D-Wave Quantum: 13 Analysts, 13 Buy Ratings, and a Stock Down 56% – The Contradiction Ahead of Investor Day

All analysts rate D-Wave a buy, but shares trade 56% below highs. Revenue dropped 81% due to one-off hardware sale, yet bookings surged 2000% to $33.4M.

Every single analyst covering D-Wave Quantum has a buy rating on the stock. Mizuho slashed its price target to $29, Canaccord Genuity trimmed to $41, and the consensus sits at $35. Yet the shares trade at just 16.58 euros — more than 56% below the 52-week high and down roughly 12% in the past seven days alone. That gap between Wall Street’s conviction and the market’s reality captures the paradox at the heart of this quantum computing company.

The numbers from the first quarter of fiscal 2026 tell both sides of the story. Total revenue collapsed to $2.86 million from $15 million a year earlier. The culprit: system sales, which cratered to just $86,000 from over $12 million, as the prior-year period benefited from a one-off hardware transaction. Service revenue provided a modest offset, climbing to $1.76 million, and consulting fees also ticked up. But the headline revenue drop would look far worse without the context of a soaring order pipeline.

That pipeline is where the optimism lives. Bookings hit $33.4 million in the quarter — a nearly 2,000% surge from a year earlier. The trouble is that D-Wave’s system sales go through multi-step revenue recognition that can stretch across quarters, leaving a yawning gap between orders taken and cash collected. The company’s backlog stood at $42.4 million, with more than half expected to convert to revenue within twelve months.

The cash position offers a cushion while that conversion plays out. D-Wave ended March with $588 million in liquid assets, nearly double the level from a year ago. That war chest is sorely needed because operating expenses doubled year-over-year to $56.5 million, research and development alone accounting for almost half of that sum. The net loss widened to $18.4 million, inflated by $9.1 million in one-time transaction costs tied to the acquisition of Quantum Circuits. The gross margin fell to 63.6% from 92.5%, a direct consequence of the missing high-margin system sale.

The Quantum Circuits deal transformed D-Wave into a dual-platform player, offering both annealing and gate-model quantum computing. CEO Alan Baratz told analysts on the earnings call that customers are already expressing interest in gate-model systems, both for purchase and cloud access. The company is targeting 17 qubits on its dual-rail qubit technology by the end of 2026. That strategic pivot, combined with the record bookings, is what keeps analysts bullish despite the stock’s slide.

Management is now on a full-court press to convince investors that the pipeline will translate into real revenue. The team kicked off at the virtual Canaccord Genuity Quantum Symposium today, will appear at the TD Cowen tech conference in New York later this month, and is saving the main event for June 1 — D-Wave’s first-ever Investor Day at the New York Stock Exchange, under the banner “The D-Wave Difference.” The market wants a clear roadmap showing how technological milestones become commercial wins.

The broader sector headwinds aren’t helping. IonQ, Rigetti Computing, Quantum Computing Inc., and other quantum names have all come under pressure as traders take profits after a strong run. The focus has shifted back to losses, cash burn, and the long road to profitability — the same themes that dog D-Wave. But with a $588 million war chest, a record order book, and a freshly consolidated dual-platform strategy, the company has ammunition to make its case. Whether that case sticks will be decided on June 1.