OpenAI's Third-Quarter Revenue Tops $10 Billion for the First Time as Operating Loss Widens to $10.9 Billion

• Dispatched: Nov 11, 2026 · 02:38 ET (07:38 UTC)

One-sentence summary: OpenAI's revenue reached about $10 billion in the third quarter of 2026, the first quarter above $10 billion and up nearly 50% sequentially, taking its annualized run rate to about $50 billion — while its operating loss widened to $10.9 billion, showing the leading AI lab's revenue growth and cash burn scaling together.

Verification status: ✓ Reported by The Wall Street Journal citing financial documents shared with investors, cross-reported by Bloomberg the same day, and confirmed in part by the chief financial officer in a CNBC interview; OpenAI is privately held and has published no audited financial statements.

Core Facts & Consensus Delta:

The financial documents were shared with investors on November 10, and The Wall Street Journal reported them that evening (the earliest retrieved roundup was published at 18:53 ET on November 10 / 23:53 UTC). OpenAI's third-quarter revenue was about $10 billion, up nearly 50% from $6.7 billion in the second quarter — when sequential growth was 18% — and from $5.7 billion in the first quarter. It was the company's first quarter above $10 billion, with an annualized run rate of about $50 billion. The operating loss widened to $10.9 billion from $10.1 billion in the second quarter, while the adjusted operating margin improved to -109% from -150%, still implying more than $1 of adjusted operating loss per $1 of revenue.

Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar told CNBC that enterprise revenue doubled quarter over quarter and that revenue is now split roughly evenly between enterprise and consumer customers; weekly active users reached 1.2 billion. The figures are unaudited: OpenAI publishes no audited statements, and the documents were reported from investor disclosures.

For comparison, Anthropic's third-quarter revenue was about $16.96 billion with an operating loss of $567 million, according to its amended S-1 filing — but the two companies recognize revenue differently (Anthropic books partner sales gross, OpenAI books only its net share), so a direct comparison is imprecise.

Supply-Chain & Market Read-Through: OpenAI's compute spending is one of the core engines of AI infrastructure demand, and its revenue growth and loss trajectory together determine how sustainable the current spending pace is: nearly 50% sequential revenue growth supports orders for Nvidia accelerators, HBM and memory from SK Hynix (000660.KS), Samsung Electronics (005930.KS), Micron (MU) and SanDisk (SNDK), and for Neocloud capacity from providers such as CoreWeave and Oracle. At the same time, a quarterly operating loss of $10.9 billion means the company must keep raising outside capital to fund that pace — its new round targets up to about $20 billion, with a first close of about $11 billion already funded. Any slowdown in funding or enterprise revenue growth would transmit along the GPU, HBM and data-center leasing chain. This is a mechanism analysis only, not a view on any share price.

Next Catalysts & Watchpoints:

• Further closes and valuation updates for OpenAI's new funding round (targeting up to about $20 billion).
• November 18 (expected): Anthropic IPO pricing; November 19 (expected): first trading — a valuation anchor for the sector.
• November 17, after the close (Eastern time): Nvidia's third-quarter earnings, a supply-side check on AI demand strength.

Sources:

• Particle (citing The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg) (Published: 2026-11-10 18:53 ET / 23:53 UTC)
• Storyboard18 (citing The Wall Street Journal) (Published: 2026-11-10 23:09 ET / 2026-11-11 04:09 UTC)
• Indian Television (citing The Wall Street Journal and CNBC) (Published: 2026-11-11 01:36 ET / 06:36 UTC)

Information only, not investment advice.