Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

When you look at the foundational technology enabling the world's most complex electronic systems-from 5G and artificial intelligence (AI) to quantum computing-do you know which company is providing the critical design and test solutions?

Keysight Technologies, Inc. is a global leader in electronic design and test solutions, and its fiscal year 2025 performance confirms its essential role, with the company raising its full-year outlook to project revenue growth of approximately 7% and non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) growth of around 13%, driven by strong demand in its Communications Solutions Group (CSG) and Electronic Industrial Solutions Group (EISG) segments. In the third quarter of 2025 alone, Keysight reported revenue of $1.35 billion, demonstrating an 11% year-over-year increase, so understanding its history, ownership, and two-pronged revenue model is defintely crucial for any investor or strategist.

We'll break down how this former Hewlett-Packard spin-off maintains its market leadership in the highly specialized world of electronic measurement and why its focus on high-growth areas like AI wafer test solutions and aerospace/defense contracts is the core of its continued financial strength.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) History

You're looking for the foundational story of Keysight Technologies, Inc., and it's a classic Silicon Valley tale of evolution, not a simple startup narrative. The company you see today, a leader in electronic design and test solutions, is the direct descendant of the original Hewlett-Packard Company (HP), which means its roots stretch back to the very beginning of the tech industry. Keysight was formally established in 2014, but its engineering DNA is nearly 80 years older.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Founding Timeline

Year established

Keysight Technologies, Inc. was formally established on November 1, 2014, as a spin-off of Agilent Technologies' electronic measurement business.

Original location

The company chose to establish its headquarters in Santa Rosa, California, maintaining a significant presence in the North Bay area where its predecessor's operations had been since 1972.

Founding team members

The company was led by Ron Nersesian, who became the first President and CEO of the newly independent Keysight. The foundational engineering and cultural heritage, however, trace back to HP founders Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard.

Initial capital/funding

Keysight was created through a tax-free spin-off to Agilent Technologies shareholders, who received one share of Keysight common stock for every two shares of Agilent common stock they held. This separation essentially capitalized the new entity with the value of Agilent's entire electronic measurement division, which was the market leader in its segments. The company's initial market capitalization upon its NYSE listing (KEYS) in November 2014 was approximately $4.6 billion.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Evolution Milestones

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Transformative Moments

The journey from a division of a corporate giant to a standalone, focused market leader involved several critical, high-stakes decisions. The biggest one was the 2014 spin-off itself, of course. That move sharpened the company's focus entirely on electronic measurement, which was a smart, necessary move for a mature business.

• The Dual Spin-off Strategy: Splitting from Agilent in 2014 was a strategic masterstroke, allowing the new company to concentrate all its R&D and capital on the high-growth, high-tech test and measurement market, away from the life sciences focus of Agilent.
• The Software Pivot via Acquisition: The 2017 acquisition of Ixia for $1.6 billion was a game-changer. It wasn't just about adding a product line; it was a deliberate pivot to expand the company's software and services revenue, which now accounts for a significant portion of its total business.
• Embracing Future Tech Investment: Keysight has defintely prioritized R&D, increasing its investment from about 12% of revenue at its launch to approximately 18% of revenue in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, or roughly $230 million in that quarter alone. This focus on next-generation technologies like 5G, 6G, electric vehicle (EV) testing, and quantum computing is what drives its projected FY2025 revenue growth of approximately 7%.

Here's the quick math: Keysight's Q3 fiscal year 2025 revenue was $1.35 billion, with non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) of $1.72, showing strong execution in a complex market. The company's ability to integrate major acquisitions like Spirent Communications, completed in Q4 FY2025, for $1.5 billion, shows a commitment to end-to-end solutions that unlock measurement insights for its customers. If you want to dive deeper into the company's long-term strategy, you should look at their Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS).

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Ownership Structure

Keysight Technologies, Inc. is overwhelmingly controlled by institutional investors, a common structure for a large-cap, S&P 500 company, which means its stock price is highly sensitive to the trading actions of major funds.

This high concentration of institutional ownership-over 90%-translates to a governance model where major asset managers like BlackRock, The Vanguard Group, and Price T. Rowe Associates hold significant sway over strategic decisions and board elections. You should defintely pay attention to their movements, as they are the true power brokers here.

Keysight Technologies, Inc.'s Current Status

Keysight Technologies is a publicly traded company, listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol KEYS. As of November 2025, the company maintains a substantial market capitalization, hovering around $30.8 billion to $31.54 billion, placing it firmly within the S&P 500 index. Keysight's public status ensures a high degree of transparency through mandatory Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings, which is how we get these precise ownership numbers.

The company operates with a strong financial foundation, guiding for a fiscal year 2025 earnings per share (EPS) of approximately $7.09, a key metric that underpins its valuation. This financial health, plus its role as a critical technology partner in 5G, 6G, and quantum computing, makes it a stable, if cyclical, investment.

For a detailed look at the strategic direction driving these numbers, you can review the company's long-term objectives here: Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS).

Keysight Technologies, Inc.'s Ownership Breakdown

The ownership structure is heavily weighted toward institutional capital, which is typical for a mature technology company. Here's the quick math on who holds the shares, based on the most recent filings from the 2025 fiscal year:

What this breakdown tells you is that a handful of large institutions dictate the majority of the trading volume and shareholder voting power. When you see a major fund like The Vanguard Group holding over 20 million shares (as of Q3 2025), you know they have a seat at the table.

Keysight Technologies, Inc.'s Leadership

The company's strategy is steered by a seasoned executive team and an active Board of Directors. The leadership is a blend of long-time Keysight and Agilent veterans, ensuring deep institutional knowledge alongside fresh perspectives.

• Satish Dhanasekaran serves as the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), leading the company's focus on accelerating innovation in critical markets like 5G and automotive.
• Ron Nersesian, the former CEO, continues to provide guidance as the Chair of the Board of Directors.
• Neil Dougherty is the Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), overseeing the financial strategy, which is crucial given the company's projected annual revenue of over $7 billion for fiscal year 2025.
• The Board of Directors recently expanded from ten to eleven members with the appointment of Keith Jensen, a former Fortinet CFO, effective November 19, 2025, adding significant financial and technology-sector experience.

The rest of the executive leadership team is segmented by key business areas, including Presidents for the Communications Solutions Group (Kailash Narayanan) and the Electronic Industrial Solutions Group (Jason Kary), which shows a clear focus on their two primary revenue streams. This structure helps keep the massive organization agile, but it also means performance is tied to the success of these two distinct divisions.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Mission and Values

Keysight Technologies' purpose extends beyond their strong financial performance, which includes a full-year 2025 revenue growth expectation of approximately 7%; their core mission is to empower global innovators to accelerate the development of technologies that connect and secure the world. This focus on breakthrough solutions and uncompromising integrity is the cultural DNA that drives their strategic decisions and operational targets, like achieving operating margins between 31-32%.

Given Company's Core Purpose

The company's core purpose is a clear, actionable mandate that defines their role in the global technology ecosystem, moving them far past simply selling test equipment. They are positioned as an essential partner in the design and validation process, which is why their Communications Solutions Group (CSG) segment reported a Q3 2025 revenue of $940 million, up 11% year-over-year.

Official mission statement

The mission is simple but powerful, guiding the work of their approximately 15,000 employees: To be the market leader in accelerating our customers' innovations to connect and secure the world. This breaks down into three clear focus areas:

• Accelerating Innovation: Providing the tools to bring new technologies to market faster.
• Connecting the World: Enabling the next generation of wireless and wireline communications.
• Securing the World: Delivering solutions for security testing and threat detection.

Honestly, a mission that ties directly to global security and connectivity is a powerful magnet for top engineering talent, and it defintely helps them maintain their industry leadership. You can learn more about their guiding principles here: Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS).

Vision statement

Keysight Technologies' vision serves as the long-term roadmap, outlining the aspirations that guide their strategic investments, such as the continued growth in their Electronic Industrial Solutions Group (EISG), which saw Q3 2025 revenue of $412 million, also up 11%. The vision centers on becoming the indispensable global innovation partner.

• Uncompromising Integrity: Operating ethically and doing what is right in all business dealings.
• High Performance: Relentless focus on operational excellence and continuous improvement.
• Speed and Courage: Embracing a fearless vision and tackling challenging problems at the speed of the customer.
• Social Responsibility: Commitment to ethical, socially responsible, and environmentally sustainable operations.
• One Keysight: Working together across all teams and functions to solve customer problems.

This dedication to values is a tangible asset, especially when you consider that a significant portion of their business-36% of Q3 2025 revenue-comes from software and services, where trust and long-term partnership are paramount.

Given Company slogan/tagline

While Keysight has used several descriptive phrases, their most direct, current, and memorable tagline speaks straight to their customer base: 'Innovators. Start Here.' It's a clean one-liner that positions the company as the foundational starting point for any significant technological breakthrough.

• Primary Tagline: Innovators. Start Here.
• Descriptive Slogan: We're with You Every Step of the Way.

This dual approach-a bold invitation and a promise of partnership-is smart. It acknowledges that the journey from concept to reality is complex, and Keysight is there through the entire product lifecycle, helping their customers develop and deploy faster with less risk.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) How It Works

Keysight Technologies is a critical enabler of innovation, providing the electronic design, emulation, and test solutions that engineers need to accelerate the development of next-generation technologies like 6G, AI infrastructure, and electric vehicles.

The company essentially sells precision measurement and validation tools-both hardware and software-to help customers move from design simulation to manufacturing test faster, reducing risk and cost in a world where data speeds and complexity are exploding. For the fiscal year 2025, Keysight is expected to achieve revenue of approximately $5.24 billion, with a full-year revenue growth outlook of around 7%, showing solid momentum in its core markets.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Product/Service Portfolio

Keysight's business is segmented into the Communications Solutions Group (CSG) and the Electronic Industrial Solutions Group (EISG), with CSG generating the larger portion of revenue, reporting $940 million in Q3 2025.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Operational Framework

Keysight's operational value is driven by a design-emulate-test ecosystem that spans the entire product lifecycle for its customers. This framework is built on a few core pillars:

• Anticipating Technology Shifts: The company focuses its research and development (R&D) on emerging megatrends like AI, 6G, silicon photonics, and quantum computing to ensure its solutions are 'first-to-market.' Keysight allocated $250 million to R&D in Q3 2025, a 10.6% year-over-year increase.
• Software-Centric Delivery: There's a deliberate shift toward software and services, which accounted for 36% of overall revenue in Q3 2025, with annual recurring revenue at 28% of the total mix. This provides a more resilient, high-margin revenue stream.
• Integrated Ecosystem: The company's solutions are designed to work together, from the initial Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software like Advanced Design System (ADS) to the final physical test hardware like Network Analyzers, creating a unified workflow for engineers.

Here's the quick math: that 28% recurring revenue is a stable anchor, cushioning the business against cyclical hardware spending. Keysight's operational discipline, guided by the Keysight Leadership Model, ensures that innovation spending is balanced with margin preservation.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Strategic Advantages

Keysight maintains its market leadership through a combination of deep technical expertise and a sticky business model. This is defintely not a commoditized space.

• Technical Leadership and Breadth: Keysight holds a number one market share position in its three core end markets: Commercial Communications, Aerospace, Defense & Government, and Electronic Industrial. This is supported by its recognized leadership in six core measurement platforms, including Oscilloscopes and Network Analyzers.
• High Switching Costs: The integration of Keysight's test and measurement equipment and software into a customer's R&D, design, and manufacturing processes creates high switching costs. Once a customer builds their entire workflow around a Keysight platform, moving to a competitor is incredibly expensive and risky.
• AI-Driven Portfolio Expansion: The company is a recognized Leader in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for AI-Augmented Software Testing Tools, leveraging AI to automatically generate test cases and validate complex systems. This capability is crucial for the high-speed, complex systems being developed for AI data centers.
• Government and Defense Resilience: The Aerospace, Defense & Government segment provides a stable revenue base, with double-digit order growth in Q3 2025 fueled by ongoing global government and defense spending.

To be fair, the company's long-term success is tied to its ability to anticipate and solve the next big engineering challenge, which you can read more about in their Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS).

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) How It Makes Money

Keysight Technologies primarily makes money by selling high-precision electronic measurement instruments, advanced design and simulation software, and related services, which are essential tools for companies developing next-generation technologies like 5G/6G, artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, and electric vehicles (EVs). Essentially, they sell the complex tools that engineers and scientists must use to design, test, and validate their own cutting-edge products before they hit the market.

Keysight Technologies' Revenue Breakdown

The company's revenue engine is split across two major operating segments, with the Communications Solutions Group (CSG) acting as the clear financial anchor. For the third quarter of fiscal year 2025 (Q3 FY2025), Keysight Technologies reported total revenue of $1.35 billion, representing an 11% year-over-year increase.

The Communications Solutions Group (CSG) generated $940 million in Q3 FY2025, driven by strong demand in commercial communications (up 13%) and the aerospace, defense, and government sectors (up 8%). This segment is defintely benefiting from global investments in AI data center infrastructure and advanced wireless R&D. The Electronic Industrial Solutions Group (EISG) contributed $412 million, seeing growth across semiconductor, general electronics, and automotive and energy end-markets.

Business Economics

Keysight Technologies operates a high-margin business model rooted in intellectual property (IP) and long-term customer relationships, which is a powerful combination. Their economic moat-or sustainable competitive advantage-comes from being deeply embedded in the customer's research and development (R&D) cycle, often before a new product is even finalized.

• Pricing Power: The company uses strategic pricing to offset external pressures, like the approximately $75 million to $100 million annual gross tariff exposure they've quantified, with mitigation efforts expected to be fully realized by the end of fiscal year 2025.
• Recurring Revenue: A significant portion of revenue, specifically 36% of the total in Q3 FY2025, comes from high-margin software and services, with 28% being recurring revenue. This subscription-like stream provides stability and predictability to the financials.
• R&D Investment: Keysight is a technology leader, so they must spend heavily to stay ahead. They are investing in future growth areas, including quantum computing, pre-6G, and AI-driven infrastructure. For instance, their R&D investment in Q1 FY2025 was approximately $230 million, or about 18% of revenue.

Here's the quick math: high R&D creates proprietary, indispensable tools, which in turn justifies premium pricing and locks customers into a long-term testing ecosystem. This is how they sustain a strong margin profile even amid global supply chain noise.

Keysight Technologies' Financial Performance

The company's financial health as of November 2025 shows robust profitability and efficient operations, validating their strategic focus on software-driven solutions and R&D. For the full fiscal year 2025, Keysight Technologies expects revenue growth of approximately 7%, with non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) growth projected to be around 13%.

• Profitability Margins: The core operating margin reached 25.4% in Q3 FY2025, an increase of 110 basis points year-over-year, demonstrating effective cost management and pricing leverage. The net margin for the twelve months ending July 31, 2025, was a solid 14.13%.
• Cash Flow: Year-to-date (YTD) free cash flow was strong at $1.1 billion as of Q3 FY2025, indicating excellent cash conversion and internal funding capacity for future investments and acquisitions.
• Return on Equity (ROE): The company's Return on Equity was reported at 19.53% for a recent quarter, which is a strong indicator of management's efficient use of shareholder capital to generate profit.
• Balance Sheet Health: The current ratio is healthy at 3.59, and the quick ratio is 2.94, showing ample liquidity to cover near-term obligations. The debt-to-equity ratio of 0.45 suggests a moderate reliance on debt.

To dive deeper into the metrics that drive this performance, you should read Breaking Down Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors. Finance: Track the Q4 FY2025 actual results (expected late November) to confirm the full-year revenue of roughly $5.34 billion.

Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Market Position & Future Outlook

Keysight Technologies is strategically positioned as a global leader in the electronic design and test solutions market, with analysts projecting full-year 2025 revenue to reach approximately $5.3 billion, reflecting a strong 7 percent year-over-year growth. The company's future trajectory is tied directly to its early, aggressive investments in next-generation technology cycles like AI-driven infrastructure, 6G wireless, and electric vehicle (EV) platforms, which are now starting to pay off.

This is a high-precision business, and Keysight's model, with nearly 40% of revenue coming from software and services, provides a valuable layer of recurring revenue and margin stability. If you want a deeper dive into the numbers, you can check out Breaking Down Keysight Technologies, Inc. (KEYS) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Competitive Landscape

The electronic test and measurement (T&M) market is moderately concentrated, with Keysight, Rohde & Schwarz, and Fortive Corporation being the dominant players. While the market is fragmented by niche specialists, these three companies, along with Advantest, collectively hold a substantial share. Keysight maintains its leadership through a superior portfolio of high-frequency and software-centric solutions.

Opportunities & Challenges

As a seasoned analyst, I see Keysight's strategic R&D spending-which increased by 10.6% to $250 million in Q3 2025-as a clear signal of where the company expects its next wave of revenue to come from. They are defintely placing big bets on the future, and those bets are looking smart right now.

Industry Position

Keysight's industry standing is robust, anchored by its technical leadership in areas where precision is non-negotiable. They are not just selling hardware; they are selling the critical validation required for the world's most complex electronic systems.

• Dominance in Wireless: Keysight validated the first 5G New Radio Non-Terrestrial Networks (NR-NTN) test cases, positioning them as the leader in standards-based certification for satellite-enabled 5G.
• Software Moat: The Electronic Design Automation (EDA) software market is growing rapidly, with the US segment alone estimated at $4.25 billion in 2025. Keysight's PathWave software suite creates a sticky ecosystem, making it harder for customers to switch vendors.
• Defense & Aerospace Strength: The Aerospace, Defense & Government segment continues to be a reliable revenue driver, contributing over $1 billion annually, fueled by increased global government and defense spending.

The company is effectively balancing its core business-the Communications Solutions Group (CSG) segment is valued at about $2.5 billion-with its investments in future tech, ensuring both near-term stability and long-term relevance. They're a powerhouse in test and measurement, full stop.