When the Financial Times reported OpenAI's annualized revenue was approaching $50 billion, not roughly $70 billion, it said the higher figure came from investors trying to compare OpenAI directly with Anthropic. TechCrunch notes the two companies calculate annualized revenue differently: Anthropic counts sales made through its cloud partners, while OpenAI does not.
A source told CNBC the earlier figure included gross revenue from OpenAI's partners while the later one is net. Anthropic's own third-quarter number of $16.8 billion is reported with an unclear gross-versus-net definition. For investors and customers, the practical lesson is to ask which revenue definition sits behind each headline number.
Source: TechCrunch