Reports: OpenAI’s revenue rose to about $10 billion in July–September
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OpenAI’s revenue grew by about 50 per cent on the previous quarter in July–September, but its adjusted operating loss widened to $10.9 billion, the WSJ and The Information reported. Anthropic’s revenue in the same quarter was $17 billion.
The Wall Street Journal and The Information have reported on OpenAI’s finances for July–September. Heise online said the WSJ’s figures were based on material OpenAI had given its investors. Bloomberg reported the revenue figure, citing anonymous sources. TechCrunch reported the figures with a caveat: if they are true.
Quarterly revenue exceeded $10 billion for the first time, Bloomberg reported. Earlier reports put April–June revenue at $6.7 billion, up 17–18 per cent on the previous quarter. Figures cited by The Decoder put July–September revenue a year earlier at $3.9 billion.
The loss grew but shrank relative to sales
The adjusted operating loss grew from $10.1 billion to $10.9 billion, the WSJ reported. The figure excludes stock-based compensation, which totalled $2.6 billion.
The adjusted operating margin improved from −150 per cent to −109 per cent. A year earlier it was −97 per cent.
Anthropic is still ahead
Anthropic’s revenue grew 47 per cent to $17 billion in the same quarter. Its operating loss was $567 million. The losses are not directly comparable: the WSJ said Anthropic’s figure includes stock-based compensation and OpenAI’s does not.
The annual revenue run rate is the latest period’s sales scaled up to a full year. Bloomberg put OpenAI’s run rate at $50 billion. Anthropic said its run rate was $81 billion at the end of October. The companies calculate the figure differently, TechCrunch reported: Anthropic includes sales made through its cloud partners, while OpenAI counts only its own share of some partner sales.
Brockman: enterprise sales doubled
OpenAI’s president, Greg Brockman, recently said the first two quarters of the year had been difficult, Heise online reported. Brockman nevertheless spoke of an incredible turnaround in revenue. The Decoder reported Brockman as saying that the enterprise business doubled in the third quarter and now accounts for most of the company’s revenue.
According to third-party data cited by the WSJ, companies looked for cheaper alternatives to Anthropic’s Claude models, which boosted OpenAI’s API sales. This year OpenAI has cut prices for its new models, shut down its video app and invested in its coding tool Codex, The Decoder reported.
ChatGPT has about 100 million paying subscribers, or about 8.5 per cent of its weekly users, the WSJ reported. The Decoder put weekly users at 1.2 billion and said ChatGPT advertising had an annual revenue run rate of $1 billion in August.
OpenAI is raising funding at a valuation of $1.25 trillion but has secured less than half of the $30 billion it is seeking, The Decoder reported. Heise online said OpenAI plans to go public in 2027 at the earliest, while The Decoder said Anthropic plans to list as early as next week.