ResMed FY26 Earnings: Can the ASX Sleep-Apnoea Giant Beat Expectations and Revive the Healthcare Sector?
ResMed (ASX: RMD, NYSE: RMD) released its fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal 2026 results after the New York close on Thursday, August 6 — with the earnings call landing at 6:30am AEST on Friday, August 7, just before the ASX open. That timing makes it one of the most immediately tradable results of the local reporting season, and it lands at a moment when the broader market has rarely looked stronger.
Why This Result Matters Right Now
The S&P/ASX 200 has been on a tear. The index closed at a record 9,227.8 points on Wednesday, up more than 4% over the past month, and pushed to a fresh intraday high near 9,286 in early Thursday trade. Strategists have pointed to Australia's relatively light exposure to the volatile AI trade, a softer US dollar backdrop and RBA rate-cut expectations as the key drivers of the rally — with banks, miners and consumer names leading the charge.
Healthcare, however, has been a laggard rather than a leader in this run. That's exactly what makes ResMed's number so pivotal: a beat-and-raise result from one of the ASX's few genuine global healthcare champions could be the spark that drags the sector back into favour. A disappointing print, on the other hand, risks reinforcing the narrative that healthcare names are structurally out of step with a market driven by rate-sensitive and resources plays.
ResMed reports alongside a busy Friday slate that also includes Credit Corp, Nick Scali and Avita Medical, but none carries the same global read-through — RMD sits in both the ASX 200 and the S&P 500, giving it a genuinely dual-market audience.
What Wall Street Is Expecting
Going into the print, the consensus set-up looked like this:
- Adjusted EPS: around US$2.90, which would be up roughly 13.7% year-on-year from US$2.55
- Revenue: in the region of US$1.46–1.47 billion, implying high-single-digit to low-double-digit growth depending on which estimate service you follow
- Sleep and Breathing Health revenue: forecast near US$1.28 billion, up around 8.8%
- Devices revenue: expected around US$745 million
- Residential Care Software revenue: expected near US$177 million
For context, ResMed's prior quarter (Q3 FY26, reported in April) delivered adjusted EPS of US$2.86 and revenue of US$1.43 billion, up 11% year-on-year, with gross margin sitting around 62.8%. The company has beaten Wall Street's bottom-line estimate in each of the past four quarters, with an average surprise of a little over 3%. That track record is part of why expectations are running hot — and why the market's reaction hinges less on a beat itself and more on the size and quality of it.
It's worth flagging that these are pre-release consensus figures gathered from analyst estimate services; readers should check them against ResMed's actual reported numbers once the release and earnings call are digested.
The MatrixCare Wildcard
The other major swing factor is ResMed's decision, announced in early July, to sell its MatrixCare software business to healthcare-focused private equity firm Frazier Healthcare Partners in an all-cash deal valued at US$490 million. MatrixCare generated roughly US$220 million of revenue and US$55 million of non-GAAP operating profit in fiscal 2026, but its growth had lagged the rest of the group.
Management has said proceeds will go toward general corporate purposes and returning capital to shareholders, including via an accelerated share buyback, and that the divestiture should let the remaining Residential Care Software business accelerate to high-single-digit revenue growth with improving operating leverage in FY27. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, subject to regulatory approval.
Crucially, ResMed said it would use this earnings call to lay out its full FY27 guidance for the first time — meaning Friday's numbers aren't just about what happened in the June quarter, they're about the shape of the business investors will be underwriting for the next 12 months, post-divestiture.
The Bear Case Sitting in the Background
Not everything has been rosy heading into the print. ResMed's share price has come under real pressure over the past year, and Morgan Stanley downgraded the stock citing limited near-term margin expansion and rising competitive risk — both from Philips's potential re-entry into the US sleep-device market and from the possibility that GLP-1 weight-loss drugs reduce the pool of patients needing CPAP therapy. That last point cuts both ways: ResMed management has previously argued that GLP-1 adoption is actually widening the funnel of patients getting diagnosed and treated for sleep apnoea, rather than shrinking it, but it remains one of the more contested debates among analysts covering the stock.
What to Watch When the Numbers Land
The Bigger Picture for ASX Healthcare
With the ASX 200 sitting at record highs but healthcare underperforming the broader rally, ResMed's result functions almost as a bellwether. A strong beat paired with confident FY27 guidance would give fund managers a reason to rotate back into a sector that's been sidelined by the miners-and-banks-led melt-up. A soft number, layered on top of the existing Morgan Stanley-style concerns about margins and competition, would likely deepen the sector's underperformance — at least until the next major healthcare report lands.
Source : ( Market Analysis )