Moody’s Strong Quarter Highlights Its Expanding Grip on Global Risk Intelligence

Moody’s Corporation delivered another robust performance in the third quarter of 2025, underscoring its growing strength not only as one of the world’s top credit-rating agencies but also as a leading provider of data-driven risk analytics.

Revenue and Profit Surge Despite Economic Headwinds

For the quarter ended September 30, 2025, Moody’s reported revenue of $2.01 billion, up 11% year-over-year from $1.81 billion in 2024. Net income climbed to $647 million, a 21% increase from $534 million a year earlier. Diluted earnings per share rose to $3.60, compared with $2.93 in the prior year.

The company’s growth was broad-based, with both major business segments — Moody’s Analytics (MA) and Moody’s Investors Service (MIS) — contributing solidly.

Navigating a Shifting Financial Landscape

Moody’s 2025 results come amid a complex macroeconomic backdrop marked by slowing global growth, evolving regulatory standards, and the rollout of the OECD’s “Pillar II” global minimum tax. The firm’s effective tax rate held steady around 24%, with management noting no material impact yet from the new tax regime or from recent U.S. legislation, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which made several business tax incentives permanent.

Recent acquisitions — such as CAPE Analytics (AI-powered property-risk intelligence) and Praedicat (casualty-risk analytics) — illustrate how Moody’s continues to diversify beyond traditional credit ratings, investing in data, AI, and predictive analytics to deepen its insights into corporate, environmental, and cyber risks.

From Credit Ratings to Comprehensive Risk Intelligence

While credit ratings remain Moody’s historic foundation, its evolution into a broad risk-intelligence platform has become the company’s defining story. Through Moody’s Analytics, the firm now delivers software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions that help financial institutions and corporations model exposures across climate, cyber, supply-chain, and ESG domains.

This transformation reflects a structural shift in the global financial-information industry. As markets become more data-driven and interconnected, investors and regulators alike increasingly demand integrated, real-time risk perspectives — something that Moody’s is uniquely positioned to provide thanks to its combination of ratings credibility, proprietary data, and advanced analytics.

Analysts note that this hybrid model creates a strong competitive moat. The ratings division continues to generate high-margin cash flow, while the analytics business delivers recurring revenue growth and strategic relevance in an era where risk management is no longer a niche function but a board-level priority.

Outlook: Staying Ahead of the Curve

Looking ahead, Moody’s plans to keep expanding its cloud-based analytics platforms and further consolidate its data infrastructure, with the goal of improving efficiency and scaling artificial-intelligence capabilities across the enterprise.

The company’s balance between steady ratings revenue and fast-growing analytics subscriptions positions it well for a financial landscape where transparency, regulation, and digital risk assessment are converging.

In short, Moody’s third-quarter results reaffirm its transformation from a traditional rating agency into a global authority on risk intelligence — a role that may prove indispensable as investors, companies, and governments grapple with the uncertainties of the next decade.