IonQ has announced its Q4 and full year 2024 financial results. A quick summary of some key financial metrics comparing Q4 2024 versus Q3 2024 and the year ago quarter of Q4 2023 as well as a comparison of full year 2024 versus 2023 is shown in the chart below.
Company executives called 2024 IonQ’s best year ever and believes that 2025 will be a great year for them too. The company beat their previous revenue expectations for both Q4 and the full year 2024. They also slightly beat their previous expectations for full year 2024 books. Although the company’s 2024 net loss of $331.6 million was more than double the 2023 net loss, a significant portion of that loss was due to a loss from a change in fair value of warrant liabilities, which is a non-cash expense. Nonetheless, the 2024 Net Loss per Share of $0.93 was not taken favorably by Wall Street which had expected something more like $0.23. This caused a decline in the conpany’s stock price from $29.93 at the close of the market today to $26.86 at the end of after hours trading.
The company had several other major announcements that they made in this financial report and management call. They have announced a announced they have reached a definitive agreement with both SK Telecom and ID Quantique (IDQ) to acquire a controlling interest in ID Quantique. Although there will still be some minority shareholders who will still hold interest in the company, IonQ will be integrating IDQ’s team, products, networking business, and patent portfolio into their company. The overall percentage of ownership that IonQ will have in IDQ has not yet been made public, but a statement in IonQ’s 8-K SEC filing indicates that this will be a stock transaction with IonQ paying up to approximately 5.2 million shares of common stock. At the price of $29.93, this would be valued at about $155 million for the portion that IonQ will own. Of course, the value will likely change over the next few months because the transaction is not expected to close until later this year.
SK Telecom previously had made an investment of $65 million in ID Quantique in 2018 for a reported ownership stake of over 50% at that time. In conjunction with this acquisition, IonQ has entered into Memorandum of Understanding for a strategic partnership with SK Telecom.
This is the third networking company that IonQ will have acquired. Previously, in January 2023 the company acquired the assets of Canadian company Entangled Networks. And in January of this year, the company announced it has completed the acquisition of substantially all the assets of California company Qubitekk. Due to these previous deals as well as its own work, IonQ indicated that it will own or control nearly 900 patents related to quantum technology once the deal closes.
A key message from these transactions is that IonQ is no longer solely a company working in the quantum computing area. They now see quantum networking as the second major product area for the company. Although it was clear they needed some of this networking technology in order to establish QPU to QPU connections within a data center to provide larger processing systems, they now will be pursuing longer distance quantum networks beyond the walls of a data center too. This later application requires additional components, such as a Quantum Random Number Generator (QRNG), which they did not previously possess and will now obtain with IDQ.
Although IonQ still was holding significant a cash balance of $363.8 million at the end of 2024, they have decided to add a capability to add to their “war chest” by concluding an equity distribution agreement with Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and Needham & Company LLC that allows them to sell up to $500 million of their common shares in an “at-the-market” equity offering program. The company indicated that they wanted to have this in place partially due to their strategy of expanding their offerings into the quantum networking and new lines of growth in promising application areas.
Finally, the company announced management changes with Peter Chapman moving to the position of Executive Chair, board member NIccolo de Masi moving to the position of President and CEO, the addition of Gabrielle Toledano to its Board of Directors, and the resignation of Harry You who decided to step down from the Board to lead a private AI-healthcare company
Additional deals about all these announcements can be found in the company’s Q4 and year end 2024 financial report here, a press release announcing the IDQ acquisition here, the announcement of Niccolo de Masi as President and CEO here, the latest SEC 8-K filing here. and the company’s 10-K annual report here.
February 26, 2025
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