Snapshot
10x Genomics, Inc. reported $173M of revenue in Q2 2025, up 12.9% year over year, with diluted EPS of $0.28 and an operating margin of 17.4%.
- Revenue
- $173M
- YoY growth
- +12.9%
- Diluted EPS
- $0.28
- Operating margin
- 17.4%
What management said
- •I'll also walk through recent business developments before handing it over to Adam for the financial review and outlook.
- •Total revenue for the second quarter was $173 million during the quarter.
- •We settled our worldwide patent litigation with Bruker on favorable terms and recognized an upfront payment of $68 million that we allocated to both operating expenses and license and royalty revenue.
- •We continue to see solid signs of underlying single cell demand on the consumable side.
- •While revenue was down year-over-year, Chromium reaction volumes grew both year-over-year and sequentially, an indicator of increasing demand for our solutions and single cell more broadly.
- •This growth was driven by robust adoption of our latest products, including GEM-X Flex and Universal On-Chip Multiplex, which have been instrumental in lowering cost barriers, enabling larger scaling, and opening up new applications.
- •Additionally, we saw meaningful year-over-year and sequential growth in spatial consumables, revenue, and volume.
- •Within spatial, Xenium consistently serves as a strong driver of growth and performance.
- •Spending remains conservative, and capital equipment spending continues to be a significant challenge both in the U.S.
- •Customers are facing increased scrutiny on purchases, longer approval timelines, and in many cases, new restrictions on capital spending and staffing within their labs.
- •Our conversations with customers reinforce our conviction that single cell and spatial biology are the most promising areas of growth in life science tools.
- •Built to dramatically increase throughput and streamline workloads, Flex v2 provides ultimate flexibility for customers when designing their experiments.
What went well
- •Total revenue of $172.9 million (up 13%), or $145.6 million excluding the $27.3 million license and royalty portion of the Bruker settlement, with the quarter playing out largely as anticipated.
- •Settled worldwide patent litigation with Bruker on favorable terms, recognizing a $68 million upfront payment allocated across operating expenses and license/royalty revenue.
- •Spatial consumables revenue of $36.4 million, up 24% year-over-year, driven by Xenium, with utilization per instrument continuing to grow on both more runs and higher spend per run.
- •Chromium reaction volumes grew both year-over-year and sequentially on adoption of GEM-X Flex and Universal On-Chip Multiplexing; increased cash balance by $40 million during the quarter on cost management.
- •Strong China performance (roughly 40% growth even excluding the tariff-related pull forward) and an 11% year-over-year increase in Chromium instrument placements from strategic discounting.
What went wrong
- •Excluding the settlement license/royalty revenue, total revenue of $145.6 million was down 5% year-over-year.
- •Chromium consumables revenue of $85.8 million declined 9%, primarily on lower average reaction prices, and total instrument revenue of $14.5 million fell 39%.
- •Spatial instrument revenue of $8.8 million declined 42% driven primarily by fewer instruments sold; Americas revenue of $78.9 million was down 15% year-over-year.
- •The academic funding landscape remained challenging and highly uncertain (shifting policies, weaker grant disbursements, unclear budgets), driving extended timelines, project delays, scalebacks and heightened price sensitivity.
Guidance changes
| Metric | Period | Previous | Current | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q3 2025 revenue | Q3 2025 | — | $140M-$144M, reflecting ~$4M China pull-forward into Q2 and continued cautious spending; ex pull-forward, broadly in line with Q2 | |
| Spatial instrument revenue | Q3 2025 | — | anticipated to look fairly similar to Q2 | |
| Q4 2025 instruments (preliminary) | Q4 2025 | — | no formal guide; no reason to expect meaningfully different from Q3 aside from typical seasonal Q3-to-Q4 CapEx uptick | |
| China revenue | Q3 2025 | — | expected to be lower in Q3 due to the one-quarter tariff pull-forward, then bounce back to recent strength into Q4 | |
| Scale Biosciences acquisition impact | Remainder of 2025 | — | no material impact on revenue or operating expenses; near-term revenue impact minimal |
Performance breakdown
| Metric | YoY change | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Total revenue | +13% ($172.9M); -5% to $145.6M excluding settlement license/royalty revenue | Bruker settlement license/royalty revenue boosted the reported figure; underlying business reflected cautious spending. |
| Total consumables revenue | -1% ($122.2M) | Spatial consumables growth offset by lower Chromium consumables. |
| Chromium consumables revenue | -9% ($85.8M) | Primarily lower average reaction prices, despite year-over-year and sequential reaction volume growth. |
| Spatial consumables revenue | +24% ($36.4M) | Primarily Xenium consumables, with growing per-instrument utilization. |
| Total instrument revenue | -39% ($14.5M) | Chromium instruments -35% on lower ASPs; spatial instruments -42% on fewer instruments sold; global CapEx headwinds. |
| Services revenue | +47% ($8.5M) | Increase in Xenium service plans. |
| Gross margin | 72% vs 68% prior year (67% excluding settlement) | Higher license and royalty revenue from the settlement; ex-settlement margin was 67%. |
| Operating income | $30.1M vs $41.7M operating loss prior year (-$37.9M ex-settlement) | Gain on settlement; ex-settlement operating loss of $37.9 million. |
| Americas revenue | -15% ($78.9M; +7% sequentially) | U.S. academic and government funding pressure; CapEx headwinds. |
| EMEA revenue | -7% ($34.7M; +9% sequentially) | Ongoing CapEx headwinds, partly offset by solid consumables. |
| APAC revenue | +41% ($32M; -1% sequentially) | Strong China growth (~40% ex pull-forward) plus a ~$4M tariff-driven pull forward from Q3 into Q2. |
Earnings call themes & trends
| Topic | Previous mention | Current period | Trend |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-cell pricing elasticity | Staged price reductions driving volume | Reaction volumes growing year-over-year and sequentially; reaching net positive revenue growth will take longer given macro challenges; price per reaction needs to be in hundreds, not thousands | |
| Scale Biosciences acquisition | — | Definitive agreement to acquire for $30M upfront cash and stock plus contingent consideration; a technology acquisition (combinatorial indexing, Quantum Barcoding) to broaden the portfolio, minimal near-term revenue impact | |
| Spatial / Xenium leadership | Best-in-class platform | Continues to set Xenium apart on data quality, accuracy, robustness, throughput and ease of use; large translational studies (Genome Institute of Singapore TISHUMAP) highlighted | |
| Product roadmap | Visium HD, GEM-X Flex | Shipped Visium HD 3-prime and HD cell segmentation; preparing Visium HD XL, Xenium RNA+protein, and Flex v2 plate-based product for large-scale perturbation and biopharma | |
| AI / virtual cell and translational | Emerging | Two key trends: large translational studies using Xenium and large-scale single-cell perturbation experiments to train AI models / build virtual cells |
Q&A summary
How did the quarter progress on the academic/funding backdrop, and what is the visibility?
Q2 conformed to what was contemplated at the prior call; there is somewhat more customer optimism than three to four months ago amid some positive developments, but spending stayed cautious because fund disbursement has been slow and budgets remain early and uncertain (NIH allocation reversals, university fights, multi-year grant proposals); Q3 is expected to evolve roughly like Q2.
On the Scale deal, why now, and will Chromium or Scale best serve lowest cost per cell?
There is tremendous headroom in single cell for lower cost and higher scale, accelerated by AI-driven large perturbation screens; Scale is fundamentally a technology acquisition to broaden current and future products, consistent with a track record of turning acquired technologies into products customers love, and some Scale products will remain on the market.
Is the instrument-free Scale deal an admission droplet architecture cannot scale, and when does Scale become material?
Not at all; there is strong conviction in the value of an instrument for precision, workflow, data quality and robustness, and instruments have not been a barrier to single cell. The value is integrating complementary technologies to push scaling further; near-term revenue impact will be minimal.
Single-cell consumables revenue was down but reactions were up; how do you think about the pricing headwind and could Scale exacerbate it?
Multiple Chromium transitions are underway (NextGEM to GEM-X nearly finished by year-end; Flex and On-Chip Multiplexing opening new use cases and some conversion from higher-price products). Lower prices drive higher volumes with a time lag; price per reaction needs to be in hundreds rather than thousands; macro challenges mean reaching net positive revenue growth will take longer, but fundamental trends are encouraging.
How mature is the Xenium sales force in Europe and how are funnel/conversion rates evolving?
The Xenium CapEx team in Europe is fully in place and ramping nicely, improving execution and funnel/opportunity management; however, against a tougher CapEx backdrop, more opportunities are being added but take longer to close, getting stuck on funding restrictions and scrutiny, while platform enthusiasm remains strong and sets up well once macro improves.
How was the ~$4M China pull forward sized, and what is driving China's recovery?
Go-to-market changes over the past couple of years brought 10x closer to customers and distributors with good visibility into decisions and inventory; customers specifically wanted products ahead of potential tariffs, making ~$4 million a solid estimate. China is doing well from those changes plus more favorable underlying market dynamics.
Can you detail the Bruker royalty structure and will China strength continue into Q3/Q4?
Specific rates are not disclosed; of the $68M cash ($17M over four quarters, first installment due in Q3), $27.3M was recognized as revenue in Q2 at 100% margin and ~$41M as a gain on settlement credited to OpEx; the Q3 guide excludes ongoing royalties. China grew ~40% excluding the tariff acceleration; Q3 will be lower due to the pull forward but is expected to bounce back to recent strength in Q4.
What could be the biggest unlock for customer spend and what timeline is realistic?
Two things matter most: budget clarity for next year, and the actual disbursement of funds reaching customers, which has been held up across the board; seeing money actually land would give customers confidence to start spending.
Update on the commercial restructuring and the health of business fundamentals?
Structural commercial changes are complete with roles filled and recent hires ramping nicely; fundamentals are strong (Chromium consumable reactions, spatial consumable reactions and revenue) with consistently positive customer feedback, and a strong focus on cost and cash management has left the balance sheet and spending profile in good shape, with continued cost discipline given an uncertain environment.
How do spatial instruments split between Visium and Xenium, and the Q3/Q4 outlook?
The two are not broken out; embedded in guidance, Q3 spatial instruments are expected to look fairly similar to Q2, and Q4 is not expected to look meaningfully different from Q3 aside from a typical seasonal CapEx uptick, in a CapEx environment that remains challenged while the Xenium In Situ sales team competes aggressively for placements.
What is behind the Chromium instrument discounting?
It is a function of the environment, with customers facing new CapEx limits and scrutiny; 10x works creatively to let customers buy instruments alongside a material reagent commitment, expects to continue this while the environment persists, and views such deals as ultimately accretive given the consumables margin profile.