Xylem (XYL)
Builds water transport, treatment, metering, analytics, and service systems for utilities and industry.
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Xylem makes the machines that move, clean, measure and manage water — pumps for sewers and office blocks, disinfection gear for treatment plants, meters for utilities. That equipment business is mature and pays the bills. What is growing is the other half: signing up to build and then run water systems for industrial customers for decades at a time, and selling the software that reads the meters it already installed.
Item facts: FY2025 · year ended Dec 31, 2025, from filings, earnings calls and company pages.
Judgment weights, not filed revenue
The band summarizes business focus and direction. ~ marks estimates.
10 in detail · 9 more below
Industrial treatment projects
Built-to-order water plants for factories and cities, including systems Xylem stays on to run. Revenue is lumpy because it follows big jobs; Xylem's company-wide order book stood at about $5.3 billion in mid-2026.
Competes with Water Technologies treatment systems (Veolia) · Turnkey treatment and reuse plants (SUEZ) · Treatment plant builds (Ovivo)
In plain English
A factory that needs clean water for its process, or a city that needs a bigger plant, can buy the whole thing built to order: tanks, filters, membranes and pumps wired together on the customer's own ground.
Xylem designs it, builds it, and increasingly stays on afterwards to operate it. Money arrives in stages as the job progresses, which is why any single quarter looks uneven — one large project slipping a few months moves the whole line. The newer twist is being paid a fee for decades once the plant is running, which turns a one-time sale into something closer to rent.
Services
Xylem running and maintaining water equipment rather than selling it — plant crews, pumps rented to drain flooded sites, hospital water service. Contracted and repeat, it carries the highest profit margin of Xylem's four businesses.
Competes with Water plant operating contracts (Veolia) · Nalco Water service programmes (Ecolab) · Rental dewatering pumps (Franklin Electric)
In plain English
Water gear needs people. Someone has to run the plant overnight, swap the filters, and show up when a site floods.
Xylem sells that labour: crews who operate a customer's water system under contract, pumps rented by the week to drain a construction pit or a mine, and a service that keeps the water clean in hospitals and laboratories. Customers pay monthly or per job, and they keep paying because they have stopped employing water staff of their own. Little of this needs a factory — it runs on trucks, technicians and rental fleets, and it earns better margins than anything else Xylem does.
Dow Fort Saskatchewan water contract
Xylem's largest contract ever: design, build and then operate the water system at Dow's chemical complex in Alberta, about $850 million spread over two decades, running from 2028. Even so, no single customer reaches 5% of sales.
Competes with Outsourced water and operating contracts (Veolia) · Build-own-operate water plants (SUEZ)
In plain English
Dow's chemical complex at Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta gets through enormous amounts of water — raw water cleaned up for the process, then used water cleaned again so it can go round a second time.
Rather than build and staff that itself, Dow handed the whole water cycle to Xylem: design it, have it running by August 2028, then operate it on contract for the twenty-odd years after that. It is closer to hiring a plumber on a very long lease than to buying plumbing. Xylem earns construction money first and a steady operating fee later — plus a reference it can show the next industrial customer weighing the same decision.
Transport — sewage and stormwater pumps
The submersible pumps that push sewage and stormwater through a city's buried network and up out of collection pits, sold mainly as Flygt. The firmer half of Xylem's municipal business, though sales in China fell sharply in spring 2026.
Competes with SE/SEG submersible pumps (Grundfos) · Amarex sewage pumps (KSB) · ABS sewage pump range (Sulzer)
In plain English
Sewage does not flow uphill on its own. Under every city there are pits where waste water collects, and a pump sitting down in that pit has to lift it to the next stretch of pipe — all day, for years, in the worst liquid you can imagine.
Xylem builds those pumps, along with the mixers and controls around them. A city's consulting engineer writes a particular model into the drawings for a new pumping station, a distributor delivers it, and the utility comes back for spares and replacements for years afterwards. That is why the engineer holding the pen matters more here than any salesperson.
Treatment
Ultraviolet lamps, ozone and filters that clean a city's drinking water and waste water, sold under names like Wedeco and Leopold. The slower half of the municipal business — orders here softened through spring 2026, with China weak.
Competes with TrojanUV disinfection systems (Veralto) · Calgon Carbon ultraviolet and oxidation systems (De Nora)
In plain English
Before water reaches a tap, something has to deal with the germs in it. One way is chemicals; another is to run the water past very bright ultraviolet lamps, which scramble microbes without changing the taste. Xylem sells both, plus the sand beds and membranes that strain out solids first.
These are large steel-and-concrete installations, bought when a town upgrades its plant — which happens rarely, and only once regulators, budgets and a consulting engineer's drawings all line up. The sale is big, the wait is long, and the technology gets written into the plans years before anyone pours concrete.
Building Solutions
Pumps, valves and heat exchangers that move hot and cold water around large buildings, sold as Bell & Gossett through distributors. Short-cycle, distribution-led, and the part data-center builders are buying — those orders rose sharply in spring 2026.
Competes with Commercial circulators and booster sets (Grundfos) · Hydronic building pumps (Wilo) · Commercial water systems (Pentair)
In plain English
Heating and cooling a twenty-storey office block is mostly a plumbing problem. Water is warmed or chilled in the basement and circulated through the building, and something has to keep it moving: a circulator pump, with valves and radiator-like heat exchangers around it.
Xylem's Bell & Gossett kit sits on wholesalers' shelves, which is why this part of the company turns into cash fast — a contractor orders on Monday for a job this quarter rather than waiting on a multi-year scheme. Commercial construction sets the pace, and the fastest-growing corner of that construction is buildings full of computers.
Industrial Water
Everyday pumps for farms, light industry and equipment makers, sold as Goulds Water Technology off distributors' shelves. Price-competitive and distribution-led — and the line most exposed to Xylem's pruning of unprofitable products.
Competes with Groundwater and industrial pump ranges (Grundfos) · Submersible motors and water systems (Franklin Electric) · Process pumps (Flowserve)
In plain English
Not every pump goes into a city network. A farmer irrigating a field, a workshop that needs water at pressure, a machine builder who needs a small pump tucked inside a drinks dispenser or a boat — all of them buy off the shelf.
Xylem supplies them under Goulds, and under Flojet, Jabsco and Rule for the little pumps that disappear inside someone else's product. The distributor holds the stock and the buyer compares prices, so this is won on brand familiarity and availability rather than clever engineering. It is also where Xylem has been deliberately shedding products and customers that never made enough money.
Data-center water programme
Pumps and cooling gear inside data centers, plus treating river and well water at sites with no city main. Management expects it to roughly triple in 2026 and to reach about 2% of revenue by year-end — small, but orders are arriving fastest here.
Competes with Commercial circulators and booster sets (Grundfos) · Industrial site water treatment (Veolia)
In plain English
A data center is a building full of computers that run hot, and the heat has to go somewhere. Mostly it goes into water: water is pumped past the machines, carries the heat outside, and comes back cooler. Some of these sites are built where no city water main reaches, so water has to be drawn from a river or a well and cleaned first.
Xylem sells both halves — the pumps and radiator-like heat exchangers indoors, the treatment kit outdoors — to the firms building the sites and to the makers of the cooling systems. Tiny in sales today; the fastest-growing thing Xylem is selling to.
Smart Metering (Sensus)
Water and electricity meters that report by radio over Sensus's own network, plus the software that bills from them. Xylem's largest line — and its current drag: utilities are ordering less than Xylem ships, and the order book in this part of Xylem has slipped to roughly $1.2 billion.
Competes with Intelis water meters (Itron) · ORION meter reading (Badger Meter)
In plain English
A water meter used to be read by a person with a torch. The modern one counts the same litres but reports them by radio, over a network Xylem itself supplies, to the utility's office — so the bill is accurate and a jump in the middle of the night shows a leak rather than a customer.
Utilities buy these in multi-year roll-outs: tens of thousands of meters, the radio network, the software, ordered once and installed over several years. Xylem sells the bundle under Sensus. The catch is that orders arrive in lumps, and lately fewer have landed — electricity-meter projects in particular have slipped.
Xylem Vue
Software that puts a utility's meters, pumps and sensors on one screen and shows where water is going missing. Built on technology from Idrica, a Spanish water-software firm Xylem controls; the CEO said in mid-2026 it had doubled over the past year.
Competes with Temetra meter data software (Itron) · BEACON utility analytics (Badger Meter)
In plain English
Meters, pumps and sensors each report into their own systems. Vue is the screen that pulls them together, so a utility can see its network as one thing rather than a dozen.
Xylem sells it to the same utilities that already bought its meters and pumps, layered on equipment that is already in the ground. The pitch is measurable: a utility serving millions in Monterrey, Mexico cut water use by roughly a sixth, and Hot Springs, Arkansas cut the water it was losing in its pipes by about half. Xylem does not report how big Vue is on its own.
Industrial treatment projectsBuilt-to-order water plants for factories and cities, including systems Xylem stays on to run. Revenue is lumpy because it follows big jobs; Xylem's company-wide order book stood at about $5.3 billion in mid-2026.Built-to-order water plants for factories and cities, including systems Xylem stays on to run. Revenue is lumpy because it follows big jobs; Xylem's company-wide order book stood at about $5.3 billion in mid-2026.
In plain English
A factory that needs clean water for its process, or a city that needs a bigger plant, can buy the whole thing built to order: tanks, filters, membranes and pumps wired together on the customer's own ground.
Xylem designs it, builds it, and increasingly stays on afterwards to operate it. Money arrives in stages as the job progresses, which is why any single quarter looks uneven — one large project slipping a few months moves the whole line. The newer twist is being paid a fee for decades once the plant is running, which turns a one-time sale into something closer to rent.
Competes with Water Technologies treatment systems (Veolia) · Turnkey treatment and reuse plants (SUEZ) · Treatment plant builds (Ovivo)
ServicesXylem running and maintaining water equipment rather than selling it — plant crews, pumps rented to drain flooded sites, hospital water service. Contracted and repeat, it carries the highest profit margin of Xylem's four businesses.Xylem running and maintaining water equipment rather than selling it — plant crews, pumps rented to drain flooded sites, hospital water service. Contracted and repeat, it carries the highest profit margin of Xylem's four businesses.
In plain English
Water gear needs people. Someone has to run the plant overnight, swap the filters, and show up when a site floods.
Xylem sells that labour: crews who operate a customer's water system under contract, pumps rented by the week to drain a construction pit or a mine, and a service that keeps the water clean in hospitals and laboratories. Customers pay monthly or per job, and they keep paying because they have stopped employing water staff of their own. Little of this needs a factory — it runs on trucks, technicians and rental fleets, and it earns better margins than anything else Xylem does.
Competes with Water plant operating contracts (Veolia) · Nalco Water service programmes (Ecolab) · Rental dewatering pumps (Franklin Electric)
Dow Fort Saskatchewan water contractXylem's largest contract ever: design, build and then operate the water system at Dow's chemical complex in Alberta, about $850 million spread over two decades, running from 2028. Even so, no single customer reaches 5% of sales.Xylem's largest contract ever: design, build and then operate the water system at Dow's chemical complex in Alberta, about $850 million spread over two decades, running from 2028. Even so, no single customer reaches 5% of sales.
In plain English
Dow's chemical complex at Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta gets through enormous amounts of water — raw water cleaned up for the process, then used water cleaned again so it can go round a second time.
Rather than build and staff that itself, Dow handed the whole water cycle to Xylem: design it, have it running by August 2028, then operate it on contract for the twenty-odd years after that. It is closer to hiring a plumber on a very long lease than to buying plumbing. Xylem earns construction money first and a steady operating fee later — plus a reference it can show the next industrial customer weighing the same decision.
Competes with Outsourced water and operating contracts (Veolia) · Build-own-operate water plants (SUEZ)
Transport — sewage and stormwater pumpsThe submersible pumps that push sewage and stormwater through a city's buried network and up out of collection pits, sold mainly as Flygt. The firmer half of Xylem's municipal business, though sales in China fell sharply in spring 2026.The submersible pumps that push sewage and stormwater through a city's buried network and up out of collection pits, sold mainly as Flygt. The firmer half of Xylem's municipal business, though sales in China fell sharply in spring 2026.
In plain English
Sewage does not flow uphill on its own. Under every city there are pits where waste water collects, and a pump sitting down in that pit has to lift it to the next stretch of pipe — all day, for years, in the worst liquid you can imagine.
Xylem builds those pumps, along with the mixers and controls around them. A city's consulting engineer writes a particular model into the drawings for a new pumping station, a distributor delivers it, and the utility comes back for spares and replacements for years afterwards. That is why the engineer holding the pen matters more here than any salesperson.
Competes with SE/SEG submersible pumps (Grundfos) · Amarex sewage pumps (KSB) · ABS sewage pump range (Sulzer)
TreatmentUltraviolet lamps, ozone and filters that clean a city's drinking water and waste water, sold under names like Wedeco and Leopold. The slower half of the municipal business — orders here softened through spring 2026, with China weak.Ultraviolet lamps, ozone and filters that clean a city's drinking water and waste water, sold under names like Wedeco and Leopold. The slower half of the municipal business — orders here softened through spring 2026, with China weak.
In plain English
Before water reaches a tap, something has to deal with the germs in it. One way is chemicals; another is to run the water past very bright ultraviolet lamps, which scramble microbes without changing the taste. Xylem sells both, plus the sand beds and membranes that strain out solids first.
These are large steel-and-concrete installations, bought when a town upgrades its plant — which happens rarely, and only once regulators, budgets and a consulting engineer's drawings all line up. The sale is big, the wait is long, and the technology gets written into the plans years before anyone pours concrete.
Competes with TrojanUV disinfection systems (Veralto) · Calgon Carbon ultraviolet and oxidation systems (De Nora)
Building SolutionsPumps, valves and heat exchangers that move hot and cold water around large buildings, sold as Bell & Gossett through distributors. Short-cycle, distribution-led, and the part data-center builders are buying — those orders rose sharply in spring 2026.Pumps, valves and heat exchangers that move hot and cold water around large buildings, sold as Bell & Gossett through distributors. Short-cycle, distribution-led, and the part data-center builders are buying — those orders rose sharply in spring 2026.
In plain English
Heating and cooling a twenty-storey office block is mostly a plumbing problem. Water is warmed or chilled in the basement and circulated through the building, and something has to keep it moving: a circulator pump, with valves and radiator-like heat exchangers around it.
Xylem's Bell & Gossett kit sits on wholesalers' shelves, which is why this part of the company turns into cash fast — a contractor orders on Monday for a job this quarter rather than waiting on a multi-year scheme. Commercial construction sets the pace, and the fastest-growing corner of that construction is buildings full of computers.
Competes with Commercial circulators and booster sets (Grundfos) · Hydronic building pumps (Wilo) · Commercial water systems (Pentair)
Industrial WaterEveryday pumps for farms, light industry and equipment makers, sold as Goulds Water Technology off distributors' shelves. Price-competitive and distribution-led — and the line most exposed to Xylem's pruning of unprofitable products.Everyday pumps for farms, light industry and equipment makers, sold as Goulds Water Technology off distributors' shelves. Price-competitive and distribution-led — and the line most exposed to Xylem's pruning of unprofitable products.
In plain English
Not every pump goes into a city network. A farmer irrigating a field, a workshop that needs water at pressure, a machine builder who needs a small pump tucked inside a drinks dispenser or a boat — all of them buy off the shelf.
Xylem supplies them under Goulds, and under Flojet, Jabsco and Rule for the little pumps that disappear inside someone else's product. The distributor holds the stock and the buyer compares prices, so this is won on brand familiarity and availability rather than clever engineering. It is also where Xylem has been deliberately shedding products and customers that never made enough money.
Competes with Groundwater and industrial pump ranges (Grundfos) · Submersible motors and water systems (Franklin Electric) · Process pumps (Flowserve)
Data-center water programmePumps and cooling gear inside data centers, plus treating river and well water at sites with no city main. Management expects it to roughly triple in 2026 and to reach about 2% of revenue by year-end — small, but orders are arriving fastest here.Pumps and cooling gear inside data centers, plus treating river and well water at sites with no city main. Management expects it to roughly triple in 2026 and to reach about 2% of revenue by year-end — small, but orders are arriving fastest here.
In plain English
A data center is a building full of computers that run hot, and the heat has to go somewhere. Mostly it goes into water: water is pumped past the machines, carries the heat outside, and comes back cooler. Some of these sites are built where no city water main reaches, so water has to be drawn from a river or a well and cleaned first.
Xylem sells both halves — the pumps and radiator-like heat exchangers indoors, the treatment kit outdoors — to the firms building the sites and to the makers of the cooling systems. Tiny in sales today; the fastest-growing thing Xylem is selling to.
Competes with Commercial circulators and booster sets (Grundfos) · Industrial site water treatment (Veolia)
Smart Metering (Sensus)Water and electricity meters that report by radio over Sensus's own network, plus the software that bills from them. Xylem's largest line — and its current drag: utilities are ordering less than Xylem ships, and the order book in this part of Xylem has slipped to roughly $1.2 billion.Water and electricity meters that report by radio over Sensus's own network, plus the software that bills from them. Xylem's largest line — and its current drag: utilities are ordering less than Xylem ships, and the order book in this part of Xylem has slipped to roughly $1.2 billion.
In plain English
A water meter used to be read by a person with a torch. The modern one counts the same litres but reports them by radio, over a network Xylem itself supplies, to the utility's office — so the bill is accurate and a jump in the middle of the night shows a leak rather than a customer.
Utilities buy these in multi-year roll-outs: tens of thousands of meters, the radio network, the software, ordered once and installed over several years. Xylem sells the bundle under Sensus. The catch is that orders arrive in lumps, and lately fewer have landed — electricity-meter projects in particular have slipped.
Competes with Intelis water meters (Itron) · ORION meter reading (Badger Meter)
Xylem VueSoftware that puts a utility's meters, pumps and sensors on one screen and shows where water is going missing. Built on technology from Idrica, a Spanish water-software firm Xylem controls; the CEO said in mid-2026 it had doubled over the past year.Software that puts a utility's meters, pumps and sensors on one screen and shows where water is going missing. Built on technology from Idrica, a Spanish water-software firm Xylem controls; the CEO said in mid-2026 it had doubled over the past year.
In plain English
Meters, pumps and sensors each report into their own systems. Vue is the screen that pulls them together, so a utility can see its network as one thing rather than a dozen.
Xylem sells it to the same utilities that already bought its meters and pumps, layered on equipment that is already in the ground. The pitch is measurable: a utility serving millions in Monterrey, Mexico cut water use by roughly a sixth, and Hot Springs, Arkansas cut the water it was losing in its pipes by about half. Xylem does not report how big Vue is on its own.
Competes with Temetra meter data software (Itron) · BEACON utility analytics (Badger Meter)
Named in filings, launches and programs
- AnalyticsProduct lineProbes and analysers measuring water quality under YSI, WTW and Ebro, plus Smith Blair pipe repair — about 4% of 2025 sales, feeding Xylem Vue.
- IdricaBrandThe Spanish water-software company behind Vue's technology; Xylem took a majority stake in December 2024 and now describes the arrangement as a joint venture.
- Cornell Pump and Roper PumpBrand · AnnouncedTwo industrial pump makers agreed in August 2026 for $1.46 billion, with more than $260 million of expected 2026 revenue; they join the municipal pump business.
- WaterFleetBrand · AnnouncedMobile water and waste water treatment for remote sites, agreed in July 2026 for about $200 million; it joins the services business.
- Amazon water-replenishment partnershipCustomer programVue analytics deployed with Amazon in Mexico City and Monterrey; Xylem said in late 2025 the work saves over a billion litres of water a year.
- 20-year contract with an unnamed chemical companyCustomer programA second long-duration outsourced-water win announced in mid-2026 — twenty years, a global chemical company Xylem has not named, taken from a long-term incumbent.
- Gross-Wen Technologies partnershipEcosystemA June 2026 tie-up adding algae-based nutrient removal — using algae to strip fertiliser-like pollutants out of water — to Xylem's industrial offering.
- Mar CorBrandPurified-water service for hospitals and laboratories, where Xylem's technicians keep the equipment running — part of the recurring services business.
- Flojet, Jabsco and RuleProduct lineSmall pumps built into other people's products — drinks dispensers, boats — sold to manufacturers rather than utilities, inside the industrial water line.
AnalyticsProduct line
Probes and analysers measuring water quality under YSI, WTW and Ebro, plus Smith Blair pipe repair — about 4% of 2025 sales, feeding Xylem Vue.
IdricaBrand
The Spanish water-software company behind Vue's technology; Xylem took a majority stake in December 2024 and now describes the arrangement as a joint venture.
Cornell Pump and Roper PumpBrand · Announced
Two industrial pump makers agreed in August 2026 for $1.46 billion, with more than $260 million of expected 2026 revenue; they join the municipal pump business.
WaterFleetBrand · Announced
Mobile water and waste water treatment for remote sites, agreed in July 2026 for about $200 million; it joins the services business.
Amazon water-replenishment partnershipCustomer program
Vue analytics deployed with Amazon in Mexico City and Monterrey; Xylem said in late 2025 the work saves over a billion litres of water a year.
20-year contract with an unnamed chemical companyCustomer program
A second long-duration outsourced-water win announced in mid-2026 — twenty years, a global chemical company Xylem has not named, taken from a long-term incumbent.
Gross-Wen Technologies partnershipEcosystem
A June 2026 tie-up adding algae-based nutrient removal — using algae to strip fertiliser-like pollutants out of water — to Xylem's industrial offering.
Mar CorBrand
Purified-water service for hospitals and laboratories, where Xylem's technicians keep the equipment running — part of the recurring services business.
Flojet, Jabsco and RuleProduct line
Small pumps built into other people's products — drinks dispensers, boats — sold to manufacturers rather than utilities, inside the industrial water line.