Oracle's unbooked revenue reaches US$664bn
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The story behind it
A report put OpenAI's revenue US$20 billion short, and Oracle fell 5.48% Read the edition →Oracle on the calendar
Next results: date to come. It goes on the calendar as soon as Oracle announces it. Economic calendar →
The story behind it
A report put OpenAI's revenue US$20 billion short, and Oracle fell 5.48% Read the edition →Oracle on the calendar
Next results: date to come. It goes on the calendar as soon as Oracle announces it. Economic calendar →What the chart shows
Oracle reports a figure called remaining performance obligations: contracts it has signed but not yet turned into revenue. At the end of May 2019 it stood at US$36.2 billion, a little below that year's revenue of US$39.5 billion. At the end of May 2026 it was US$638 billion, against revenue of US$67.4 billion for the year, and by 31 August it had reached US$664 billion.
That is why a report about another company moved Oracle's shares on Thursday. The Financial Times said OpenAI, one of Oracle's largest cloud customers, had given investors a lower annualised revenue figure than the one widely reported last month. Part of the gap came down to counting: Anthropic includes sales made through cloud partners, and OpenAI does not.
Friday's Sharespective asks whether that gap is bookkeeping or a sign that AI customers are earning short of what the build-out assumes.
The numbers
Revenue Oracle booked in each financial year to May, against revenue signed but not yet booked at the year's end, in US$bn. Its latest year booked 67.4.
| Revenue booked in the financial year | Signed but not yet booked, at year end | |
|---|---|---|
| FY19 | 39.5 | 36.2 |
| FY20 | 39.1 | 37.0 |
| FY21 | 40.5 | 41.3 |
| FY22 | 42.4 | 46.6 |
| FY23 | 50.0 | 67.9 |
| FY24 | 53.0 | 97.9 |
| FY25 | 57.4 | 137.8 |
| FY26 | 67.4 | 638.0 |
How we make these charts: one chart a day from a story in the edition, drawn from the figures the story names and checked against the sources named on the chart before it is published. General information only, not financial advice.
