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Shares of Ouster (NASDAQ:OUST) are surging 8% to 9% in Tuesday morning trading, pushing above $22 intraday. Teradyne (NASDAQ:TER) stock is also climbing, up 3% and hovering near $306. The robotics and automation sector is clearly on the move today.
Ouster’s Blowout Quarter Is Still Doing the Heavy Lifting
Ouster reported Q4 2025 earnings on March 2, and the numbers were striking. Revenue came in at $62.18 million against an estimate of $41.09 million, a surprise of more than 51%. Revenue was up 106.6% year over year, driven in part by approximately $21 million in one-time IP royalties that boosted results alongside a record 8,100 sensor shipments.
The company posted a GAAP gross margin of 60% and swung to a GAAP net income of $3.98 million, a swing of approximately $28 million from the prior year. CEO Angus Pacala summed it up plainly: “2025 was a year of exceptional execution.” That’s not just a talking point when you’re posting triple-digit revenue growth and your first profitable quarter.
Ouster also acquired Stereolabs, a camera and perception technology company, during Q4, expanding its capabilities beyond lidar into a broader sensor suite. For Q1 2026, Ouster guided to $45 million to $48 million in revenue, and the company laid out a long-term framework targeting 30% to 50% annual revenue growth. Analysts have taken notice, with a consensus price target of $39.67 against today’s price near $22, and six Buy ratings and zero Sells on the Street.
Think of Ouster’s lidar sensors as the eyes of any autonomous system. Warehouses, robotaxis, smart city infrastructure, and industrial robots all need to “see” the physical world with precision. Ouster is supplying that vision layer, and the demand signal from its customer base in warehouse automation, robotaxi, and mapping is accelerating. The stock has gained 194.64% over the past year, but it still sits well below its 52-week high of $41.65.
Teradyne: Where Semiconductor Testing Meets Robotics
As for Teradyne’s story, it’s a two-part thesis. The company dominates semiconductor test equipment, which means every artificial intelligence (AI) chip being manufactured needs Teradyne’s tools before it ships. Its Semiconductor Test segment generated $883 million in Q4 2025 revenue alone. Alongside that, its Robotics segment, home to the Universal Robots “cobot” (collaborative robot) business, contributed $89 million in Q4 revenue.
Teradyne’s Q4 2025 results, reported February 3, 2026, showed total revenue of $1.083 billion versus an estimate of $968.9 million. Non-GAAP EPS came in at $1.80 versus the $1.38 estimate. CEO Greg Smith set the tone for 2026 on the earnings call: “In 2026, we expect year-over-year growth across all of our businesses, with strong momentum in compute driven by AI.” That’s a confident posture from a company guiding Q1 2026 revenue to $1.15 billion to $1.25 billion.
Wall Street has been steadily upgrading its view on Teradyne heading into this year. Stifel raised its price target to $270 on January 14, 2026, maintaining a Buy rating. Susquehanna lifted its target to $275 on January 12, keeping a Positive rating, while Bank of America Securities raised its target to $250 on January 13. The consensus target now sits at $307.41, and Teradyne trades at a trailing P/E ratio of roughly 85x, reflecting just how much premium the market is placing on its AI and robotics exposure.
The Bigger Picture: Both Stocks Riding the Same Wave
The broader context here matters. Bank of America framed 2026 as “the midpoint of the decade-long AI infrastructure shift” in a note updating semiconductor price targets. That framing applies directly to both Ouster and Teradyne. One supplies the sensors that make autonomous systems work; the other tests the chips that power AI and runs the “cobots” replacing repetitive human labor on factory floors.
For a deeper look at how both stocks fit into the robotics investment landscape, “Beyond Tesla and Nvidia: 2 Overlooked Robotics Stocks Just Blew Out Earnings” lays out the fundamental case in detail. Impressively, Teradyne stock is up 57.53% year-to-date and 191.41% over the past year. Ouster stock, meanwhile is up 16.07% over the past month alone.
Today’s session is a reminder that the robotics and automation trade is not a one-day story. Whether Ouster’s product revenue growth can sustain its pace without one-time royalty boosts — and whether Teradyne’s robotics segment begins to close the gap on its dominant semiconductor test business — are the key metrics analysts are watching heading into the rest of 2026.
