Ouster Stock Doubles YTD: Buy OUST After Another Quarter of Beat?

Year to date, shares of Ouster have doubled, matching the performance of Aeva Technologies AEVA, one of its closest peers. The company outperformed other peers like Hesai Group HSAI and Innoviz Technologies INVZ, whose shares fell 14% and 55%, respectively, year to date.

YTD Price Performance Comparison

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While Ouster’s share gains are backed by improving fundamentals, the company is still unprofitable, and production scaling remains an execution risk. But do these risks warrant staying on the sidelines, or are there enough catalysts to help the stock gain more upside? Let’s dig deeper to assess if this is a buy at current levels.

StereoLabs, Rev8 and BlueCity Fuel OUST’s Growth Story

Ouster is extending beyond lidar into a unified sensing and perception platform spanning cameras, AI compute, sensor fusion, software and AI models. The StereoLabs acquisition has broadened its reach in robotics, while the ZED X Nano has drawn substantial customer uptake in humanoid and robotic manipulation applications.

In the second quarter of 2026, Ouster also expanded relationships across industrial automation, mining, security, autonomous vehicles and robotics, and deeper NVIDIA integration brought Rev8 to the DRIVE and Jetson platforms, simplifying deployment for customers building Physical AI systems.

That platform expansion is already translating into commercial traction. Rev8, which introduces native color lidar, along with the longer-range OS1 Max, has drawn multiple million-dollar-plus orders from customers including a major heavy-equipment manufacturer, an autonomous agriculture developer and an autonomous vehicle provider.

Ouster is scaling Rev8 production and expects to reach production volumes by the end of the third quarter of 2026, supported by an expanded Benchmark manufacturing arrangement with capacity above 100,000 units annually. Rev8 is set to become a critical part of revenues in the second half of 2026.

Smart infrastructure adds a second growth engine. BlueCity supported a 42-location digital traffic twin in New Jersey and 30 intersections in Georgia, while a new order covers several hundred intersections for the Utah Department of Transportation. With roughly 300,000 signalized intersections in North America and only hundreds to thousands currently using Ouster technology, the runway remains largely untapped.

The results are already showing up in the numbers. Ouster delivered its 14th consecutive quarter of product revenue growth, with product revenues up 51% year over year to $53 million, supporting management's long-term target of 30-50% annual revenue growth. The company ended June 2026 with $263 million in cash, restricted cash and short-term investments and no debt and added about $191 million of net proceeds in July, giving it sufficient liquidity to fund operations through its path to profitability.

What Do Estimates for OUST Say?

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 and 2027 revenues implies year-over-year growth of 32% and 37%, respectively. The consensus mark for 2026 and 2027 bottom line implies a year-over-year improvement of 6% and 48%, respectively. The estimates for loss per share have narrowed over the past 60 days.

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How to Play OUST Stock Now

Ouster's transition from a lidar hardware vendor to a full-stack Physical AI sensing platform is starting to show up in both bookings and margins, not just narrative. With Rev8 nearing production scale, smart infrastructure barely penetrated and a fortified balance sheet removing near-term funding risk, the setup favors continued execution.

Shares have already doubled this year, but that reflects improving fundamentals catching up to the story, not the story running ahead of itself.

The Wall Street average price target for Ouster calls for an upside of 27% from current levels.

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As such, OUST remains a buy for investors willing to hold through the volatility that comes with a still-unprofitable, high-growth name.

The stock carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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