Why this name is on the tape
Planet Labs PBC (NYSE: PL) sells a daily picture of Earth — SuperDove / PlanetScope for the wide layer, SkySat and Pelican for high-resolution tasking, Tanager for hyperspectral. Separate MarketNeon notes already cover the $94.2 million fiscal Q1 book, cancelable backlog, and the Pelican-11 pathfinder. This article is the 3 September print.
The tape often collapses a record quarter, a sovereign handover, and a raised full-year range into one story. Those are different clocks. This is not a ranking of the stock and not a trade instruction.
What printed for the quarter ended 31 July 2026
For the quarter ended 31 July 2026 Planet reported revenue of $116.1 million, up 58% from $73.4 million a year earlier. Planet reported those fiscal Q2 2027 figures on 3 September 2026, after the close. GAAP net loss was $9.4 million, versus $22.6 million. Adjusted EBITDA was a $13.9 million profit, versus $6.4 million. Cash, cash equivalents, and short-term investments were $865.4 million. During the quarter Planet sold about $120 million of stock under its at-the-market program.
Remaining performance obligations were about $753.1 million. Backlog was about $814.9 million. Those are still not the same pile. Backlog, as Planet defines it, adds cancelable government seats and unappropriated written orders. A $815 million backlog is visibility, not cash already billed. Recurring annual-contract-value share was 98%.
What is still a target
For fiscal Q3 2027, ending 31 October 2026, Planet said it expected revenue of about $101–$105 million and an adjusted EBITDA loss of about $6 million to $1 million. Those are company targets, not a print.
For the full year ending 31 January 2027 Planet said it expected revenue of about $430–$441 million and adjusted EBITDA profit of about $3–$10 million, with capital expenditures of about $100–$115 million. On the call the company also described a satellite-services pipeline above $4 billion, with more than $1 billion called near-term. A pipeline is not remaining performance obligations and not backlog.
Sweden handed over. The next birds are still on the pad.
Planet said defense and intelligence revenue rose more than 90% year over year, and that it completed the satellite handover for the Swedish Armed Forces. One sovereign bird delivered is not the whole Swedish suite. In August it also pointed to an $8 million sole-source National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency Global Monitoring Service award and the already-published German interior-ministry framework of about €25 million. Those are short or ceilinged seats. They are not the July 2025 €240 million German-funded satellite-services book.
The company said it launched the Pelican tech-demonstration satellite and shipped Tanager-2 and SuperDove birds to Vandenberg for launch. A shipment to the pad is not an on-orbit, commissioned product.
What this does not tell you
A $116.1 million quarter is evidence that Planet billed more imagery and dedicated capacity than a year ago. It is not proof that Q3 lands inside $101–$105 million, that full-year revenue reaches $430–$441 million, or that a $4 billion pipeline becomes remaining performance obligations. The $814.9 million backlog still includes cancelable seats.
On MarketNeon, PL is a ticker like any other: price, volume, crowd mentions, and headlines can run hot on a record print while the next quarter is still a target. This article is context for those prints. It does not rank the name, and it does not tell anyone to buy or sell.