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Business English vocabulary · Numbers and Money

Quarter

Meaning in business english, with examples

/ˈkwɔːrtər/nounCore term

In business english, quarter means: One of the four three-month periods into which a company divides its financial year, often written Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4.

In Turkish: çeyrek, üç aylık dönem

How it is used

Central to reporting and planning: 'in the third quarter', 'Q2 results', 'last quarter', 'quarter-on-quarter growth'. A company's quarters follow its financial year, which does not always start in January.

Example sentences

  1. Sales in the fourth quarter were the highest in the company's history.

  2. We plan to launch the app at the end of the quarter.

Common collocations

  • first quarter
  • last quarter
  • quarterly results
  • end of the quarter
  • Q3 targets
  • revenueThe total amount of money a company receives from selling its goods or services in a period, before any costs are taken away.
  • forecastA statement of what is expected to happen in the future, especially to sales, costs or demand, based on current data and trends.
  • year on yearCompared with the same period one year earlier; often shortened to YoY in reports and slides.
  • figuresNumbers that show amounts, results or statistics, especially official numbers about sales, costs or performance.

More terms: Numbers and Money

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