For two years the companies that sell the hardware linking warehouses, delivery vans and store shelves back to corporate systems watched their customers defer purchases. That freeze has broken. Three of them — a barcode-scanner maker, a router maker and a vehicle-tracking service — have each just posted their fastest revenue growth in years, with margins widening at the same time. What the shares did with that news was another matter entirely.

The scanner company had help

Zebra Technologies makes the barcode scanners, rugged handheld computers, thermal label printers and radio-frequency identification (RFID) readers used across retail, warehousing and hospitals; the company's own materials put its rugged mobile computing share near 42% and its customer list at more than 80% of the Fortune 500. Its June-quarter revenue reached $1.56bn, up 20.4%, with non-GAAP earnings per share of $6.35 and a raised full-year outlook. Gross margin came in at 53.0%, against 47.6% a year earlier. Operating income rose 75%.

Two things sit underneath that. The first is that reported growth of 20.4% was 9.2% organically, and management's full-year guide of 7% organic growth explicitly contains roughly two points of price. The second is a windfall: the quarter included $73m of recovered tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which the Supreme Court ruled unlawful in February, opening refunds across importers. Excluding that recovery, adjusted EBITDA margin still expanded two points — a real result, but not the headline one, and not repeatable.

The operating story that does repeat is memory. Gartner expects combined DRAM and solid-state drive prices to rise 130% by the end of 2026 as artificial-intelligence demand crowds out conventional chip capacity. Zebra says it fully offset a $20m in-quarter increase and lifted its mitigation target to $90m from $60m, largely by writing price into deals before announcing it. Barclays raised its price target to $410 from $346 citing a third straight quarter of that. Citi lifted its target to $306 and stayed neutral.

The shares now trade at 17.9 times forward earnings against 34.7 times trailing — a spread that assumes earnings roughly double. In mid-July, when memory fears dominated, the forward multiple was near 14x, versus a five-year history of 20-25x. Consensus has 2026 revenue up 15.1% and 2027 up 5.7%. The re-rating has been paid for a one-year step-up. One vertical has not turned at all: transportation and logistics was flat, with the big deployments management describes beginning in 2027.

The expensive one and the cheap one

Digi International, a 913-person maker of cellular routers, embedded radio modules and console servers with a cloud device-management service attached, grew fiscal third-quarter revenue 29% to $139m and reported record annual recurring revenue of $191m, up 52%. Gross margin was 64.8%, adjusted EBITDA margin a record 29.1%. The business is genuinely inflecting after a fiscal 2025 in which revenue grew 1.5%. The price has moved faster: price-to-gross-profit has gone from 7.18x in early May to 9.73x, and the forward multiple of 31.6x is set against consensus revenue growth of 8.6% in fiscal 2027 and 4.9% the year after. Management's data-center opportunity for its Opengear line is not in guidance, because the sales cycles are long and the customer count small.

Ituran, which sells stolen-vehicle recovery and fleet telematics on a monthly subscription in Israel and Latin America, is the one moving the other way. It added 41,000 net subscribers to reach 2.711m, with subscription revenue up 25% to $80m — 76% of the total. Revenue grew 20.7% to a record $104.8m, its fastest in years; gross margin reached 50.9% and net income rose 28.8%. The company holds $103.7m of net cash, no debt, and paid a $10m quarterly dividend. The shares fell 13.2% over the three months to August 17. Trailing earnings multiple: 16.3x, down from roughly 20x in May, on a 7.9% free-cash-flow yield. One caveat matters — a single analyst supplies its forward estimates, so the 15.0x forward figure carries little information.

What the month actually was

Zebra's August 4 session was +26.5%; Digi's August 6 was +14.5%. Remove those two days and the three-name average gain for the month falls from about 22% to roughly 7%. Remove each name's two best sessions and almost nothing is left. The businesses are accelerating together. The prices are not: one has closed half a de-rating gap, one has run past its own numbers, and one is falling into improving results.

The setup

Where it stands — All three are accelerating; Zebra and Digi re-rated on single earnings days, Ituran de-rated into its fastest growth in years.

Would confirm — Zebra organic growth holding near 9% in the September quarter without tariff recoveries, and Ituran net adds above 40,000 again.

Would invalidate — Digi fiscal 2027 revenue guidance landing near the 8.6% consensus, or Zebra's memory mitigation target slipping back below $90m.

Watch next — Zebra's third-quarter report in early November; Digi's fiscal year-end results and first fiscal 2027 guide, also November.

Valuation — Zebra 17.9x forward vs 34.7x trailing and a 20-25x five-year history; Digi 31.6x forward; Ituran 16.3x trailing.