OpenAI’s annualised revenue came in nearly $20 billion (€17.8bn) below an earlier estimate, rattling confidence in the AI boom and sending shares in chipmakers and cloud companies lower before U.S. futures rebounded Friday, Oct. 9.
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. That figure sat about $20 billion (€17.8bn) below a higher number circulated the previous month. But OpenAI hadn’t missed a target or lost sales: the roughly $70 billion (€62.5bn) figure was an estimate, not a company forecast, and it used a different accounting method.
What the figures count
OpenAI leaves out customer spending on its AI models through cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud when calculating revenue. The higher estimate came from OpenAI’s backers, who recalculated sales using the method of rival Anthropic, which counts that spending. The two approaches make direct comparisons difficult.
On its face, OpenAI’s reported figure sat below the $65 billion (€58bn) Anthropic reportedly reached at the end of July. OpenAI hadn’t publicly reacted to the reports when the article was written.
The uncertainty came as OpenAI, valued at $852 billion (€760bn) in March, reportedly sought at least $30 billion (€26.7bn) in new funding at a $1.4 trillion (€1.25tn) valuation. Investors now face sharply different measures of the company’s financial scale: its reported revenue and its proposed funding valuation.
Markets respond
Companies heavily invested in OpenAI’s growth took some of the biggest hits Thursday. Oracle, which agreed to supply the company with extensive computing power, fell 5.5%. AI cloud specialist CoreWeave, with multibillion-dollar contracts with OpenAI, lost nearly 8%.
Microsoft, a major OpenAI shareholder, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta each fell by more than 1%. Like Oracle, those four hyperscalers are investing heavily in AI data centres. Nvidia fell almost 3%, AMD dropped around 4%, and Broadcom, which is building a custom chip with OpenAI, fell 4.35%.
SoftBank Group shares fell as much as 7.3% in Tokyo on Friday before recovering some losses. The company owns about 13% of OpenAI. Nasdaq 100 futures stood about 0.8% higher, while S&P 500 futures were up 0.4% in early trading. The Nasdaq had fallen 1.25% amid the revenue report and investor uncertainty.
Europe’s place in the AI trade
Other company results pointed to continued demand for AI hardware. Samsung estimated Thursday that 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, beating the $63.7 billion (€56.8bn) in operating income U.S. chip designer Nvidia recorded in its latest quarter.
Taiwan’s TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, said September sales rose 54.6% year on year, lifting third-quarter revenue to a record NT$1.49 trillion, or $46.8 billion (€41.8bn). Dutch chip-equipment maker ASML was due to report on Oct. 14, followed by TSMC on Oct. 15. Investors expect a clearer picture of demand.
Potential listings by Anthropic as soon as November and by OpenAI the following year could make their audited accounts public. The article also noted UBS was the only European bank in an AI-adoption top 10 led by JPMorgan Chase. Those details bring European companies and investors into view as reported AI revenues, valuations and hardware demand face scrutiny.