Q3 sales reach $16.96 billion, up 46.7% quarter-on-quarter; operating profit swings to loss

[Reuters]
[Reuters]

US AI company Anthropic posted third-quarter sales more than 12 times higher than a year earlier, while its net loss shrank nearly 65% from the previous quarter. The investment community expects the company's valuation to reach around $1.5 trillion.

According to a disclosure Anthropic filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday (local time), third-quarter sales came in at $16.96 billion, up 1,127% from a year earlier. That also represented a 46.7% increase from the prior quarter's $11.56 billion.

Net loss for the same period totaled $23.29 billion, down 64.9% from $66.3 billion in the previous quarter.

The bulk of the net loss stemmed from accounting valuation losses. Of the third-quarter net loss, $21.9 billion reflected mark-to-market adjustments on convertible bonds and other securities. Excluding those items, the net loss is estimated at around $1.4 billion.

Operating profit swung to a loss. The company had recorded $974 million in operating profit the prior quarter but posted an operating loss of $567 million in the third quarter.

Large-scale spending commitments to expand AI infrastructure are expected to weigh on the company's finances going forward. As of the end of September, Anthropic had committed $895.4 billion to secure cloud computing capacity and data center infrastructure.

Of that total, $447.5 billion is scheduled to be deployed by the end of 2030. Payments due within the next 12 months alone amount to $69.8 billion.

The company said its revenue growth rate is far outpacing the rise in infrastructure costs. While third-quarter sales surged 1,127% year-on-year, computing and infrastructure costs grew 382% over the same period. Anthropic attributed the divergence to improved computational efficiency in its AI models, which has reduced the relative cost burden of driving revenue growth.

Market attention is now focused on the initial public offering planned for this month. Anthropic filed a registration statement with the SEC on Oct. 26 and formally launched the listing process. The company plans to list Class A common shares on NASDAQ this month under the ticker symbol "ANT."

According to Reuters and Bloomberg, the investment community values Anthropic at around $1.5 trillion ahead of its listing — approaching the $1.8 trillion valuation SpaceX carried when it went public in June.

"Despite strong growth, long-term payment obligations, dependence on cloud partners, and limited shareholder rights combined with equity dilution could act as discount factors in the valuation," said Kim Seok-hwan, a researcher at Mirae Asset Securities.


moon@heraldcorp.com