Fisher & Paykel Healthcare released its full-year results for fiscal 2026 on May 26 in the quiet industrial suburb of East Tamaki in Auckland. This is the kind of place where the buildings are functional rather than architecturally ambitious, and you wouldn’t necessarily guess that one of them houses a medical device company with a market capitalization of NZD 21.9 billion. In anticipation, the share price had been rising. It increased by almost 9% on results day. NZD 2.3 billion in revenue, a 14% increase.
NZD 468.5 million in net profit, a 24% increase. 63.7% gross margin, up 122 basis points in constant currency. All of the data exceeded expectations, and the share price has recovered from its latest low by about 14% since mid-May. Investors appear to think that the FY26 results validate the company’s strong performance.
Acute respiratory care in hospitals and the treatment of obstructive sleep apnea at home are two connected but separate markets for which Fisher & Paykel Healthcare produces goods. With an 18% annual growth in FY26, the hospital segment—which comprises breathing-support equipment and the consumables used with it—did the most work. The severity of the respiratory season, COVID-related demand cycles, and the pace at which hospitals continue to implement high-flow therapy as a standard of care all have an impact on this aspect of the company.
Instead of a pandemic-era spike that has since completely reversed, the hospital business’s 18% growth in a year without an extraordinary respiratory event indicates that the underlying adoption curve is real and still developing. Because it works in a market with a well-established long-term growth driver—an aging global population with rising obesity rates and underdiagnosed sleep disorders—the obstructive sleep apnea industry grew more gradually.
The generally tidy FY26 storyline is complicated by the tariff issue, which persists into the following year. The United States accounts for a sizable amount of Fisher & Paykel’s sales, with manufacturing facilities located in Mexico and New Zealand. Through court proceedings, petitions for free trade agreements, and the Nairobi Protocol on medical equipment, the corporation has been actively controlling the cost structure generated by US tariff adjustments affecting medical products from both nations.
According to the company’s stated stance, tariffs have no significant impact on its long-term course and will eventually be absorbed by ongoing improvement initiatives. The FY26 gross margin improvement of 122 basis points, which occurred before tariff impacts of 75 basis points—that is, the underlying business produced 197 basis points of improvement prior to tariff drag—supports this stance. It’s really unclear if that will continue, and long-term FPH shareholders will be keeping a careful eye on it in FY27.
On the NZX, the valuation is trading at about 46.5 times earnings, a premium that represents what the market believes the company will become rather than what it presently makes. By 2029, FPH is expected to generate NZD 3.0 billion in revenue and roughly NZD 682 million in earnings, according to analyst projections. This suggests that the current P/E compresses significantly as earnings increase.
The hospital adoption curve must continue, the home sleep apnea industry must continue on its current track, and the tariff environment must not become significantly more unfriendly for that projection to be realized. Each of those three scenarios is conceivable. They are all uncertain. The company is currently rated as a strong buy by brokers, indicating that their current examination of those factors leans toward confidence in the growth case.
The story of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare’s share price in 2026 has a recurring theme: a well-managed New Zealand exporter hitting real growth numbers in genuinely useful medical devices, recovering from a share price that had likely drifted too low, and trading at a valuation that reflects serious long-term expectations. In just a few weeks, the stock had increased by 14%. The yearly results are unmistakably better than the previous year. Although it is now under control, the US tariff overhang is real. Which of those conditions changes first will determine what happens next.
