to roughly 10% organic growth, an operating margin near 16.5% and adjusted EPS of about $0.75.

The data center vertical is the piece worth isolating. Carrier now expects roughly $2 billion of data center sales in 2026, its second consecutive year of doubling in that channel. Thermal management has become a genuine constraint on AI compute deployment, and Carrier is one of the few industrials converting that constraint into order growth at scale rather than into a narrative.

The counterweight is that orders are not revenue. A backlog above $8 billion assumes conversion at stable pricing and no cancellation from customers whose own capital plans depend on AI economics holding. Watch the backlog-to-revenue conversion rate and any softening in the non-data-center commercial HVAC base, which is the larger and more cyclical part of the business.

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