Can nVent Electric's $2.6B Backlog Drive Future Revenue Growth?

nVent Electric NVT entered 2026 with a strong order book that could support future revenue growth. The company ended the first quarter of 2026 with a record backlog of $2.6 billion, up in low double digits sequentially. Organic orders increased about 40% year over year, mainly driven by AI data center projects. Even excluding data centers, organic orders grew at a mid-teens rate, showing healthy demand across the broader business.

Management said the backlog gives the company good visibility for the rest of 2026, and most of the backlog extends beyond the next 12 months, providing visibility into 2027. Demand remained strong across liquid cooling, engineered buildings, enclosures, power distribution units, cable management and power connections. The company is also seeing strong demand from a broad customer base, including hyperscalers, neo clouds, multi-tenant operators and distribution partners, which should help support revenue growth over the coming quarters.

nVent Electric is investing heavily to support this demand. NVT plans to spend approximately $130 million on capital expenditures in 2026. A major part of this expansion is the new Blaine, MN, facility, which started production during the first quarter of 2026. Besides Blaine, NVT is expanding manufacturing capacity across several locations for liquid cooling products and engineered building solutions. Most of this investment will support data center products, power utilities and supply chain expansion. These investments should help the company deliver orders and convert its backlog into future revenues.

The strong order book and backlog gave management confidence to raise its full-year outlook. The company now expects 2026 revenue growth in the range of 26-28%, up from its previous guidance of 15-18%. The company now expects 2026 adjusted EPS in the range of $4.45-$4.55, up from its prior guidance of $4.00-$4.15. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for nVent Electric’s 2026 revenues and EPS indicates a year-over-year increase of 28% and 36%, respectively.

How Do Competitors Fare Against NVT

nVent Electric competes with companies like Vertiv VRT and Amphenol Corporation APH in the electrical equipment and data center markets.

Vertiv continues to benefit from rising data center power and thermal needs as AI deployments drive higher infrastructure density and faster build cycles. Vertiv expects orders to be up year over year in 2026 and continues to cite larger deployments and higher technical complexity that favor providers that can deliver products, systems and services at scale. Capacity additions and backlog conversion are expected to support faster organic growth in the second half of 2026.

Amphenol is seeing sustained demand for high-speed, power and fiber interconnect products, led by AI-related IT datacom programs and supported by diversified industrial applications. APH’s first-quarter 2026 orders were $9.4 billion, with a book-to-bill of 1.24, supporting management’s view of broad-based demand. Further, every end market had book-to-bill above 1, and bookings were broad-based, underscoring the healthy demand across various end markets.

NVT's Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of nVent Electric have surged 48.8% year to date against the Zacks Electronics - Miscellaneous Components industry’s decline of 17.7%.

nVent Electric YTD Price Return Performance

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From a valuation standpoint, nVent Electric trades at a forward price-to-sales ratio of 4.53X, higher than the industry’s average of 3.76X.

NVT Forward 12-Month P/S Ratio

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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for nVent Electric’s 2026 and 2027 earnings per share (EPS) implies year-over-year growth of 36.12% and 23.95%, respectively. EPS estimates for 2026 have been revised upward by a penny over the past 30 days, while the same for 2027 have been revised up by 2 cents over the past seven days.

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nVent Electric currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

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