Q2 Revenue Grows Only 18%! OpenAI "Stumbles," Far Behind Anthropic

OpenAI's growth momentum is facing severe tests. The developer of ChatGPT saw its Q2 revenue increase by only 18% quarter-over-quarter, disappointing some investors and paling in comparison to competitor Anthropic—the latter not only exceeded OpenAI's revenue in the same period but also achieved growth rates far surpassing industry expectations.

On Wednesday, citing insiders, The Wall Street Journal reported that OpenAI's Q2 revenue was $6.7 billion, an 18% increase from $5.7 billion in Q1, while operating losses continued to widen, casting a shadow over the company's highly anticipated IPO prospects.

In contrast, Anthropic's revenue for the same period exceeded $11.5 billion, representing a quarter-over-quarter increase of over 140%. It surpassed this older competitor in quarterly revenue for the first time and achieved a slight operating profit.

The divergence in performance between the two companies reflects profound changes in the AI industry's competitive landscape since the beginning of this year. Slowing growth for ChatGPT and the huge success of Anthropic's coding tool, Claude Code, are forcing OpenAI to reevaluate its business strategy and restructure its management team. OpenAI has stated to investors that its growth rate rebounded in the third quarter following the release of a batch of new models in July.

OpenAI's Growth Stalls, Losses Continue to Widen

OpenAI's Q2 revenue grew 18% quarter-over-quarter to $6.7 billion, but operating margins deteriorated further, moving the company further away from its profitability goals. This performance disappointed some shareholders who had previously expected OpenAI to demonstrate stronger catch-up momentum.

Meanwhile, OpenAI's management has recently experienced a series of upheavals. Last week, Chief Revenue Officer Denise Dresser left the company after serving for less than a year. Previously, Chief Operating Officer Brad Lightcap and Fidji Simo, once considered CEO Sam Altman's successor, also departed in succession. Frequent executive changes have intensified external concerns about OpenAI's internal stability.

Regarding revenue structure, OpenAI expects that by the end of this year, revenue from enterprise customers will account for more than half of total revenue, indicating an accelerated transition to the enterprise market. According to Axios, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman shared internally last week that the company's latest annualized revenue run rate has reached $40 billion.

Anthropic's Strong Rise, Revenue Surpasses OpenAI for the First Time

Anthropic's performance presents a stark contrast. The company's preliminary Q2 revenue exceeded $11.5 billion, more than 14 times that of the same period last year, and an increase of over 140% from $4.73 billion in Q1. This marks the first time Anthropic's quarterly revenue has surpassed OpenAI's.

More notably, while achieving explosive growth, Anthropic also realized a slight operating profit, demonstrating that its business model is gradually becoming sustainable. By the end of July, Anthropic's annualized revenue run rate had exceeded $65 billion, representing approximately a sevenfold increase from the end of last year.

One of the core engines driving Anthropic's growth is its coding tool for developers, Claude Code. Harrison Rolfes, an analyst at Pitchbook, told Axios that although the per-call cost of Anthropic's flagship model is higher, its higher accuracy means users do not need to repeatedly run queries or rely on manual review, making the comprehensive cost per task actually more competitive.

IPO Race: Anthropic May List First

At the capital market level, both companies are preparing for an IPO, but Anthropic's pace appears to be more advanced. According to Axios, Anthropic is meeting with potential new investors and plans to list in September or October of this year, with Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and JPMorgan Chase assisting in facilitating the offering.

The strategic significance of listing first cannot be ignored. The funds raised from the IPO will help the company expand the computing resources required for model inference, and listing on the capital market first may give Anthropic an additional advantage in its competition with OpenAI.

In terms of efficiency, Gavin Baker, Managing Partner at Atreides Management, told Axios, "Anthropic was previously far superior to OpenAI in token efficiency, but OpenAI has narrowed part of the gap." Both companies have reached agreements with major inference service providers and are separately laying out self-developed chips, aiming to reduce the service costs of future AI queries.

It is worth noting that there may be differences in the revenue statistical methods of the two companies, so caution should be exercised when making direct comparisons. In addition, the competitive landscape of the AI industry is changing rapidly, and any lead in a single indicator is difficult to sustain. However, it is certain that a revenue growth strategy centered on enterprise customers has proven to be the winning path at the current stage.