QoQ

OpenAI’s reported Q2 sales growth of 18% quarter over quarter, alongside Anthropic’s more than doubling of revenue, made QoQ a key lens for 2026 AI-business coverage.

Who they are

QoQ, shorthand for quarter-over-quarter, appears in the coverage as a comparison measure rather than as an operating company: reporters use it to track sequential changes in revenue, bookings, users, costs, margins, and spending across technology, media, consumer internet, and semiconductor businesses. Its frequent co-occurrence with YoY reflects how stories contrast near-term momentum with annual growth.

The recent arc

Recent coverage has shifted toward AI companies and adjacent measures of commercial traction. August 2026 reports said OpenAI’s Q2 sales rose 18% QoQ to $6.7 billion while losses and operating-margin pressure worsened, whereas Anthropic’s sales more than doubled to $11.6 billion and it reached a small operating profit. A Financial Times report on legal-AI startup Legora likewise used 50% QoQ ARR growth as evidence behind its fundraising discussions, while February coverage cited Cohere’s 50%+ quarterly growth and roughly 70% gross margins in 2025.

The tension

The coverage repeatedly puts sequential growth beside the quality and cost of that growth. That was explicit in the OpenAI-Anthropic comparison, where rapid revenue expansion did not carry the same profitability outcome, and in ASML’s Q4 report, where bookings jumped 169% QoQ ahead of its 2025 sales outlook. Across sectors, QoQ supplies the near-term test of whether a company’s headline momentum is accelerating, flattening, or being bought at a high cost.

Why it matters

If AI and infrastructure reporting continues to center on quarterly disclosures and investor materials, QoQ will remain a compact gauge for separating recurring commercial momentum from slower annual comparisons. But sequential changes can be volatile and seasonal, so the most useful coverage will continue to read them alongside margins, losses, bookings, and YoY measures rather than treat a single quarterly rate as conclusive.

Related: YoY · CNBC · ASML reports Q4 net profit of €2.69B on €9.26B net sales, net bookings · Disney reports Q2 Disney+ subscribers down 2% QoQ to 157.8M, vs. ~163M · Snap reports Q3 revenue of $298M, vs. $283M estimated, up 43% YoY, and