OpenAI revenue confusion rattles the AI stock trade
A report that OpenAI's annualised revenue is about $20 billion lower than a figure cited last month hit US tech shares on Thursday. The gap reflects a different way of counting revenue, not lost sales.
US stock markets looked set to claw back some losses on Friday morning after confusion over how much money OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, actually earns unsettled investors on Thursday. Nasdaq 100 futures were up about 0.8% and S&P 500 futures about 0.4%.
What happened
On Thursday the Financial Times reported that OpenAI's annualised revenue, which scales recent sales up to a full year, was "approaching $50 billion" at the end of September, according to figures shared with investors. That is roughly $20 billion below the around $70 billion figure cited last month.
The difference does not mean the company missed a target or lost sales. The $70 billion number was an estimate rather than a company forecast, and it relied on another counting method. The FT said OpenAI's backers recalculated sales to match rival Anthropic's approach, which treats customer spending on its AI models through cloud platforms such as Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud as revenue. OpenAI excludes such sales. Anthropic reportedly reached $65 billion at the end of July, though the differing methods make direct comparison hard. OpenAI has not publicly responded.
The numbers matter because OpenAI was valued at $852 billion in March and is reportedly seeking at least $30 billion in new funding at a $1.4 trillion valuation.
Market reaction
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 1.25% to about 27,193, and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index dropped 3.4%. Oracle slid 5.5% and CoreWeave lost nearly 8%. Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet and Meta each fell by more than 1%. Nvidia lost almost 3%, AMD about 4% and Broadcom 4.35%. In Tokyo, SoftBank Group, which owns about 13% of OpenAI, fell as much as 7.3% before trimming its losses.
Chip demand still strong
Samsung estimated record third-quarter operating profit of 107.4 trillion won ($80.2 billion). Taiwan's TSMC said September sales rose 54.6% year-on-year, with record third-quarter revenue of $46.8 billion. Clearer signals should come when ASML reports on 14 October and TSMC on 15 October.
