Nice Ltd Overview
Positioning statement (150 words). NICE Ltd. is a globally scaled, Israeli-incorporated enterprise software company that has completed one of the more successful on-premises-to-cloud transitions in enterprise software, and is now attempting a second, harder transition: from seat-based cloud subscriptions to AI- and consumption-monetised customer experience infrastructure. It operates two reported segments — Customer Engagement, built around the CXone platform and now the natively embedded NiCE Cognigy agentic-AI layer, and Financial Crime and Compliance, marketed as NICE Actimize. A third business, Public Safety and Justice, sits inside Customer Engagement. NICE serves more than 25,000 organisations across over 150 countries, including more than 85 of the Fortune 100, and generated 2,945 million USD of revenue in FY2025, of which 76% was cloud and 90% recurring. Its structural advantages are domain-specific interaction data accumulated over four decades, an installed base that is expensive to displace, and a debt-free balance sheet generating roughly 620–700 million USD of annual free cash flow.
2.1 The Company's own characterisation
In its 2026 proxy statement, NICE describes itself as "a global enterprise software leader, delivering mission-critical AI-powered cloud platforms that serve two main markets: Customer Engagement and Financial Crime and Compliance," and states that its platforms are "designed to automate complex, high-volume, and highly regulated workflows where reliability, security, and measurable outcomes are essential." In the Customer Engagement market, the Company positions CXone as a platform that "enables enterprises to automate customer service at scale — orchestrating workflows, AI, and human agents within a single, unified platform," blending "autonomous agentic AI and human-assisted interactions." It separately identifies its Public Safety and Justice business as helping "police, prosecutors, courts, and correctional institutions manage evidence more efficiently." In Financial Crime and Compliance, it describes "embedded AI solutions that identify risks to help prevent money laundering and fraud, and ensure real-time regulatory compliance," using "machine learning, behavioral analytics, generative AI, and agentic AI."
The corporate boilerplate used in FY2026 press releases states that NICE "is transforming the world with AI that puts people first," with "purpose-built AI-powered platforms" that "automate engagements into proactive, safe, intelligent actions," trusted by organisations across more than 150 countries.
2.2 Independent characterisation
NICE is best understood not as a contact-centre software vendor but as an enterprise workflow-capture and workflow-automation company that happens to have entered through the contact centre. Its economic engine rests on three reinforcing assets:
First, a proprietary interaction data estate. NICE's origins are in voice recording and compliance capture. Four decades of recording, transcribing, and indexing customer interactions — in contact centres, in regulated trading floors, and in emergency-service call centres — have produced a labelled, domain-specific corpus of customer-service conversations that horizontal large-language-model providers do not natively possess. Management's repeated claim that its models are "purpose-built" for CX rests on this asset. It is also the strategic rationale that management invokes against the disintermediation thesis: general-purpose model providers have the reasoning, but NICE claims the domain-specific supervision data and the systems of record.
Second, a system-of-record position with high switching costs. CXone sits between the telephony network, the CRM, and the workforce-management stack. Ripping it out requires re-integrating routing, recording, compliance retention, quality management, and scheduling simultaneously. Deals such as the UK Department for Work and Pensions (approximately 40,000 seats) and HM Revenue & Customs (eight-digit annual contract value; nine-digit total contract value; contract term running from May 2026 to May 2034 with a two-year extension option) illustrate both the size and the duration of the lock-in NICE achieves at the top of the market.
Third, a regulated-workflow franchise in Financial Crime and Compliance. NICE Actimize's anti-money-laundering, fraud, and market-surveillance products are embedded in the regulatory reporting chains of financial institutions. Revenue here is structurally less cyclical and more renewal-driven than in Customer Engagement, but it also grows more slowly and is more exposed to deregulation risk — a risk NICE explicitly flags in its FY2025 risk factors, noting that "substantial changes resulting in a reduction in the implementation or elimination of rules and regulations that apply to a certain sector of our business, such as deregulation in the area of compliance" could reduce demand.
2.3 Revenue model and mix
NICE reports revenue in three categories: Cloud (subscription and consumption-based SaaS), Services (professional services, implementation, training, and legacy maintenance/support on on-premises licences), and Product (perpetual software licences and associated hardware, principally in Financial Crime and Compliance and Public Safety).
The mix has shifted decisively. Cloud rose from 53.0% of revenue in FY2021 to 76.0% in FY2025 and 77.8% in Q2 2026. Product — the legacy perpetual-licence business — has collapsed from 12.6% of revenue in FY2021 to 5.0% in FY2025. Services, which contains both high-margin maintenance on the shrinking on-premises base and lower-margin implementation work, has declined in absolute terms every year since FY2021.
Recurring revenue percentages for FY2023–FY2025 are as disclosed in the Q4 2025 earnings presentation (87%, 89%, 90%); FY2021–FY2022 figures are derived from the same disclosure basis and should be treated as approximate. FY2021 revenue is stated on a GAAP basis (1,921.2); the non-GAAP figure for FY2021 was 1,925.7 owing to a valuation adjustment on acquired deferred revenue.
Total recurring revenue reached 2,644 million USD in FY2025, up 9% year over year. Within cloud, the Company now discloses an AI and Self-Service annual recurring revenue metric: 328 million USD at Q4 2025 (up 66% year over year, 13% of total cloud revenue) and 362 million USD at Q2 2026 (up 52% year over year, 15% of cloud revenue).
2.4 Value chain position, customer types and end-markets
NICE sits in the applications layer, above infrastructure (it consumes AWS and Microsoft cloud capacity, and third-party LLMs) and alongside CRM systems of record. It sells directly to large enterprises and through an indirect channel of distributors, resellers, business-process outsourcers, telecommunications carriers, and — increasingly — global systems integrators. Management disclosed on the Q2 2026 call that annual contract value booked through GSI partners was "multiples higher" than the prior year, and the HMRC award was delivered alongside Capgemini and Route 101.
End-markets served, as disclosed on the Company's website and in filings: banking and financial services, insurance, telecommunications, healthcare, retail, travel and hospitality, education, government (including public safety and justice), and business process outsourcers. Named public reference customers disclosed in 2025–2026 communications include Citi, Tripadvisor, Banco do Brasil, Currys, Sopra Steria, Concentrix, GXBank, HM Revenue & Customs, the UK Department for Work and Pensions, and Services Australia. Cognigy brought Bosch, Nestlé, DHL, Lufthansa Group, Mercedes-Benz, Frontier Airlines, Allianz, Generali, SKY and Openreach (BT) into the reference base.
Financial Narrative
6.1 Income statement
FY2025 selling and marketing and general and administrative are shown as 0.0 because the split is not disclosed in the earnings release or investor presentation; only the 1,310.4 total and the 360.4 R&D figure are available. FY2021 non-GAAP EBITDA is shown as 0.0 because it was not disclosed on a comparable basis in the releases reviewed. GAAP EBITDA is derived as net income plus D&A plus taxes less net financial income.
Revenue CAGR, FY2021–FY2025: 11.3%. Cloud revenue CAGR, FY2021–FY2025: 21.8%.
Commentary. Three inflections define the period. The first is the cloud crossover, complete by FY2023, after which cloud growth alone determined the group trajectory; as cloud became 76% of revenue, the arithmetic drag from declining product and services revenue diminished, but so did the multiplier from cloud growth. The second is the margin expansion of FY2022–FY2024, in which GAAP operating margin rose 630 basis points on operating leverage over a scaling cloud base and disciplined sales and marketing spend (non-GAAP S&M fell from 22.5% of revenue in 2023 to 19.8% in 2025). The third is the FY2025 tax anomaly: the effective rate fell from 26.8% to 13.1%, contributing the bulk of the 43% GAAP EPS increase. Excluding this, underlying profit growth was far more modest — non-GAAP EPS rose only 11%. Investors should treat FY2025's headline 43% GAAP EPS growth as substantially non-operational.
The FY2026 picture inverts. H1 2026 GAAP operating income fell to 230.8 million USD from 308.8 million USD, and Q2 2026 GAAP operating margin collapsed to 13.3% from 22.1%. The drivers are visible in the H1 2026 expense lines: R&D rose 12.0% year over year, selling and marketing rose 16.4%, and general and administrative rose 33.4% — all substantially faster than the 8.7% revenue growth. Cognigy amortisation of acquired intangibles on cost of cloud roughly doubled (53.4 million USD in H1 2026 versus 28.6 million USD in H1 2025), and share-based compensation rose 8.5%. Management is guiding to a full-year 2026 non-GAAP operating margin at the upper end of a 25–26% range — a deliberate 480–580 basis point reset from FY2025's 30.8%, framed as reinvestment in AI capability and go-to-market.
6.2 Balance sheet
Company-reported net cash for FY2022 and FY2023 is stated net of a debt hedge option instrument (122.3 million USD and 121.9 million USD respectively), which the Company netted against convertible debt. FY2021 net cash is derived. From FY2025 the Company has no outstanding debt, so cash and short-term investments equal net cash.
Commentary. The balance-sheet transformation in FY2025 is the single most consequential capital-allocation event of the period. NICE simultaneously (i) settled all outstanding debt in cash during Q3 2025, (ii) funded the 955 million USD Cognigy acquisition largely from on-hand funds, and (iii) repurchased 488.9 million USD of stock. The combined effect drew total cash and short-term investments down from 1,621.7 million USD to 417.4 million USD in a single year — a 1,204 million USD reduction — and pushed goodwill and intangibles from 2,081 million USD to 3,028 million USD, now 59% of total assets and 78% of book equity. Working capital fell 52% to 491.5 million USD and the current ratio to 1.55, the lowest of the five-year period. By 30 June 2026 cash and short-term investments had fallen further to 354.7 million USD after 311 million USD of first-half buybacks. NICE now has materially less financial optionality than at any point in the period, which is precisely why the February 2026 300 million USD revolver was struck.
Trade receivables are the balance-sheet line to watch. Days sales outstanding rose from 75.2 in FY2021 to 91.5 in FY2025, and receivables grew a further 13.4% in H1 2026 to 836.6 million USD against 8.7% revenue growth. Working-capital absorption of 99.4 million USD from receivables in H1 2026 was the principal reason operating cash flow fell 12.8% year over year despite higher revenue.
6.3 Cash flow
FY2025 payments for business acquisitions net of cash is shown as 0.0 because the full-year figure was not disclosed in the sources reviewed; the H1 2025 figure was 36.5 million USD, and the Cognigy consideration of approximately 955 million USD (including a circa 50 million USD holdback, of which 25 million USD cash and 158,000 ADSs) was settled in Q3 2025. FY2025 debt repayment is shown as 0.0 in the financing line; the Company stated that all outstanding debt was fully settled in cash during Q3 2025, and the FY2024 458.8 million USD current debt balance went to zero.
Commentary. FY2024 was the high-water mark: 832.6 million USD of operating cash flow at a 26.8% free-cash-flow margin. FY2025 saw a 13.9% decline in operating cash flow despite a 39% increase in net income — a divergence driven by working capital and by the fact that the FY2025 net income improvement was substantially tax-driven and therefore lower quality. Trailing-twelve-month operating cash flow through June 2026 was 672.1 million USD, down from 755 million USD in the comparable prior period. Management guides FY2026 free-cash-flow margin to the higher end of an 18–19% target range — again, a step down from FY2025's 21.2%.
Capital allocation has been unambiguously buyback-weighted. Cumulative repurchases across FY2022–FY2025 totalled 1,291.4 million USD and, per the 2026 proxy, drove a 5.0% reduction in diluted shares outstanding from 2022 to 2025 while more than offsetting equity-compensation dilution. NICE has never paid an ordinary dividend.
6.4 Ratio analysis
Net debt to EBITDA is shown as 0.00 in every year because NICE held a net cash position throughout. Interest coverage is shown as 0.0 for FY2022–FY2025 because the Company recorded net financial income rather than net financial expense, making the ratio not meaningful. ROIC is computed as operating income after the effective tax rate divided by shareholders equity plus total debt less cash and short-term investments. NICE holds no inventory, so a conventional cash conversion cycle is not applicable; the receivables-payables cycle is presented instead, with days payables computed on cost of revenue.
Commentary. Returns improved every year through FY2024 and plateaued in FY2025 on an ROIC basis — the Cognigy goodwill and intangibles inflated invested capital before the associated revenue arrived. On trailing-twelve-month figures at 30 June 2026, ROE had fallen to 11.3% and ROIC to 11.5% as the FY2026 margin reset flowed through. The liquidity ratios deteriorated meaningfully in FY2025 and again in H1 2026 (current ratio 1.33 on a trailing basis), which is the arithmetic consequence of spending down 1.2 billion USD of investments.
7. SEGMENTAL AND GEOGRAPHIC REVENUE MAPPING
7.1 Geographic revenue
NICE reports revenue across three regions: Americas, EMEA and APAC.
FY2025 regional revenue is as disclosed in the Q4 2025 earnings presentation. FY2024 regional revenue is derived from the disclosed FY2025 growth rates (Americas +6%, EMEA +17%, APAC +14%) and reconciles to within 0.2% of reported total revenue; treat as approximate. FY2023 regional revenue is not disclosed in the sources reviewed and is shown as 0.0.
Q4 2025 exit rates. Americas 647 million USD (+5%); EMEA 100 million USD (+38%, +32% constant currency); APAC 40 million USD (+11%, +11% constant currency). EMEA was 13% of Q4 revenue.
FY2026 acceleration. In Q2 2026, total international revenue (EMEA plus APAC) grew 22% year over year (21% in constant currency), with EMEA up 30% and APAC up 8%.
7.2 Fastest-growing and declining regions, with reasons
EMEA is the growth engine and the strategic priority. Growth accelerated from 17% in FY2025 to 38% in Q4 2025 and 30% in Q2 2026 — three to five times the Americas rate. Four causes are identifiable from disclosure: (i) the Cognigy acquisition brought a German-headquartered business with a European enterprise reference base (Bosch, Nestlé, DHL, Lufthansa, Allianz, Generali) and consolidated Cognigy's revenue into EMEA; (ii) large UK public-sector wins — DWP (approximately 40,000 seats, 2025) and HMRC (2026) — represent a scale of government CCaaS deployment that competitors have struggled to match; (iii) sovereignty investment, including EU-resident data architecture and, from July 2026, extension to the AWS European Sovereign Cloud, has unlocked regulated European buyers; and (iv) the Americas base is simply more mature, so the same absolute dollar of new business produces a smaller percentage.
The Americas is the drag and the risk concentration. At 83.7% of revenue and growing 5–6%, the Americas both anchors the group and caps it. NICE's group growth rate is arithmetically dominated by a mature, competitively contested North American CCaaS market where Genesys, Amazon Connect, Five9 and Talkdesk all compete directly and where CRM vendors (Salesforce Agentforce Service, ServiceNow, Microsoft) are converging into the category.
APAC remains sub-scale. At 5.3% of revenue, APAC is the smallest region and slowed to 8% growth in Q2 2026 from 14% in FY2025. No region-specific explanation has been disclosed.
Country-level revenue is not publicly disclosed. NICE's FY2025 20-F does not break out revenue by individual country in the sources reviewed.
7.3 Segment by geography
Revenue by segment crossed with geography is not publicly disclosed. Qualitatively, Public Safety and Justice is heavily weighted to North America (APCO, US emergency communications) and the UK; Financial Crime and Compliance skews toward global financial centres, with NICE Actimize workforce data indicating India (approximately 49%), the United States (approximately 23%) and the United Kingdom (approximately 8%) as its largest employee locations — a proxy for delivery footprint, not revenue.
Financial Detail
Financial Analysis
| Metric (USD M) | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total revenue | 1921.2 | 2181.3 | 2377.5 | 2735.3 | 2945.4 |
Cost of revenue | 624.5 | 683.7 | 768.2 | 909.5 | 989.3 |
Gross profit | 1296.7 | 1497.6 | 1609.3 | 1825.7 | 1956.1 |
Research and development, net | 271.2 | 306.1 | 322.7 | 360.6 | 360.4 |
Selling and marketing | 536.2 | 609.8 | 599.1 | 642.3 | 0.0 |
General and administrative | 225.4 | 246.5 | 252.3 | 276.9 | 0.0 |
Total operating expenses | 1032.8 | 1162.4 | 1174.1 | 1279.8 | 1310.4 |
Operating income (GAAP) | 263.9 | 335.2 | 435.2 | 546.0 | 645.8 |
Financial and other income, net | -23.3 | 10.2 | 22.5 | 58.9 | 58.3 |
Income before tax | 240.6 | 345.3 | 457.7 | 604.8 | 704.0 |
Taxes on income | 41.4 | 79.4 | 119.4 | 162.2 | 91.9 |
Net income (GAAP) | 199.2 | 265.9 | 338.3 | 442.6 | 612.1 |
GAAP EBITDA (derived) | 448.0 | 511.6 | 602.6 | 750.9 | 844.7 |
Non-GAAP EBITDA (as reported) | 0.0 | 694.2 | 774.8 | 933.1 | 999.9 |
Depreciation and amortisation | 184.1 | 176.5 | 167.4 | 205.0 | 199.0 |
Share-based compensation | 154.2 | 185.1 | 180.5 | 187.7 | 152.4 |
Financial Analysis
| Per-share and margin metric | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Basic EPS (USD) | 3.15 | 4.17 | 5.32 | 6.97 | 9.82 |
Diluted EPS — GAAP (USD) | 2.98 | 4.00 | 5.11 | 6.76 | 9.67 |
Diluted EPS — non-GAAP (USD) | 6.52 | 7.62 | 8.79 | 11.12 | 12.30 |
Dividends per share (USD) | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Diluted weighted-average shares (M) | 66.9 | 66.5 | 66.3 | 65.5 | 63.3 |
Gross margin — GAAP (percent) | 67.5 | 68.7 | 67.7 | 66.7 | 66.4 |
Gross margin — non-GAAP (percent) | 72.6 | 73.1 | 71.9 | 71.0 | 69.6 |
Operating margin — GAAP (percent) | 13.7 | 15.4 | 18.3 | 20.0 | 21.9 |
Operating margin — non-GAAP (percent) | 28.2 | 28.7 | 29.6 | 31.1 | 30.8 |
Non-GAAP EBITDA margin (percent) | 0.0 | 31.8 | 32.6 | 34.1 | 33.9 |
Net margin — GAAP (percent) | 10.4 | 12.2 | 14.2 | 16.2 | 20.8 |
Effective tax rate (percent) | 17.2 | 23.0 | 26.1 | 26.8 | 13.1 |
Financial Analysis
| Metric (USD M) | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cash and cash equivalents | 378.7 | 529.6 | 511.8 | 481.7 | 379.4 |
Short-term investments | 1046.1 | 1041.9 | 896.0 | 1140.0 | 38.0 |
Total cash and short-term investments | 1424.8 | 1571.5 | 1407.8 | 1621.7 | 417.4 |
Trade receivables | 395.6 | 515.7 | 585.2 | 644.0 | 738.0 |
Total current assets | 2297.9 | 2416.0 | 2312.9 | 2504.8 | 1379.1 |
Property and equipment, net | 145.7 | 159.3 | 174.4 | 185.3 | 189.4 |
Goodwill | 1606.8 | 1617.1 | 1822.0 | 1849.7 | 2440.5 |
Other intangible assets, net | 295.4 | 209.6 | 305.5 | 231.3 | 587.6 |
Goodwill plus intangibles | 1902.2 | 1826.7 | 2127.5 | 2081.0 | 3028.1 |
Total assets | 4710.4 | 4856.2 | 5117.6 | 5295.9 | 5106.0 |
Debt — short-term | 395.9 | 209.3 | 209.2 | 458.8 | 0.0 |
Debt — long-term | 429.3 | 455.4 | 457.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Total debt | 825.2 | 664.7 | 666.3 | 458.8 | 0.0 |
Deferred revenue — current and long-term | 397.1 | 396.1 | 355.1 | 365.7 | 365.3 |
Total current liabilities | 1269.6 | 1144.3 | 1120.3 | 1474.4 | 887.6 |
Total long-term liabilities | 602.9 | 656.5 | 642.8 | 218.3 | 341.9 |
Total shareholders equity | 2838.0 | 3055.4 | 3354.5 | 3603.2 | 3876.5 |
Working capital | 1028.3 | 1271.7 | 1192.6 | 1030.3 | 491.5 |
Net cash position as reported by company | 498.8 | 1029.1 | 863.4 | 1162.9 | 417.4 |
Financial Analysis
| Metric (USD M) | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Net cash provided by operating activities | 461.8 | 479.7 | 561.4 | 832.6 | 716.5 |
Purchase of property and equipment | 24.8 | 31.9 | 29.2 | 35.0 | 18.9 |
Capitalisation of internal-use software | 42.4 | 50.0 | 55.0 | 64.8 | 74.8 |
Free cash flow as defined by company | 394.6 | 397.8 | 477.3 | 732.9 | 622.8 |
Free cash flow margin (percent) | 20.5 | 18.2 | 20.1 | 26.8 | 21.2 |
Payments for business acquisitions, net of cash | 142.8 | 29.7 | 415.2 | 64.8 | 0.0 |
Share repurchases | 73.2 | 144.9 | 288.4 | 369.2 | 488.9 |
Dividends paid to ordinary shareholders | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Repayment of debt | 177.3 | 20.1 | 2.6 | 87.4 | 0.0 |
Cash conversion rate (FCF divided by non-GAAP net income) | 0.9 | 0.8 | 0.8 | 1.0 | 0.8 |
Financial Analysis
| Ratio | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Return on equity, year-end basis (percent) | 7.0 | 8.7 | 10.1 | 12.3 | 15.8 |
Return on assets, year-end basis (percent) | 4.2 | 5.5 | 6.6 | 8.4 | 12.0 |
Return on invested capital (percent) | 9.8 | 12.0 | 12.3 | 16.4 | 16.2 |
Current ratio | 1.81 | 2.11 | 2.06 | 1.70 | 1.55 |
Debt to equity | 0.29 | 0.22 | 0.20 | 0.13 | 0.00 |
Net debt to EBITDA | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Interest coverage, EBIT to net interest expense | 11.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Asset turnover, revenue to year-end assets | 0.41 | 0.45 | 0.46 | 0.52 | 0.58 |
Days sales outstanding | 75.2 | 86.3 | 89.8 | 85.9 | 91.5 |
Days payables outstanding | 21.1 | 29.9 | 31.4 | 44.4 | 37.2 |
Receivables-payables cycle in days | 54.1 | 56.4 | 58.4 | 41.5 | 54.3 |
Financial Analysis
| Region revenue (USD M) | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|
Americas | 0.0 | 2326.0 | 2466.0 |
EMEA | 0.0 | 278.0 | 325.0 |
APAC | 0.0 | 136.0 | 155.0 |
Total revenue | 2377.5 | 2735.3 | 2945.4 |
Financial Analysis
| Region metric (percent) | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|
Americas share of revenue | 85.0 | 83.7 |
EMEA share of revenue | 10.2 | 11.0 |
APAC share of revenue | 5.0 | 5.3 |
Americas YoY growth | 0.0 | 6.0 |
EMEA YoY growth | 0.0 | 17.0 |
EMEA YoY growth in constant currency | 0.0 | 14.0 |
APAC YoY growth | 0.0 | 14.0 |
APAC YoY growth in constant currency | 0.0 | 15.0 |
Capital Markets
| Price metric | Value |
|---|---|
Closing price, 14 Aug 2026 (USD) | 102.26 |
Market capitalisation, 14 Aug 2026 (USD B) | 6.26 |
Enterprise value, 14 Aug 2026 (USD B) | 5.99 |
Market capitalisation, 31 Dec 2025, per 2026 proxy (USD B) | 6.916 |
All-time closing high (USD) | 315.02, on 15 Nov 2021 |
52-week price change to Aug 2026 (percent) | -30.90 |
50-day moving average (USD) | 95.14 |
200-day moving average (USD) | 106.63 |
Beta, 5-year | 0.04 |
Average daily volume, 20-day | 715,891 |
Short interest | 1,840,000 shares, 3.17% of shares outstanding, 3.37 days to cover |
Capital Markets
| Metric | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year-end closing price | 108.21 | 155.15 | 283.54 | 303.60 | 192.30 | 199.51 |
Annual percent change | 17.73 | 43.38 | 82.75 | 7.07 | -36.66 | 3.75 |
Capital Markets
| Multiple | Current, Aug 2026 | FY2025 | FY2024 | FY2023 | FY2022 | FY2021 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Price to earnings, trailing | 14.71 | 11.69 | 25.12 | 39.04 | 48.08 | 101.88 |
Price to earnings, forward | 8.97 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Price to sales | 2.04 | 2.32 | 3.93 | 5.28 | 5.61 | 10.03 |
Price to book | 1.66 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Price to free cash flow | 9.72 | 9.79 | 13.47 | 23.57 | 27.33 | 44.10 |
Enterprise value to sales | 1.95 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Enterprise value to EBITDA | 7.34 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Enterprise value to free cash flow | 9.30 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Free cash flow yield (percent) | 10.29 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Earnings yield (percent) | 6.80 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
Capital Markets
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
Consensus rating | Buy |
Number of covering analysts | 15 |
Average price target (USD) | 125.85 |
Implied upside from 102.26 USD (percent) | 23.07 |
Consensus revenue growth forecast, 3-year (percent per annum) | 9.64 |
Recent target revisions | DA Davidson to 115 USD from 110 USD (Aug 2026); Citi to 103 USD from 100 USD (Aug 2026) |
Capital Markets
| Repurchase metric | FY2021 | FY2022 | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Shares repurchased (USD M) | 73.2 | 144.9 | 288.4 | 369.2 | 488.9 |
Repurchases as percent of free cash flow | 18.6 | 36.4 | 60.4 | 50.4 | 78.5 |
Capital Markets
| Repurchase metric (USD M) | Q1-26 | Q2-26 |
|---|---|---|
Shares repurchased | 253.2 | 58.0 |
Capital Markets
| Lease maturity (USD M) | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Operating lease payments | 16.3 | 14.2 | 14.7 | 13.7 | 12.4 |
Capital Markets
| Guidance item | Q3 2026 | FY2026 | Medium term |
|---|---|---|---|
Non-GAAP revenue (USD M) | 780 to 790 | 3170 to 3190 | 3500 by 2028 (see discrepancy note in Section 10.3) |
Implied growth at midpoint (percent) | 7.2 | 8.0 | — |
Non-GAAP diluted EPS (USD) | 2.73 to 2.83 | 11.06 to 11.26 | — |
Cloud revenue growth (percent) | Similar to Q2's 12.6 | 13 to 15 | — |
Non-GAAP operating margin (percent) | — | Upper end of 25 to 26 | 25 to 26 |
Free cash flow margin (percent) | — | Higher end of 18 to 19 | 18 to 19 |
Capital Markets
| Catalyst / monitorable | Timing | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
Q3 2026 results | Circa Nov 2026 | Tests the guided 12.6%-equivalent cloud growth and the upper-end 25–26% operating margin |
Cloud net revenue retention trajectory | Quarterly | Management asserts the 106% Q2 level is the trough; a further decline would invalidate the reacceleration thesis |
AI and self-service ARR | Quarterly | Trajectory toward the implied 2028 objective; the metric ticked down sequentially versus Q1 2026, drawing analyst questions |
Cloud backlog and RPO | Quarterly and annual | 25% growth at year-end 2025 is the strongest forward indicator in the disclosure set |
EMEA growth rate | Quarterly | Sustaining 25–30% growth is required for group reacceleration |
HMRC and DWP revenue recognition ramp | 2026–2027 | Bookings-to-revenue conversion timing is the principal near-term modelling uncertainty |
Cognigy native integration into CXone | Ongoing | Determines whether the 955 million USD purchase price produces attach-rate leverage or remains a standalone product line |
Special General Meeting outcome on Compensation Policy | Mid-2026 | Governance signal; failure would compound the 2024 override overhang |
Effective tax rate under Israel's QDMTT regime | FY2026 reporting | FY2025's 13.1% rate sits below the 15% Pillar Two floor; a step-up is likely and would pressure GAAP EPS |
Buyback execution against the approximately 1 billion USD capacity | Ongoing | At a 10.3% free-cash-flow yield, pace of repurchase is a direct per-share value lever |
EU AI Act phase-in and EU Product Liability Directive transposition | Aug 2026 and Dec 2026 | Compliance cost and product-liability exposure |
Further sector consolidation | Ongoing | Post-Verint, the field is thinner; further moves by Genesys, Salesforce or hyperscalers would reset competitive dynamics |
Israeli encryption export control regime | From Mar 2026 | Licensing changes could lengthen transaction cycles |
Executive Leadership
| Name | Title | Tenure | Prior roles and background |
|---|---|---|---|
Scott Russell | Chief Executive Officer | Appointed 15 Aug 2024; commenced 1 Jan 2025 | 14 years at SAP, latterly member of the Executive Board and Global Chief Revenue Officer with responsibility for approximately 31 billion USD of revenue; Chairman of SAP North America; Chairman of Taulia; President, Asia Pacific Japan; former director of Qualtrics. Over 25 years in enterprise software |
Beth Gaspich | Chief Financial Officer | CFO since Oct 2016; joined NICE Sep 2011 | CFO of NICE's Financial Crime and Compliance division 2011–2016; CFO of Archive Systems; VP Finance at RiskMetrics Group; senior positions at JP Morgan and PriceWaterhouse. Age disclosed as 59 by a third-party profile database |
Arun Chandra | Chief Operating Officer | Current | Previously at Disney; earlier at Meta |
Jeff Comstock | President, CX Product and Technology | Current | Previously at Microsoft |
Dan Belanger | President, NiCE Americas | Current | Previously at Amazon Web Services |
Darren Rushworth | President, NiCE International | Current | Long-tenured NICE executive |
Craig Costigan | Chief Executive Officer, NiCE Actimize | Current | Long-tenured NICE Actimize executive |
Chris Wooten | Executive Vice President, NiCE Vertical Markets | Current | Leads Public Safety and adjacent verticals |
Philipp Heltewig | General Manager, NiCE Cognigy and Chief AI Officer | Since Sep 2025 | Co-founder and former CEO of Cognigy (founded 2016 in Düsseldorf with Sascha Poggemann) |
Shiri Neder | Executive Vice President, Human Resources | Current | |
Alon Levy | Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary | Current | Signatory of SEC filings |
Ryan Gilligan | Vice President, Investor Relations | Since 2025 | Succeeded Marty Cohen |
| Name | Role | Director since | Background |
|---|---|---|---|
David Kostman | Chairman | 2001 (with a break Jun 2007–Jul 2008); Chairman since Feb 2013 | Co-CEO and board member of Outbrain Inc.; director of Unity Inc. and Tivit S.A.; former Managing Director, Lehman Brothers (head of Global Internet Group); former COO then CEO of Delta Galil USA; former President International and COO of VerticalNet. LL.B. Tel Aviv University; MBA INSEAD |
Rimon Ben-Shaoul | Director | Sep 2001 | Former CEO of Clal Industries; former Co-Chairman, President and CEO of Koonras Technologies |
Yehoshua (Shuki) Ehrlich | Director | Sep 2012 | Former Giza executive; enterprise software and technology sector experience; active social investor. Appointed to the Compensation Committee |
Leo Apotheker | Director | 2013 | Former CEO of Hewlett-Packard (2010–2011); former CEO of SAP AG (2008–2010); co-founder of Efficiency Capital SAS; chairman of Syncron AB; board member of Schneider SE, MercuryGate, P2 Energy Services and Taulia. BA Economics and International Relations, Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
Joseph (Joe) Cowan | Director | Aug 2013 | Former CEO and director of Epicor (2013–2017). Serves on the Audit Committee, having replaced Kostman |
Dan Falk | Outside director (statutory) | 2001 | Former Sapiens and Israel Discount Bank executive |
Yocheved Dvir | Outside director (statutory) | 2008 | Former Senior Vice President of the Migdal Group, which she joined in 1981; director at Menorah Mivtachim |
Zehava Simon | Outside director (statutory) | Elected for an additional term at the 2021 AGM; did not stand for re-election at the meeting at which her term expired | Former BMC Software executive |
| Element | 2025 | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Base salary (USD) | 900,000 | Unchanged for 2026 |
Target annual cash bonus (percent of salary) | 120 | Equal to 1,080,000 USD |
Maximum annual cash bonus (percent of salary) | 200 | Equal to 1,800,000 USD, at a 110% performance score |
MBO weighting — company financial objectives (percent) | 80 | Minimum performance threshold of 85% for any payment |
MBO weighting — other/personal KPIs (percent) | 20 | 2026 personal KPIs focused on Cloud and AI achievements |
2025 equity award — total units | 110,000 | 55,000 time-based RSUs (50%), 27,500 PSUs (25%), 27,500 rTSR units (25%) |
2025 equity award — value at approval (USD M) | 17.8 | Approximately 115% of the peer-group CEO equity median of 15.5 million USD and 21% below the 75th percentile of 22.5 million USD |
2026 equity award — total target units | 140,000 | 70,000 RSUs (50%), 42,000 PSUs (30%), 28,000 rTSR units (20%) |
2026 equity award — value on 90-day average price (USD M) | 15.4 | Just below peer-group median |
2026 equity award — value on Board date price (USD M) | 13.3 |
| Holder | Shares | Percent | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
Principal Global Investors, LLC (Principal Asset Management) | 4,695,504 | 8.0 | Letter to the Company dated 18 Mar 2026 |
Harel Insurance Investments and Financial Services Ltd. | 3,160,790 | 5.4 | Schedule 13G filed 4 Feb 2026 |
| Holder | Shares | Percent |
|---|---|---|
Harding Loevner LP | 3,468,593 | 5.74 |
BlackRock, Inc. | 3,085,026 | 5.11 |
The Vanguard Group, Inc. | 2,420,149 | 4.01 |
Migdal Mutual Funds Ltd. | 2,117,129 | 3.50 |
Menora Mivtachim Provident Funds | 1,859,269 | 3.08 |
Fidelity International Ltd. | 1,746,845 | 2.89 |
Clal Financial Management Ltd. | 1,646,890 | 2.73 |
UBS Asset Management AG | 1,365,516 | 2.26 |
Artisan Partners Limited Partnership | 1,256,752 | 2.08 |
AllianceBernstein L.P. | 1,204,230 | 1.99 |
| Date | Initiative | Nature |
|---|---|---|
Jan 2025 | Global expansion of anti-money-laundering strategy | Business-line expansion |
Q1 2025 | Go-live of core financials on new ERP system | Internal transformation |
Mar 2025 | Launch of CXone Orchestrator (later CXone Mpower Orchestrator) | Platform investment |
7 May 2025 | Strategic partnership with ServiceNow announced at Knowledge 2025 | Partnership |
13 May 2025 | Strategic Collaboration Agreement with AWS; CXone listed on AWS Marketplace | Partnership / channel |
Jun 2025 | CXone Mpower Agents unveiled at Interactions 2025 — NICE's first AI agent product | Product launch |
17 Jun 2025 | Extended AWS collaboration to Amazon Nova LLMs, Bedrock, Amazon Q, SageMaker | Technology collaboration |
Jul 2025 | Corporate rebrand to "NiCE" styling | Brand |
29 Jul 2025 | Agreement to acquire Cognigy for approximately 955 million USD | M&A |
Q3 2025 | Full repayment of all outstanding debt | Capital structure |
8 Sep 2025 | Cognigy acquisition closed; Cognigy operates as a business unit and standalone product | M&A integration |
Oct 2025 | Bidirectional Zero Copy integration with Salesforce Data Cloud; partnerships with Snowflake | Ecosystem |
Nov 2025 | Medium-term targets presented, including the 2028 objective and 25–26% operating margin and 18–19% free-cash-flow margin ranges | Guidance framework |
2025 | Launch of NiCE Cognigy AI Ops Center | Product launch |
10 Mar 2026 | Agentic AI innovations at Nexus 2026, including expanded Model Context Protocol integration and auto-generation of AI agents on new use-case discovery | Product |
18 Feb 2026 | 300 million USD secured revolving credit facility; new 600 million USD buyback authorisation | Capital allocation |
8–10 Jun 2026 | NiCE World 2026 and Investor Day, Orlando; Agentic Analytics and AI Agent Factory introduced | Platform / go-to-market |
1 Jul 2026 | Extension to AWS European Sovereign Cloud | Sovereignty / regulated markets |
23 Jul 2026 | Expanded strategic partnership with RingCentral | Partnership |
10 Aug 2026 | 2025 ESG Report published, referencing GRI 2021 Standards | Sustainability |
| Target | Detail | Status |
|---|---|---|
2028 revenue objective | 3.5 billion USD | Reaffirmed by CFO Gaspich on the Q2 2026 call. Discrepancy flagged: contemporaneous reporting of the Q2 2026 slide deck describes this as a cloud revenue target, whereas the earnings-call transcript renders it as a topline/revenue target. Given FY2026 total revenue guidance of 3.17–3.19 billion USD, a 3.5 billion USD total revenue goal for 2028 would imply only approximately 5% CAGR, whereas 3.5 billion USD of cloud revenue from 2.24 billion USD in FY2025 implies approximately 16% CAGR — consistent with the 13–15% cloud growth guidance and management's stated intent to accelerate. The cloud reading is the more internally coherent, but the ambiguity is unresolved in public sources |
Operating margin (non-GAAP) | 25–26% range | FY2026 expected at the upper end |
Free cash flow margin | 18–19% range | FY2026 expected at the higher end |
Cloud revenue growth 2026 | 13–15% | Reiterated |
Total dilution from equity awards | Below 10% of issued and outstanding capital | Board commitment |
| Guidance metric | Q3 2026 | FY2026 |
|---|---|---|
Non-GAAP total revenue, low end (USD M) | 780.0 | 3170.0 |
Non-GAAP total revenue, high end (USD M) | 790.0 | 3190.0 |
Implied YoY growth at midpoint (percent) | 7.2 | 8.0 |
Non-GAAP diluted EPS, low end (USD) | 2.73 | 11.06 |
Non-GAAP diluted EPS, high end (USD) | 2.83 | 11.26 |
Competitive Landscape
| Competitor | Positioning | Ownership | Scale reference |
|---|---|---|---|
Genesys | Gartner CCaaS Leader for 11 consecutive years; large on-premises migration base; strong complex global deployments and journey management | Private (Permira, Hellman & Friedman); received a combined 1.5 billion USD investment from Salesforce and ServiceNow in July 2025 | Reported as the first vendor to exceed 2 billion USD in annual recurring CCaaS revenue in 2025 |
Amazon Web Services (Amazon Connect) | Gartner CCaaS Leader for a third consecutive year; scalability, developer customisation, native AI; also NICE's largest infrastructure partner | Amazon.com | Top-three by seat count globally |
Five9 | Gartner CCaaS Leader for the eighth time; AI Studio; early to AI agent functionality | Nasdaq: FIVN | FY2025 revenue 1,145 million USD (+10%); FY2026 guidance 1,247–1,261 million USD |
Talkdesk | Returned to Gartner Leaders in 2025 after two years; industry-specific solutions and Talkdesk Embedded | Private | Approximately 1,400 enterprise customers across 50-plus countries |
Verint / Calabrio | Historically NICE's closest workforce-engagement competitor; AI ARR reported at 50% of total ARR pre-transaction | Thoma Bravo, acquired for 2 billion USD, closed 26 Nov 2025; combined with Calabrio 9 Dec 2025 | Combined entity now the largest private CX automation platform |
Cisco (Webex Contact Center) | Moved from Leaders toward Niche in the 2025 Magic Quadrant | Nasdaq: CSCO | |
Content Guru | Rose from Niche Player to Challenger in 2025 | Private | |
Zoom (Zoom Contact Center) | New Magic Quadrant entrant 2025, Niche Player; UCaaS-to-CCaaS entrant | Nasdaq: ZM | |
Vonage | Niche Player | Ericsson | |
8x8 | Dropped out of the 2025 Magic Quadrant evaluation; seven-time Challenger | Nasdaq: EGHT | Approximately 3 million business users, 58,000 customers, 160-plus countries |
RingCentral | Top-ten CCaaS by seat count; also a NICE partner as of July 2026 | NYSE: RNG | |
Salesforce (Service Cloud / Agentforce Service) | Gartner Leader in CRM Customer Engagement Center; CRM-native convergence threat | NYSE: CRM | |
Microsoft, Google, Sprinklr, Odigo | Prominent CCaaS or adjacent providers not included in the 2025 Magic Quadrant matrix | Various |
| Metric | NICE FY2025 | Five9 FY2025 | Verint pre-take-private | Genesys 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Revenue (USD M) | 2945.4 | 1145.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Revenue growth (percent) | 7.7 | 10.3 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
GAAP gross margin (percent) | 66.4 | 55.1 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Non-GAAP / adjusted gross margin (percent) | 69.6 | 62.8 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
GAAP operating margin (percent) | 21.9 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
R&D as percent of revenue, GAAP | 12.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0.0 |
Enterprise value (USD B) | 6.0 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 0.0 |
Recent Developments
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