IonQ Q1 2026 earnings: record revenue growth, raised guidance, one-time gain lifts GAAP profit
IonQ's revenue jumped 755% year-over-year to a record $64.7M, and it raised full-year guidance, though its GAAP profit was driven mainly by a one-time non-cash accounting gain.
| Q1 2026 | Reported |
|---|---|
| EPS | $2.07 |
| Revenue | $64.7M |
Figures as reported by the company to the SEC for the quarter ended March 31, 2026. Analyst estimates are not part of a filing, so no comparison to expectations is shown.
Key takeaways
- Revenue came in at $64.7 million, up 755% from the same quarter a year earlier, which the company said was about 30% above the midpoint of the guidance range it had given investors. Growth was driven by system sales and demand from commercial customers.
- The company reported a large GAAP net income and per-share profit for the quarter, but that swing to profit was mainly due to a $1.06 billion non-cash accounting gain from the changing value of warrants (a type of financial instrument tied to the company’s stock), not from selling more computing capacity than it spent on the business.
- Excluding that one-time item, the underlying quantum-computing business is still spending far more than it takes in: operating margin over the trailing twelve months was deeply negative, meaning operating costs ran many times higher than revenue. Gross margin, which measures profit on what IonQ actually sells before overhead costs, was about 36% over the same period.
- Remaining Performance Obligations — future revenue already contracted but not yet delivered — reached a record $470 million, up 554% year over year, a sign of a growing pipeline of committed business beyond this quarter’s results.
- Commercial customers made up about 60% of revenue and international sales about 35%, while roughly a third of revenue came from customers buying more than one type of product across IonQ’s computing, networking, and sensing lines.
- IonQ raised its full-year 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $260 million to $270 million, up from its prior forecast of $225 million to $245 million, and pointed to second-quarter revenue of $65 million to $68 million.
- CEO Niccolo de Masi called it the company’s fourth consecutive quarter of record results, and management highlighted progress toward larger quantum machines, including the company’s first sale of a 256-qubit system and receipt of initial chip samples for that system from the manufacturer.
- Management also published what it described as a first-of-its-kind architectural blueprint for building a fault-tolerant quantum computer — a more reliable machine that can correct its own errors — which it says supports its long-term technology roadmap.
Q1 2026 in context
| Metric | Mar 2026 | Mar 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenue | $65M | $8M | +754.7% |
| Net income | $805M | -$32M | +2597.1% |
| Free cash flow | -$159M | -$35M | -351.1% |
| Diluted EPS | $2.07 | -$0.14 | +1578.6% |
| Operating margin | -419.8% | -1000.3% | +580.4 pts |
| Net margin | 1245.4% | -426.3% | +1671.7 pts |
Figures for the quarter ended Mar 2026 and the quarter ended Mar 2025, as reported to the SEC.
How the stock took it
IONQ Inc closed at $52.57 on May 6, 2026, the last session before the report, and at $49.24 on May 8, 2026, the first session after it — -6.3% across the report.
| Earlier report | Close before | Close after | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 5, 2025 | $53.38 | $57.43 | +7.6% |
| Aug 6, 2025 | $42.02 | $40.49 | -3.6% |
Closes from the market's daily record. Each figure spans the report date — from the last session that closed before it to the first that closed after — because a company may report before the open or after the close.
Sources: company report · IonQ press release · earnings call