OpenAI says Q3 revenue jumped 50% to $10 billion

OpenAI told investors on Tuesday, November 10, that its third-quarter revenue rose about 50% to roughly $10 billion, The Information reported, citing a person familiar with the matter. The ChatGPT maker attributed the rebound from a period of slower growth to demand for its newer models and enterprise products. The numbers put OpenAI's quarterly growth roughly level with rival Anthropic's for the first time this year, and they arrived on the same day Anthropic started marketing its planned stock market debut.theinformation.com

Enterprise doubles

Later on Tuesday, Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told Yahoo Finance that revenue grew nearly 50% from the prior quarter to $10 billion and that the company's annual run rate is about $50 billion. "Our enterprise business doubled quarter over quarter," she said, adding that revenue is now split evenly between enterprise and consumer customers, according to Yahoo Finance. Friar pointed to coding and cybersecurity products and to Dots, OpenAI's AI agent platform for businesses. She said consumer sales rose 20% from the previous quarter, paid subscriptions passed 100 million, and weekly active users reached 1.2 billion.finance.yahoo.com

The figure was a sharp acceleration. OpenAI had reported second-quarter revenue of about $6.7 billion, and growth that quarter was 18%, Yahoo Finance's Deirdre Bosa noted. Friar's earlier public comments, including a CNBC interview on November 6 in which she said the business "grew 70 percent quarter over quarter," referred to growth in the annualized run rate rather than reported quarterly revenue.finance.yahoo.com+1

Neck and neck with Anthropic

Anthropic's third-quarter revenue rose 47% from the previous quarter to $16.96 billion, down from 144% growth in the second quarter, according to its IPO filing as reported by the Miami Herald. Bosa said the two companies' quarterly growth rates are now "basically neck and neck," while noting that Anthropic still brings in far more revenue and that the companies count cloud-partner sales differently, Yahoo Finance reported.miamiherald.com+1

Friar said Anthropic's success showed her the value of distribution deals with outside cloud providers. "Part of it was we were really stuck on this ] Azure contract that we had," she said, adding that loosening it "can be a very big tailwind in 2027," according to Yahoo Finance.finance.yahoo.com

Funding backdrop

The results come as OpenAI raises money ahead of a possible public listing. It recently secured $11 billion at a $1.25 trillion valuation, below its initial $1.5 trillion target, IBTimes reported, citing Reuters. Anthropic's offering could price around November 18 and begin trading as early as November 19, according to the same report. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment from Seeking Alpha.seekingalpha.com+1