Nvidia’s 4Q revenue, profit soar thanks to demand for its chips used for AI
NVIDIA CORP, which has seen its value skyrocket over the past year, thanks to soaring demand for its graphics chips used for artificial intelligence (AI), posted stronger-than-expected results on Wednesday for its latest quarter, with its revenue more than tripling from a year earlier.
Nvidia reported revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter that ended January 28 of $22.1 billion, up from $6.05 billion.
The company, based in Santa Clara, California, earned $12.29 billion, compared to a profit of $1.41 billion a year ago.
Adjusted for one-time items, Nvidia earned $5.16 a share in the latest quarter; that topped Wall Street forecasts for $4.59 per share, based on analysts surveyed by FactSet Research. Analysts had expected revenue of $20.4 billion for the period that concluded the company’s fiscal year.
The company’s specialised chips are key components that help power different forms of AI, including the latest generative AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
“Accelerated computing and generative AI have hit the tipping point,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, in a statement. “Demand is surging worldwide across companies, industries and nations.”
Nvidia carved out an early lead in the hardware and software needed to tailor its technology to AI applications, partly because Huang began to nudge the company into what was then seen as a still halfbaked technology more than a decade ago. It also makes chips for gaming and cars.
Huang looked at ways that Nvidia chipsets, known as graphics processing units, might be tweaked for AI-related applications to expand beyond their early inroads in video gaming.
“Another blockbuster quarter from Nvidia raises the question of how long its soaring performance will last,” said Insider Intelligence analyst Jacob Bourne. “It has a massive lead in the growing global AI chip sector but can’t rest on its laurels.”
Bourne said Nvidia faces a number of challenges, including broader economic uncertainty, tech giants’ drive to make their own AI chips and emerging rivals. But he said the company’s market strength, for the near future, is “durable”.
For the current quarter, Nvidia expects revenue of about $24 billion. Analysts are currently expecting Nvidia to post revenue of $22.2 billion for the February-April period. The company expects “continued growth” to 2025 and beyond.
The company said its data centre revenue grew in all regions except China, where the United States (US) government has imposed export regulations.
“Although we have not received licences from the US government to ship restricted products to China, we have started shipping alternatives that don’t require a licence for the China market,” Huang said in a conference call with analysts.
Nvidia relies heavily on the world’s biggest maker of computer chips, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, to churn out the chips that Nvidia designs.