OpenAI Misses Key Revenue, User Targets in High-Stakes Sprint Toward IPO - WSJ

```json { "title": "OpenAI Misses Revenue and User Targets Before IPO", "metaDescription": "OpenAI missed key 2025 revenue and user targets as competition from Google Gemini and Anthropic intensifies ahead of a high-stakes IPO push.", "content": "<h2>OpenAI Misses Key Revenue and User Targets in High-Stakes Sprint Toward IPO</h2><p>OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, has missed multiple internal monthly revenue targets in early 2026, an annual revenue target, and a high-profile goal of reaching 1 billion weekly active ChatGPT users by the end of 2025 — revelations first reported by the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> on April 27, 2026, that sent shares of key OpenAI partners and suppliers sharply lower and cast fresh doubt on the company's path to a public listing.</p><p>The shortfalls come as OpenAI is racing toward a potential initial public offering expected as early as the fourth quarter of 2026 or in 2027, with a target valuation of up to $1 trillion. The company last raised $122 billion at a post-money valuation of $852 billion — described as the largest private funding round in Silicon Valley history — and reported full-year 2025 revenue of $13.1 billion, with monthly revenue of $2 billion at the time of that raise. Strong figures by most industry measures, but trailing its own internal projections.</p><h2>What the WSJ Report Revealed</h2><p>According to the <em>Wall Street Journal</em> report, OpenAI's missed targets stem from a combination of slowing user growth, subscriber defection rates, and intensifying competition. ChatGPT's global AI market share declined from 87.2% at the beginning of 2025 to 68% by early 2026, while Google's Gemini surged from 5.4% to 18.2% over the same period. Monthly user growth for ChatGPT dropped from 42% earlier in 2025 to just 13% by September 2025, and mobile downloads declined more than 8% month-over-month in October 2025.</p><p>By February 2026, ChatGPT's weekly active users had just crossed 900 million — approaching but still short of the 1 billion target the company had set for the end of 2025. OpenAI also lost ground to Anthropic in the enterprise and coding markets, contributing further to the revenue shortfalls.</p><p>The financial picture ahead is also demanding. Internal projections suggest OpenAI will post losses of $14 billion in 2026 alone, and the company does not expect to reach profitability until around 2030. HSBC analysts estimate the company may need over $207 billion in additional funding by 2030 to maintain operations. CEO Sam Altman has already committed the company to approximately $600 billion in future data center spending commitments.</p><h2>CFO Raises IPO Readiness Concerns — And Is Reportedly Sidelined</h2><p>Among the most consequential details in the <em>WSJ</em> report is the reported unease within OpenAI's own leadership. CFO Sarah Friar has expressed concern to colleagues that if revenue growth does not accelerate, the company could face difficulty funding its massive future compute agreements. She has separately raised doubts about OpenAI's readiness to go public on CEO Sam Altman's preferred schedule, telling executives and board members that the company still lacks the financial infrastructure public-market regulators demand.</p><p>A Substack analysis citing <em>The Information</em> adds another layer of complexity: Altman has reportedly excluded Friar from key financial meetings, including at least one involving server procurement. Friar reportedly does not report directly to Altman but to Fidji Simo, OpenAI's CEO of Applications — an unusual organizational structure for a company preparing for a public listing. OpenAI's board of directors has also begun more closely scrutinizing the company's computing deals, according to Yahoo Finance.</p><p>OpenAI and its leadership pushed back forcefully on the reporting. In a joint statement, Altman and Friar said: <strong>"This is ridiculous. We are totally aligned on buying as much compute as we can and working hard on it together every day."</strong></p><h2>Market Reaction: Oracle, Chipmakers, and SoftBank Take a Hit</h2><p>The <em>WSJ</em> report triggered immediate and broad market fallout among OpenAI's partners and suppliers. Oracle, which holds a $300 billion, five-year partnership to supply computing power to OpenAI, saw its shares drop approximately 4–5.5%. Chipmakers Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices declined approximately 4%, and Nvidia fell more than 1%. In Japan, SoftBank — which holds a 13% stake in OpenAI — saw its shares fall 10% following the report.</p><p>Microsoft, which has invested more than $13 billion in OpenAI since 2019, has a revised partnership under which OpenAI will cap revenue-share payments and Microsoft will no longer hold an exclusive license to OpenAI's intellectual property.</p><h2>Context: Why This Matters for the AI Industry</h2><p>OpenAI's struggles are not occurring in isolation. They reflect a broader realignment in the competitive AI landscape, where early market dominance is proving difficult to sustain as well-capitalized rivals execute aggressively. Google's Gemini has eroded ChatGPT's consumer market share substantially, and Anthropic has made inroads in enterprise and developer markets where OpenAI had previously held commanding positions.</p><p>At the same time, the company is navigating significant legal uncertainty. The Elon Musk v. Sam Altman trial opened in California on April 28, 2026, in which Musk is seeking the unwinding of OpenAI's nonprofit-to-for-profit conversion and more than $134 billion in damages — adding governance risk to an already complicated pre-IPO picture. According to Polymarket data, the probability of OpenAI completing an IPO in 2026 is currently estimated at just 51.5%.</p><p>There are genuine bright spots in the company's portfolio. OpenAI's Codex coding tool has been gaining users, and GPT-5.5 earned top marks across several industry benchmarks after its recent release — positive signals the <em>WSJ</em> itself noted. But these developments have not yet translated into the revenue acceleration or user growth the company's internal targets required.</p><h2>Expert Reactions</h2><p>Market observers have largely taken a measured view of the revelations. John Belton, portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, told CNBC: <strong>"I view the article as largely a rehash of what we already knew: OpenAI's growth seems to have slowed in late-2025 into early-2026 as the business ceded some share to Anthropic and Gemini."</strong></p><p>Belton was also careful to distinguish between OpenAI-specific dynamics and broader AI infrastructure spending trends: <strong>"There is nothing here that suggests this is an issue for the pace of spending across the sector as a whole; instead, this looks more like confirmation about OpenAI's recent market share trends."</strong></p><p>Luke Rahbari, CEO of Equity Armor Investments, offered a similarly calibrated take: <strong>"OpenAI missing its revenue targets is, in the grand scheme, a distraction."</strong></p><h2>What Comes Next</h2><p>OpenAI faces a convergence of pressures heading into the second half of 2026. The company must demonstrate accelerating revenue growth to justify its $852 billion valuation, satisfy public-market regulators' financial infrastructure requirements if it pursues an IPO, and manage approximately $600 billion in future spending commitments against a backdrop of projected $14 billion in losses this year alone. The Musk litigation adds further governance uncertainty that public-market investors will scrutinize closely.</p><p>The revised Microsoft partnership — capping revenue-share payments and ending Microsoft's exclusive IP license — signals that OpenAI is actively restructuring its commercial relationships ahead of any listing. Whether those restructurings, combined with product gains from Codex and GPT-5.5, can translate into the revenue acceleration the company needs remains an open question as of April 2026.</p><p>The HSBC estimate that OpenAI may need over $207 billion in additional funding by 2030 underscores that the company's capital requirements are not a short-term concern — they are a structural feature of the business model at its current scale. How OpenAI addresses that reality, and whether it can do so while navigating a competitive market that looks meaningfully different than it did a year ago, will define the company's trajectory in the months ahead.</p><p>For more tech news, visit our <a href=\"/news\">news section</a>.</p>", "excerpt": "OpenAI has missed multiple internal revenue targets and its goal of 1 billion weekly active ChatGPT users by end of 2025, according to a Wall Street Journal report published April 27, 2026. The revelations triggered sharp declines in shares of key partners including Oracle, Broadcom, and SoftBank, and raised fresh questions about the company's readiness for a public listing. OpenAI's CFO Sarah Friar and CEO Sam Altman issued a joint statement dismissing the reporting as 'ridiculous.'", "keywords": ["OpenAI IPO", "ChatGPT revenue targets", "OpenAI missed targets", "AI market share 2026", "OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar"], "slug": "openai-misses-revenue-user-targets-ipo-2026" } ```