OpenAI's third-quarter revenue reaches $10 billion, with quarter-over-quarter growth rising to nearly 50%

Zhidongxi News, November 11: Today, The Information reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that OpenAI disclosed on an investor call that its third-quarter revenue reached $10 billion (about RMB 67.2 billion), 2.6 times that of the same period last year, with the quarter-over-quarter growth rate rising from 17% in the second quarter to nearly 50%.

The report also said that OpenAI is seeking to raise a new round of financing at a valuation of $1.25 trillion (about RMB 8.4 trillion).

Today, OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar revealed in an interview with Yahoo Finance that the enterprise business doubled quarter-over-quarter in the third quarter, while consumer business revenue grew 20% quarter-over-quarter; the two parts now each contribute about half of revenue.

The acceleration in revenue reduced the proportion of OpenAI's losses to revenue, but the loss amount is still increasing. According to a report by The Information today, the company's third-quarter operating loss increased from $10.1 billion (about RMB 67.9 billion) in the second quarter to $10.9 billion (about RMB 73.2 billion), which on that basis represents a quarter-over-quarter expansion of about 8%, while the adjusted operating margin improved from -150% in the second quarter to -109%.

▲OpenAI Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar (Source: Yahoo Finance)

On the enterprise side, OpenAI is increasing investment in coding tools and seeking more large enterprise contracts. According to a report by The Information today, the company is putting more resources into Codex while abandoning some projects such as video applications. Market demand for GPT-5.6, GPT-6 Astra and image models drove sales of OpenAI's model API services. Enterprises and developers can integrate the models into their own software and workflows and pay based on usage.

On the consumer side, OpenAI generates revenue through paid subscriptions and advertising. According to a report by The Information today, OpenAI's paid users reached nearly 100 million in the third quarter, with about 22 million new paid users and 200 million free users added during the quarter. The report also mentioned that OpenAI disclosed in October that its weekly active users reached 1.2 billion, the vast majority of whom are free users. ChatGPT paid users account for about 8.5% of weekly active users, a ratio slightly higher than the previous quarter.

Advertising is also expanding OpenAI's revenue sources. According to OpenAI, as of the end of August, less than 200 days after the ChatGPT advertising business launched, it had attracted tens of thousands of advertisers and reached an annualized revenue level of $1 billion (about RMB 6.7 billion).

In the third quarter, OpenAI launched a series of model updates. On September 4, OpenAI released GPT-6 Astra, aimed at scenarios such as programming, computer operation and professional work. On September 30, the company launched the lower-priced GPT-6.1 Sol. Evaluations published by OpenAI show that on the DeepSWE v1.1 test, which examines complex software engineering tasks in real codebases, GPT-6.1 Sol reached the level of GPT-6 Astra, with task costs about one-fifth of GPT-6 Astra.

On the image business side, on September 9, OpenAI launched Images 2.5, updating image generation and editing capabilities and simultaneously providing an API model. OpenAI said that compared with Images 2.0, the new version reduces image generation latency by up to 50%.

In seeking enterprise customers and financing, OpenAI also faces competition from Anthropic. Anthropic's prospectus updated on November 10 shows that its third-quarter revenue was $16.956 billion (about RMB 113.9 billion), up about 46.7% quarter-over-quarter. The two companies' quarter-over-quarter revenue growth rates were close, but Anthropic's revenue scale was about 1.7 times that of OpenAI.

According to a Bloomberg report on November 7, OpenAI has completed the first tranche of funding for this round, amounting to about $11 billion (about RMB 73.9 billion).

OpenAI initially planned to raise at least $30 billion (about RMB 201.6 billion) at a valuation of $1.4 trillion (about RMB 9.4 trillion), then, affected by the decline in the public market for the AI sector, lowered the valuation to $1.25 trillion and reduced the financing target to a maximum of $20 billion (about RMB 134.4 billion).

Previously, OpenAI had considered going public in 2026. But on September 13, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed in an interview with Fortune that the company would not go public in 2026.

Conclusion: Enterprise business doubled quarter-over-quarter, but revenue acceleration has not yet reduced OpenAI's losses

The enterprise business is providing stronger growth momentum for OpenAI. In the third quarter, the enterprise business doubled quarter-over-quarter, with a growth rate significantly higher than the consumer business, and the two sides now each account for about half of revenue. Model demand drove API sales, and enterprise tools also became important products for the company to win customers. But how much growth specific products and customers each contributed has not yet been disclosed by the company as of now.

However, revenue acceleration has not yet reduced OpenAI's losses. Although the company's adjusted operating margin has improved, the loss amount is still increasing. For OpenAI, which still needs financing to support business development, beyond expanding revenue, it also needs to control the costs incurred by growth.

Source: The Information, Yahoo Finance