Key Points
Quantinuum released its first earnings report as a publicly traded company last night.
It didn't actually "earn" anything -- but its sales nearly quadrupled year over year.
When pure-play quantum computing stock Quantinuum (NASDAQ: QNT) stock made its Nasdaq debut two months ago, the stock -- which technically IPO'ed at $60 a share -- actually began trading at $68 a share.
Today, it's back at $68 once again, its stock price up 24.1% as of 1:55 p.m. ET -- and earnings are the reason.
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Quantinuum Q2 earnings
Quantinuum stock soared as high as $86 a share in the first month after its IPO -- a gain of as much as 43% over its nominal IPO price -- before falling below $50 per share (a loss of more than 20%) as investors turned risk-averse in late July. Now that we finally have some earnings to examine, though, investors may find more solid reasons to want to buy (or sell) Quantinuum stock.
So what did Quantinuum report last night?
Sales growth for one thing. Q2 sales grew 279% year over year to $8 million. Losses for another -- Quantinuum booked a $596.5 million net loss for the quarter -- more than ten times its year-ago loss.
What's next for Quantinuum stock
On the plus side, cash burn was less extreme. So far this year, Quantinuum has burned "only" $168.3 million. That still leaves the company $2.1 billion in the bank after its big IPO payday.
While the bad news is that analysts expect Quantinuum to continue burning cash, and indeed to run through roughly $1 billion over the next couple of years, the good news is that Quantinuum appears to have more than enough cash to pay for this -- and perhaps to emerge on the other side, free cash flow-positive and finally self-funding, in 2030.
Fingers crossed.
Rich Smith has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.