What is the meaning of Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, H1, and H2 in business terms?

If you’re involved in a business and its financials come up in some way, then you may have heard of the terms Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4, H1, and H2.

Now what exactly do they mean? They may seem incredibly obvious once you do know them, but if you don’t know what they mean, they can be pretty confusing.

Q1, Q2, Q3, and Q4

Let’s break it down. First of all, let’s see what Q is.

Q is short for Quarter, and it refers to a quarter of a year. With a year being twelve months, a quarter is thus three months long.

Now what do the numbers mean?

1 means the 1st, and combined with Q, it means the first quarter.

Q2 then logically means the second quarter of the year.

Q3 means the the third quarter of the year, and Q4 means the last and fourth quarter of the year.

Q1 corresponds to January, February, and March of the year.

Q2 corresponds to April, May, and June of the year.

Q3 corresponds to July, August, and September of the year.

Finally, Q4 corresponds to November, October, and December of the year.