Key Highlights
- Shares of QBTS climbed 2.5% to reach $20.74 during Wednesday’s session, though trading activity remained significantly below typical levels.
- Mizuho maintained its Outperform designation while adjusting the price objective down to $29 from a previous $35 following weaker-than-expected quarterly results.
- Second-quarter revenue totaled $3.1 million, falling short of the $4 million forecast; booking figures dropped 94% compared to the previous quarter.
- The company obtained funding approval up to CAD $300,000 from Canada’s National Research Council to advance quantum computing software initiatives.
- Wall Street consensus points to a Strong Buy recommendation, with analysts’ average target price sitting at $35.79, suggesting approximately 73% potential appreciation.
Shares of D-Wave Quantum (QBTS) finished Wednesday’s trading session at $20.74, marking a 2.52% increase for the day. Trading activity registered approximately 13.2 million shares, representing about 55% less than the stock’s typical daily volume.
The upward movement occurred alongside Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh’s decision to maintain his Outperform designation on the quantum computing company, despite lowering his price objective to $29 from the previous $35. This adjustment came in response to the company’s second-quarter performance, which fell short of market expectations across key metrics.
The company reported second-quarter revenue of $3.1 million, underperforming the consensus forecast of $4 million. Booking figures reached approximately $2.1 million, representing a 94% decline from the preceding quarter, although they showed 59% growth compared to the same period last year.
The company reported an earnings loss of $0.10 per share, wider than the anticipated loss of $0.08.
Customer Base Expansion
Notwithstanding the disappointing quarterly figures, Rakesh characterized D-Wave as “well positioned as the only dual-modality QC platform,” highlighting its unique capability to advance both gate-model and annealing quantum computing technologies.
On the commercial front, there were encouraging developments. D-Wave has expanded its customer base to over 100, with commercial clients representing more than 50% of the total. Revenue from Forbes Global 2000 enterprises comprised 49% of first-half 2026 revenue, a substantial increase from merely 8% during the corresponding period in the previous year.
The firm’s sales pipeline has expanded by more than 120% year to date. Management continues to expect two complete system sales for 2026, both anticipated to close during the fourth quarter.
Additionally, D-Wave disclosed receiving funding approval up to CAD $300,000 from the National Research Council of Canada through its Applied Quantum Computing Challenge program. These funds are designated for advancing annealing quantum computing software solutions, including graph minor-embedding algorithms tailored for its Zephyr topology and integration capabilities with its open-source Ocean software development kit.
Development Timeline
Regarding hardware development, D-Wave has set targets for a 17-qubit gate-model system by the conclusion of 2026 and a 181-qubit system by 2028. Looking further ahead, the company aims to achieve 10 to 100 logical qubits during the 2030-2032 timeframe. Its Advantage3 annealing platform development roadmap targets an ambitious 100,000 qubits.
Remaining performance obligations decreased 4% sequentially to $40.7 million.
Recent insider transactions have drawn attention. CFO John Markovich divested approximately 328,752 shares during May at $27.70 per share. Director Rohit Ghai sold 13,518 shares in June. Combined, company insiders have sold roughly $35.8 million in stock value over the past quarter.
Institutional ownership stands at 42.47% of outstanding shares. Multiple investment firms including CoreCap Advisors and Sigma Planning Corp have incrementally increased their holdings in recent quarters.
Throughout Wall Street, QBTS maintains a Strong Buy consensus rating derived from 15 analyst evaluations, consisting of 14 Buy ratings and one Hold. The consensus price target of $35.79 suggests potential upside of approximately 73% from present levels. Wedbush initiated research coverage on August 3rd with an Outperform rating and established a $40 price objective.
The two anticipated system sales scheduled for December represent the critical near-term metric for investors to monitor.
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