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Data and analytics companies · United States

Teradata

teradata.com ↗

Teradata sells on-prem and cloud data warehousing for banks, telcos, and governments running big analytics.

Losing its protection
Assessed 21 July 2026 · Evidence as of 21 July 2026
The structural protection is eroding.
On the recordSince 21 July 2026 · Checkable from Q4 2026 · Every call on the record Checkpoint: Q3/Q4 2026 ARR growth report showing whether Autonomous Knowledge Platform wins net-new logos
The call

Teradata still cashes checks from locked-in regulated customers, but its growth engine is stalled while Oracle, Snowflake, and Databricks chase the same AI-era deals.

Teradata sells software that helps big companies like banks and defense contractors store and analyze massive amounts of data, usually on their own servers rather than in the cloud. Competitors like Snowflake and Databricks are building new cloud-based tools that get better features twice as fast, and they are winning over Teradata's customers. The company is betting everything on a new product launching in mid-2026 called the Autonomous Knowledge Platform to prove it can still compete, but the real question is whether it will actually attract enough new customers to stop the company's overall revenue from shrinking.

Why
01
AI pressure: Databricks and Snowflake. Cloud-native rivals ship AI features 12 to 24 months faster and win net-new logos while Teradata mostly renews old accounts. Could AI do the core job? Only partly.
02
Bigger players: Oracle (Autonomous Database and AI Lakehouse). Oracle sells the same regulated, on-prem buyers with a bigger sales force and matching sovereign AI pitch. Could a giant copy it? Probably.
03
What protects it. Deep lock-in with banks, telcos, and defense agencies whose workflows and compliance needs make ripping out Teradata costly.
What would change this call
Q2 2026 earnings (Aug 4, 2026) show revenue within or worse than guided -4% to -2% y/y. Confirms continued installed-base erosion rather than net-new growth.
Q3/Q4 2026 ARR growth reaches 8%+ constant currency with named new sovereign-AI/on-prem logos. Would show Autonomous Knowledge Platform actually winning new customers, not just renewals.
Employee attrition or headcount decline data post-January 2026 no-raises decision. Would indicate morale/retention damage undermining the turnaround effort.
Key numbers
  • FY2025 revenue $1.66B, down 4.97% y/y (2026-02-10)
  • Total ARR $1.522B, up only 1% constant currency (2026-02-10)
  • Employee count down 18.9% since 2023 to 4,657 (2025-12-31)
Named risks
  • Total revenue has contracted for multiple years (FY2025 down ~4.97%) despite AI pivot. Severity: high
  • Employee attrition and morale damage after CEO cancelled 2026 raises for AI funding. Severity: medium
  • Autonomous Knowledge Platform just reached GA (July 15, 2026); adoption and net-new-logo traction unproven. Severity: medium
  • Analyst sentiment softening, Wall Street Zen downgrade July 18, 2026 despite AI narrative. Severity: low
Rivals, as read in July 2026
RivalDirectionEvidence
Snowflakegaining onShipped Cortex LLM functions Q1 2024 vs Teradata's comparable features Q4 2025, per 2026-07-13 report
Databricksgaining onCloud-native lakehouse cited as faster-moving alternative winning net-new logos, 2026-06-18 report
OraclecontestingAutonomous Database/Lakehouse spans multi-cloud and on-prem with stronger sales execution, cited 2026-05
Amazon Redshift / Google BigQuerygaining onNamed as cloud-native alternatives eroding Teradata's legacy installed base, 2026-04-25 report
Questions people ask
Is Teradata profitable in 2026?
Yes on a cash basis. Teradata reported FY2025 operating cash flow of $305M and free cash flow of $285M as of February 10, 2026, and Q1 2026 non-GAAP EPS of $0.88 beat the $0.77 consensus. FY2026 free cash flow is guided at $310M-$330M.
Is Teradata losing customers to Snowflake?
Total revenue fell to $1.66B in FY2025, down about 4.97% year over year as of February 10, 2026. Analysts cite a 12-24 month feature-cadence gap versus Snowflake, which shipped Cortex LLM functions in Q1 2024 versus Teradata's comparable GenAI features in Q4 2025.
Could AI replace Teradata?
Core SQL, ETL and dashboarding work is increasingly commoditized by cloud-native rivals like Snowflake and Databricks. But Teradata's on-prem sovereign AI appliance, Teradata Factory (built on Dell PowerEdge and NVIDIA AI Enterprise, GA July 15, 2026), targets regulated data-residency needs pure cloud vendors cannot fully match.
Who owns Teradata?
Teradata is fully public on the NYSE under ticker TDC, with no parent company since its 2007 spin-off from NCR Corporation. Institutional and hedge fund ownership was about 90.31% as of July 18, 2026, per MarketBeat data.
What is Teradata's biggest competitor?
Oracle's Autonomous Database and Autonomous AI Lakehouse compete across both multi-cloud and on-prem with stronger sales execution. Snowflake and Databricks also pressure Teradata by shipping AI features 12-24 months faster and winning net-new cloud logos.
Did Teradata get a payout from SAP?
Yes. In February 2026 Teradata and SAP settled long-running litigation (originally filed 2018) and SAP paid Teradata a gross $480M, roughly $355-362M net after fees and taxes, received in Q1 2026, per a February 23, 2026 report.
Timeline
  • 2026-07-18Wall Street Zen downgrades TDC from strong-buy to buy
  • 2026-07-15Autonomous Knowledge Platform reaches general availability across cloud and on-prem
  • 2026-05-07Q1 2026 results: revenue $444M up 6.2% y/y, beats consensus
  • 2026-05-06Autonomous Knowledge Platform and Teradata Factory announced
  • 2026-02-23SAP settlement finalized, $480M gross payment to Teradata
  • 2026-02-10FY2025 results: revenue $1.66B, total ARR $1.522B reported
  • 2026-02-04Data Analyst AI agent launched on Google Cloud Marketplace
  • 2026-01-15CEO McMillan tells employees 2026 raises cancelled to fund AI
  • 2025-07-01ModelOps launched, updating ClearScape Analytics for agentic AI
Revision history
21 July 2026
First assessed. Losing its protection. The text above is fixed as of this date and is not edited afterwards.
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