Will Caterpillar's Strong Volume Growth Keep Driving Sales Up in 2026?

Caterpillar (CAT) raised its 2026 sales growth forecast to the mid-to-high teens, backed by $5.4 billion in first-half revenue added through volume growth alone. The guidance lift signals management sees demand holding across all three of its segments, not just one outperforming division.

Construction Industries led the volume contribution at $3.21 billion, the largest single piece of the $5.4 billion total. Power & Energy added $1.58 billion. Together, those two segments account for roughly $4.79 billion of the volume gain, which leaves about $0.61 billion for the remaining segment (interpretation: derived by subtraction from the reported figures, not a separately stated number).

The company tied its strength to three named drivers: infrastructure spending, data center demand, and mining activity. Volume-led growth matters because it reflects units sold rather than pricing alone, a distinction traders often use to judge how durable a revenue run is.

For context on peers, the canonical read-across names in this group are KMTUY and TEX. The source does not provide figures for either, so any sympathy move in those shares is interpretation of CAT's guidance rather than a company-specific signal from their own results.