OpenAI's quarterly revenue tops $10 billion for the first time

OpenAI's quarterly revenue has crossed $10 billion for the first time. Bloomberg reported the figure citing people familiar with the matter, and The Wall Street Journal cited documents shared with investors; the numbers were presented on an investor call on November 10.

Growth accelerates

Revenue for the third quarter, which ended in September, rose nearly 50% from the prior quarter and almost tripled from a year earlier. According to TechCrunch, OpenAI reportedly booked $6.7 billion in the second quarter, when quarter-on-quarter growth was about 18%.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told Yahoo Finance that growth was driven by OpenAI's frontier research and its enterprise business, which she said doubled quarter over quarter. Revenue is now split roughly 50/50 between enterprise and consumer, she said. OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue stood at about $50 billion at the end of September.

Losses remain steep

Profitability is improving but still distant. The WSJ reported that operating losses widened to $10.9 billion from $10.1 billion, while the adjusted operating margin improved to -109% from -150%. Bloomberg attributed the rebound to newer models, lower prices and a push toward AI agents that take over routine tasks.

Competitive backdrop

The figures land as rival Anthropic prepares an IPO at a valuation of about $1.4 trillion. Anthropic overtook OpenAI in quarterly revenue for the first time in the second quarter. The two companies calculate revenue differently: Anthropic counts sales made by its cloud partners, while OpenAI counts only its share of some partner sales.

OpenAI declined to comment.

Sources: TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Reuters/WSJ, Yahoo Finance