IonQ reports a $564 million profit, but its operations lost $433 million: a warrant gain did it

IonQ reported record third-quarter revenue of $173.8 million after the close on Thursday, up 336% from $39.9 million a year earlier, and raised its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to between $505 million and $515 million. Its earnings release, filed with the SEC, also shows net income attributable to IonQ of $564.0 million, or $1.42 a share. That profit is not what it looks like.

The number behind the number

The same release shows a loss from operations of $433.1 million, against $168.8 million a year ago. The profit comes from a single line: a $896.2 million gain on the change in fair value of warrant liabilities. A warrant liability is marked to the company's own share price each quarter, so when the stock falls, the liability shrinks and the company books a gain. No cash came in. A year earlier the same line was a loss of $881.8 million, which is why the third quarter of 2025 showed a net loss of about $1.05 billion.

IonQ itself separates the two. Its adjusted EBITDA was a loss of $133.6 million (adjusted EPS of minus $0.29), versus a loss of $48.9 million a year earlier. For the first nine months of 2026, the company reports a net loss of $498.4 million attributable to IonQ.

Where the revenue came from

Revenue is split between two segments: the IonQ platform, at $90.3 million (up 127%), and SkyWater Foundry Services, at $83.5 million. SkyWater is a chip manufacturer IonQ acquired this year, so roughly 48% of the quarter's revenue arrived through an acquisition rather than quantum computing sales. IonQ says non-IonQ quantum customer revenue at SkyWater rose more than 30% year over year, and it expects quantum computing revenue to grow 110% for the full year.

Cost of revenue, which the company reports excluding depreciation and amortization, was $135.8 million, or about 78% of revenue. A year ago it was $21.3 million on $39.9 million of revenue, or about 53%. Subtracting cost of revenue from revenue leaves roughly a 22% margin, down from roughly 47%. That is our arithmetic from the release's income statement, and it is before depreciation and amortization of $127.6 million, which grew from $24.2 million. IonQ does not break out segment margins in the release, so we cannot say how much of the squeeze comes from the foundry business.

The backlog and the cash

Remaining performance obligations, the contracted revenue not yet recognized, "more than doubled" to $1.2 billion, according to CFO Inder Singh. The company lists contracts including $33 million with SDT, $28 million through a DARPA program for optical atomic clocks and $25 million with Florida International University. It also said it advanced to Stage C of DARPA's Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, with a potential program value of up to $300 million, and that a Superion 256 system will be the first on-premise quantum computer at Nvidia's Accelerated Quantum Research Center. IonQ separately announced the acquisition of Elisity, a zero-trust security firm.

Cash, equivalents and investments were $1.7 billion at September 30, or $3.7 billion pro forma for the $2.0 billion equity offering that closed on October 16. Funding a loss of this size is why the offering matters: operating costs of $606.9 million in one quarter are about 3.5 times revenue.

What the stock was doing

The results came after the bell. IonQ closed Thursday at $26.645, down 9.8% in the regular session during a broad technology sell-off, according to Nasdaq.com. Its 52-week range is $25.89 to $73.65. How the shares react on Friday is not known at the time of writing.

What to watch

Three things decide whether this is a business or a story. First, whether the segment margin at SkyWater and in the IonQ platform improves as the backlog converts. Second, whether adjusted EBITDA losses, now $133.6 million a quarter, narrow against rising revenue. Third, how much of the guided $505 million to $515 million is acquired. Readers following the company can compare this with our earlier coverage of its Elisity deal and its Nvidia announcement.

Sources: IonQ Form 8-K and Exhibit 99.1 on SEC EDGAR; Nasdaq.com market data; Bloomberg and Seeking Alpha reported the headline results. Margin comparisons are Chronicle calculations from the filed income statement. This is market information, not investment advice.