A Thursday When One Number Moved AI Stocks
AI stocks fell on Thursday 8 October after a revised revenue figure surfaced. OpenAI told investors its annualized revenue at the end of September was roughly $50 billion, lower than the $68 billion that had been widely reported late in September, and the Financial Times was first to report it.
CNBC reports that the market learned more details about OpenAI's revenue that day and that shares of AI names sank.
| Company | Move on 8 October |
|---|---|
| Nvidia | -3% |
| Oracle | nearly -6% |
| CoreWeave | nearly -8% |
| AMD | -4% |
| Broadcom | -4% |
| Intel | -5% |
| Super Micro | nearly -5% |
OpenAI shared the figure in an investor presentation, a person familiar with it told CNBC, along with 77% run-rate growth for the third quarter and 107% for its enterprise business.
Three Numbers For One Company
The gap comes mainly from what was counted.
| Figure | What it is | Source |
|---|---|---|
| About $50 billion | OpenAI's annualized revenue for September, as told to investors | CNBC, Reuters, Financial Times |
| $68 billion | Widely reported in late September; reportedly included gross revenue from OpenAI's partners | CNBC |
| Approaching $70 billion | The run rate OpenAI had earlier indicated to investors for September | Reuters |
| $65 billion | Anthropic's annualized revenue at the end of July | CNBC, Reuters |
A person familiar told CNBC that the $68 billion figure included gross revenue from OpenAI's partners, which allows a more direct comparison with Anthropic. Reuters' source says the discrepancy mainly arose from an attempt to produce that comparison.
Reuters adds the mechanism. OpenAI, unlike Anthropic, does not include revenue from sales through cloud partners such as AWS and Google Cloud. Anthropic pays those partners about 16% of every dollar earned through them, and a Reuters analysis shows such sales were half of Anthropic's revenue last year.
What A Run Rate Leaves Out
A run rate is an annualized snapshot, not revenue that has been booked. Reuters notes that analysts consider it a sometimes misleading metric, often built by multiplying one month's revenue by 12, though it has become popular among fast-growing startups.
Quarterly revenue is a plainer number. For the second quarter Reuters reports OpenAI at $6.7 billion and Anthropic at $11.5 billion, the first quarter in which Anthropic's revenue passed OpenAI's, and it says OpenAI started 2026 with $20 billion of annualized revenue against $6 billion in 2024.
None of the sources says these figures share one definition, so the same question applies to them.
Why The Definition Matters Before A Prospectus
Both companies are preparing to go public, and that process is likely to give investors a clearer view of their finances, Reuters notes.
CNBC reports that OpenAI is under pressure to justify an $852 billion valuation, with a prospectus filed confidentially in June and a debut expected in 2027, and that Anthropic is reportedly seeking a $2 trillion valuation after telling investors in August that its run rate reached $65 billion at the end of July. Until a prospectus fixes the definitions, every headline figure is the company's own.
Three Questions Before You Rely On A Vendor's Headline
Which definition? Ask whether the figure is gross or net, run rate or recognised revenue, and whether partner revenue is in or out. A growth rate means nothing until you know what is being grown.
Compared with what? Put two vendors side by side only on one basis. A rival's number built differently is not a benchmark, however close the two figures look.
What does your contract rest on? If a supplier's continuity matters to you, ask for recognised revenue and for exit terms in the contract, such as data export and transition help, and do not size the dependency from a run-rate quote. For a buyer in the EU or UK that is a procurement question, not a view on either company.
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