Anthropic's Second Profit Amid Slowing Revenue Growth
Artificial intelligence (AI) company Anthropic has reported its second consecutive quarterly profit. While its performance continues to grow on expanding enterprise AI demand, the quarterly revenue growth rate has slowed. With a mega initial public offering (IPO) expected next month, maintaining revenue growth while securing profitability will be a key test.
According to Bloomberg and the Financial Times, FT, on the 14th (local time), Anthropic announced at a preliminary investor briefing held at its San Francisco headquarters that it recorded $16.8 billion in revenue for the third quarter of this year. This amount is approximately 3.7 times the company’s annual revenue of $4.6 billion from last year, achieved in just three months.
Profitability has also improved rapidly. Following a shift to operating profit in the second quarter of this year, Anthropic achieved an adjusted operating profit margin of over 11% in the third quarter. Free cash flow (FCF) also turned positive. Considering that the company had an operating loss exceeding $8 billion despite $4.6 billion in annual revenue last year, its profit structure has significantly improved.
However, the pace of revenue growth has slowed. Anthropic’s quarterly revenue surged by approximately 147% from $4.7 billion in the first quarter to $11.6 billion in the second quarter of this year. However, in the third quarter, it reached $16.8 billion, with the growth rate dropping to 45% compared to the previous quarter. The growth rate fell by over 100 percentage points in just one quarter. U.S. economic media outlet MarketWatch assessed, “Anthropic’s slowing revenue growth could serve as a new warning signal for the AI investment frenzy.”
Anthropic is reportedly set to begin formal investor recruitment for its IPO as early as next month and aims to list before U.S. Thanksgiving on November 26. The target company valuation is over $2 trillion.
Anthropic’s improved profitability contrasts with rival OpenAI. According to The Wall Street Journal, WSJ, OpenAI saw its second-quarter revenue increase by 18% to $6.7 billion compared to the previous quarter, but its operating loss widened from $9.3 billion in the first quarter to $12.3 billion in the second quarter.
Anthropic is focusing on expanding sales of paid services such as coding and task automation for enterprise customers. In contrast, OpenAI is investing heavily in computational costs to expand its user base, serving hundreds of millions of ChatGPT users. This structural difference in business operations is analyzed as leading to the profitability gap. Rival OpenAI has postponed its IPO to next year or later, citing concerns over AI safety.
