Quantum News Nexus

Writing about IonQ’s quarterly earnings is like playing a broken record, and in IonQ’s case the part that keeps repeating is the catchiest refrain from the firm’s biggest hit, as positive revenue and earnings news just keeps flowing.

That happened again this week, as IonQ posted $64.7 million revenue for the first quarter of 2026, representing 755% year-over-year growth, for the biggest quarterly take in company history. Needless to say, this revenue mark was well above expectations.

IonQ also introduced a new revenue metric–multi-product sales–that is designed to showcase how much of a “one-stop shop” it is becoming for quantum computing, sensing, security, networking, and more. IonQ Inder Singh said during the company’s earnings call, “Multi-product sales means what percent of our revenue came from customers who have now bought more than one product from us—for example, computing, networking, sensing, security, etc. I am pleased to report that in Q1, over one-third of our revenue came from multi-product sales.”

There is more to go over from this earnings report, and I hope to have more analysis before the weekend, but for now, one other thing worth mentioning is the status of IonQ’s pending acquisition of chipmaker and “quantum foundry” SkyWater Technology. IonQ did not have much to say during the earnings report, but the deal is still on track to close later this year. However, there have been recent reports that the deal is facing increasing scrutiny from federal regulators.

After earnings, IonQ stock (IONQ) was down almost 6% to under $50 per share. Hard to know what to make of that, but it had gone on a bit of a run recently in anticipation of a strong quarter. Analysts seem to have had an overwhelmingly positive reaction to the first quarter report, so perhaps upgrades are on the way.

UPDATE: Wedbush did raise its IonQ price target from $60 per share to $75.

FURTHER UPDATE: IonQ also expects the good vibes to continue in the second quarter and the rest of this year, as it guided Q2 revenue to land between $65 million and $68 million, and also raised its full-year revenue projection to the range of $260 million to $270 million, the low end of which would represent a doubling of 2025’s full-year revenue.

IonQ also said it expects 100% year-over-year organic growth for 2026, compared to 80% growth in 2025.

For those who see quantum as a market where the government is the only real buyer right now, IonQ countered by stating the 60% of Q1 revenue came from commercial (non-US government) customers (Of course, the company is getting plenty of work with the US government as well, and has been pretty tight with the Trump administration.

Recent international efforts also have started to pay off for IonQ, as 35% of revenue during Q1 originated outside the US, with sales spanning to more than 30 countries.

Image source: IonQ

Quantum News Nexus is a site from freelance writer and editor Dan O’Shea that covers quantum computing, quantum sensing, quantum networking, quantum-safe security, and more. You can find him on X @QuantumNewsGuy and doshea14@gmail.com.