ExxonMobil Holdings Corp (NYSE: XOM) filed its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the period ended September 30, 2026 on November 2, 2026. The three quarters of 2026 that the filing covers tell a story that is easy to misread from headline revenue alone: sales peaked in the second quarter and then eased, yet profit kept climbing. The figures below are taken from the company's reported income statement lines for each quarter.
| Reported line item | Q1 2026 | Q2 2026 | Q3 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenues | $85.1B | $116.0B | $113.2B |
| Income before income taxes | $6.97B | $19.42B | $21.24B |
| Income tax expense | $2.50B | $4.54B | $5.21B |
| Net income attributable to the company | $4.18B | $14.53B | $15.41B |
| Diluted EPS | $1.00 | $3.48 | $3.72 |
| Interest expense | $295M | $227M | $183M |
Profit rose while revenue eased
Revenue rose from $85.1 billion in the first quarter to $116.0 billion in the second, then slipped to $113.2 billion in the third. Net income attributable to the company moved in the opposite direction over the same span, from $4.18 billion to $14.53 billion and then to $15.41 billion. Diluted earnings per share followed the same path, from $1.00 to $3.48 to $3.72.
The gap between the two trends is the central point of the quarter. Revenue is a gross measure and says little about what the company keeps. Between the first and third quarters, the company's pre-tax income rose from $6.97 billion to $21.24 billion, a little over three times the first-quarter level, while revenue rose by roughly a third. Each additional dollar of third-quarter sales therefore carried far more profit than a dollar of first-quarter sales did. The filing does not, in the figures reviewed here, break that down by business line, so the drivers of the margin change cannot be attributed from this data alone.
Why the first-quarter gap between pre-tax income and net income was so wide
In the first quarter, the company reported income before income taxes of $6.97 billion and income tax expense of $2.50 billion. That implies an effective tax rate of about 36 percent, well above the roughly 23 to 25 percent implied by the second- and third-quarter figures ($4.54 billion of tax on $19.42 billion of pre-tax income, and $5.21 billion on $21.24 billion).
After tax, the first quarter's consolidated result was about $4.47 billion. Of that, $289 million was attributable to noncontrolling interests, leaving $4.18 billion attributable to the company. The noncontrolling share is small relative to the total, but it is not zero, and it grew to $356 million in the second quarter and $609 million in the third.
The high first-quarter tax charge is the largest single reason the first quarter's net income looks thin against its pre-tax figure. The 10-Q's income tax footnote is the place to check the components behind that rate; the reported line items alone do not explain why the rate moved from quarter to quarter.
Interest expense is falling, but it is not the story
Interest expense declined in each quarter, from $295 million in the first quarter to $227 million in the second and $183 million in the third. The direction is favorable, and at this scale the amounts are small next to the company's roughly $85 billion to $116 billion of quarterly revenue and $6.97 billion to $21.24 billion of quarterly pre-tax income. Interest costs did not drive the earnings improvement.
The comparison with the prior year also deserves a sober look. Interest expense in the third quarter of 2025 was $90 million, so the $183 million reported for the third quarter of 2026 is higher than that level. The company's reported full-year 2025 interest expense was $603 million. A decline across 2026 quarters is therefore not the same as a return to lower interest costs than a year earlier.
Share count and the year-over-year picture
Per-share results were also helped by a smaller share base. Weighted average basic shares outstanding fell from 4.202 billion in the first quarter to 4.174 billion in the second and 4.140 billion in the third. Part of the growth in EPS from the first quarter to the third therefore comes from the denominator rather than from net income alone.
A year-over-year comparison adds balance. In the first quarter of 2025 the company reported net income of $7.71 billion on revenue of $83.13 billion, so the first quarter of 2026 was weaker on profit despite higher revenue. The third quarter of 2026, by contrast, compares with $7.55 billion of net income and $85.29 billion of revenue in the third quarter of 2025, so the recovery through the year is substantial rather than a return to the same level as the prior year's quarter. The reader should weigh the 2026 trajectory against that base.
What the filing does and does not settle
The reported figures establish three things clearly: revenue peaked in the second quarter, net income and per-share earnings rose each quarter through the third, and the effective tax rate was markedly higher in the first quarter than in the two that followed. They do not establish the cause of the margin expansion, the sustainability of the third-quarter level, or the reasons behind the tax-rate change. Those questions are answered, if at all, in the segment discussion, management's analysis of results, and the tax footnote of the 10-Q, and a careful reader should work through those sections before drawing conclusions about the business.
For a value investor, the useful question is less whether one quarter's earnings were strong than whether the company's earnings power holds across a full cycle. Three quarters of 2026 cannot answer that. What they do show is how sharply reported profit can move relative to revenue, which is a reason to read the cost and tax lines alongside the top line.