IonQ posts huge sales beat in Q3
IonQ posted a monster top-line beat in the third quarter, along with a smaller loss than analysts had feared.
The results:
Revenue: $39.9 million (compared to a consensus estimate of $27 million and guidance for $27 million)
Adjusted earnings per share: -$0.17 (estimate: -$0.31)
Management boosted its full-year revenue outlook to a range of $106 million to $110 million (previously $82 million to $100 million).
Shares are up nearly 4% in premarket trading on Thursday morning.
“We believe the growing momentum across a variety of applications reflects IonQ's transformation into a full-stack quantum computing platform company,” writes Needham analyst N. Quinn Bolton. “Notably, management believes that providing a QC platform will enable the company to pursue ‘triple-digit million-dollar’ awards over time.”
The prospect of government support has been a major catalyst for the quantum space in recent months, including the US government deeming the technology an R&D priority, which was followed by a report that the Trump administration was in talks to accumulate equity stakes in IonQ and its peers. That report, however, was quickly contradicted by separate reports.
Over the course of the third quarter, IonQ signed an agreement with the Department of Energy to advance the development and deployment of quantum technology in space, and also announced plans to acquire quantum sensor company Vector Atomic. It carried some of this momentum through early in Q4, claiming a “quantum computing world record” for the accuracy of its two-qubit gate model.
Shares of the trapped ion pure-play quantum computing company peaked at nearly $85 in mid-October, but slumped into the mid-$50s ahead of this report as part of a broad pullback across many speculative pockets of the market.
