OpenAI’s annualised revenue came in about $20 billion below an earlier estimate, unsettling investors and sending the Nasdaq down 1.25% on Thursday. The figures rely on different accounting methods, and the higher number was an estimate, not a company forecast. Nasdaq 100 futures were about 0.8% higher and S&P 500 futures rose 0.4% in early trading Friday, Oct. 9.
Two revenue figures, two methods
The Financial Times reported Thursday that OpenAI’s annualised revenue was “approaching $50 billion (€44.6bn)” at the end of September, based on figures shared with investors. Annualised revenue projects recent sales over a full year. That figure stood about $20 billion (€17.8bn) below the previous month’s estimate of roughly $70 billion (€62.5bn).
That difference didn’t mean OpenAI had missed a target or lost sales. The $70 billion figure was an estimate, not a company forecast, and relied on a different way of counting revenue. OpenAI’s backers arrived at the higher number by recalculating sales using rival Anthropic’s method. Anthropic counts customer spending on its AI models through cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud as revenue; OpenAI excludes those sales.
Taken at face value, OpenAI’s figure fell below the $65 billion (€58bn) Anthropic reportedly reached at the end of July. The accounting differences make a direct comparison difficult. OpenAI hadn’t publicly reacted to the reports when the article was written.
Investors and suppliers take the hit
OpenAI, valued at $852 billion (€760bn) in March, was reportedly seeking at least $30 billion (€26.7bn) in new funding at a $1.4 trillion (€1.25tn) valuation. Shares in companies heavily invested in its growth took some of Thursday’s hardest hits.
Oracle fell 5.5% after agreeing to supply OpenAI with extensive computing power. AI cloud specialist CoreWeave, which has multibillion-dollar contracts with OpenAI, lost nearly 8%. Microsoft, a major OpenAI shareholder, and cloud companies Amazon, Alphabet and Meta each fell by more than 1%. Those four, like Oracle, are hyperscalers investing heavily in AI data centres.
Nvidia fell almost 3%, AMD dropped around 4%, and Broadcom fell 4.35%. Broadcom is building a custom chip with OpenAI. In Tokyo on Friday, shares in SoftBank Group, which owns about 13% of OpenAI, fell as much as 7.3% before recovering some losses.
Hardware demand remains high
Other company figures that week pointed to continued demand for AI hardware. Samsung estimated Thursday that its third-quarter operating profit reached a record 107.4 trillion won, or $80.2 billion (€71.5bn). If confirmed, that would mark the largest quarterly operating profit ever reported by a technology company, topping the $63.7 billion (€56.8bn) in operating income Nvidia recorded in its latest quarter.
Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, said Thursday that September sales rose 54.6% year on year. Its third-quarter revenue reached a record NT$1.49 trillion, or $46.8 billion (€41.8bn).
Investors were expected to get more information the following week. Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML was due to report on Oct. 14 and TSMC on Oct. 15. Potential listings by Anthropic as soon as November and by OpenAI the following year could make their audited accounts public.