OpenAI's annualized revenue revised sharply down to $50B from $70B
AI and semiconductor stocks slide on growth concerns
NASDAQ, S&P 500 fall; Nvidia drops nearly 3%
Samsung Electronics logs 107.4 trillion won operating profit in Q3
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT whose technology helped spark a global AI boom, is facing fresh scrutiny after it emerged that its revenue is $20 billion lower than previously reported.
The revelation comes at a particularly striking moment: Samsung Electronics has just set a first-ever record among global tech companies by posting quarterly operating profit of more than 100 trillion won, a milestone that underscores the scale of AI-driven demand — even as the OpenAI news renews concerns about the broader AI market's growth trajectory.
According to the Financial Times and CNN, OpenAI told investors Thursday (local time) that its annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion as of the end of September.
That figure is 29 percent below the $70 billion that had been widely reported.
Earlier reports had put OpenAI's annualized revenue at $40 billion as of July. The figure ballooned to $70 billion after OpenAI said its revenue had grown more than 70 percent since July.
OpenAI did not deny the $70 billion figure when those reports circulated.
OpenAI is a private company and does not regularly disclose its financials. Annualized revenue is one of the key metrics the company uses as it seeks to attract new investment.
A source familiar with the matter said the apparent discrepancy likely stems from a miscommunication: information shared with investors while comparing OpenAI's performance with that of rival Anthropic appears to have been misunderstood.
Anthropic counts the full amount a customer pays through a cloud provider as revenue, then records the fees paid to that provider as a cost.
OpenAI, by contrast, books only its own share of sales made through partner platforms as revenue.
The analysis suggests that when investors tried to compare the two companies on an apples-to-apples basis — stripping out the accounting difference — OpenAI's annualized revenue as of July was shared as $40 billion, and the $70 billion figure was then extrapolated from that base.
The OpenAI revenue shock is nonetheless expected to weigh on AI and semiconductor markets.
US stocks closed mixed overnight as concerns about AI companies' growth prospects collided with rising geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. The NASDAQ Composite fell 1.25 percent to close at 27,193.34 on Thursday (local time), while the S&P 500 slipped 0.47 percent to 7,765.36. The Dow Jones Industrial Average bucked the trend, edging up 0.10 percent to 51,231.64.
Doubts over OpenAI's revenue figures weighed on technology stocks, with the Financial Times report stoking broader concerns about AI growth expectations. Nvidia fell 2.94 percent, while Broadcom and Micron Technology dropped 4.35 percent and 4.79 percent, respectively. AMD and SK hynix's American depositary receipts also declined, falling 3.90 percent and 4.35 percent.
Meanwhile, Samsung Electronics announced Thursday that its preliminary operating profit for the third quarter reached 107.4 trillion won, making it the first South Korean company ever to surpass the 100 trillion won mark in a single quarter. The result is up 782.5 percent from the same period a year earlier and marks the fourth consecutive quarter in which Samsung has set a new record for quarterly operating profit. Excluding Saudi Aramco, no other company in the world has reached that threshold in a single quarter. Some analysts now say Samsung could surpass Nvidia to become the world's most profitable company on an annual basis as well.
killpass@heraldcorp.com
