Funeral services company Carriage Services (NYSE: CSV) missed Wall Street’s revenue expectations in Q1 CY2026, with sales flat year on year at $106.1 million. On the other hand, the company’s outlook for the full year was close to analysts’ estimates with revenue guided to $445 million at the midpoint. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.86 per share was 1.8% below analysts’ consensus estimates.
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Carriage Services (CSV) Q1 CY2026 Highlights:
- Revenue: $106.1 million vs analyst estimates of $111.4 million (flat year on year, 4.7% miss)
- Adjusted EPS: $0.86 vs analyst expectations of $0.88 (1.8% miss)
- Adjusted EBITDA: $33.75 million vs analyst estimates of $34.87 million (31.8% margin, 3.2% miss)
- The company reconfirmed its revenue guidance for the full year of $445 million at the midpoint
- Management reiterated its full-year Adjusted EPS guidance of $3.45 at the midpoint
- EBITDA guidance for the full year is $137.5 million at the midpoint, in line with analyst expectations
- Operating Margin: 23.8%, in line with the same quarter last year
- Free Cash Flow Margin: 10.4%, down from 12.5% in the same quarter last year
- Market Capitalization: $753.1 million
Carlos Quezada, Vice Chairman and CEO, stated, "We are pleased by our first-quarter performance, particularly against a strong prior-year comparison. Total revenue of $106.1 million declined modestly by $0.9 million, driven primarily by a 5.8% decrease in comparable funeral volume. However, our cemetery portfolio demonstrated solid growth, finishing the quarter at $34.4 million, representing a $2.0 million increase in consolidated cemetery revenue, partially offsetting the volume headwinds.
Company Overview
Established in 1991, Carriage Services (NYSE: CSV) is a provider of funeral and cemetery services in the United States.
Revenue Growth
A company’s long-term sales performance can indicate its overall quality. Any business can put up a good quarter or two, but the best consistently grow over the long haul. Over the last five years, Carriage Services grew its sales at a weak 3.6% compounded annual growth rate. This fell short of our benchmark for the consumer discretionary sector and is a tough starting point for our analysis.
We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within consumer discretionary, a stretched historical view may miss a company riding a successful new product or trend. Carriage Services’s annualized revenue growth of 3.3% over the last two years aligns with its five-year trend, suggesting its demand was consistently weak. 
This quarter, Carriage Services missed Wall Street’s estimates and reported a rather uninspiring 0.9% year-on-year revenue decline, generating $106.1 million of revenue.
Looking ahead, sell-side analysts expect revenue to grow 7.2% over the next 12 months. Although this projection indicates its newer products and services will catalyze better top-line performance, it is still below the sector average.
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Operating Margin
Carriage Services’s operating margin has risen over the last 12 months and averaged 22.6% over the last two years. The company’s higher efficiency is a breath of fresh air, but its suboptimal cost structure means it still sports lousy profitability for a consumer discretionary business.
In Q1, Carriage Services generated an operating margin profit margin of 23.8%, in line with the same quarter last year. This indicates the company’s overall cost structure has been relatively stable.
Earnings Per Share
We track the long-term change in earnings per share (EPS) for the same reason as long-term revenue growth. Compared to revenue, however, EPS highlights whether a company’s growth is profitable.
Carriage Services’s EPS grew at 5.8% compounded annual growth rate over the last five years. This performance was better than its revenue growth but doesn’t tell us much about its business quality because its operating margin improvement was less than peers.
In Q1, Carriage Services reported adjusted EPS of $0.86, down from $0.96 in the same quarter last year. This print slightly missed analysts’ estimates. Over the next 12 months, Wall Street expects Carriage Services’s full-year EPS of $3.10 to grow 11.2%.
Key Takeaways from Carriage Services’s Q1 Results
It was encouraging to see Carriage Services beat analysts’ adjusted operating income expectations this quarter. We were also glad its full-year revenue guidance was in line with Wall Street’s estimates. On the other hand, its revenue missed and its EPS fell short of Wall Street’s estimates. Overall, this was a weaker quarter. The stock traded down 3.7% to $44.67 immediately after reporting.
Carriage Services underperformed this quarter, but does that create an opportunity to invest right now? We think that the latest quarter is only one piece of the longer-term business quality puzzle. Quality, when combined with valuation, can help determine if the stock is a buy. We cover that in our actionable full research report which you can read here (it’s free).
