Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) has reported strong first-quarter results, with its revenue growing 84% compared with the same period last year.
Earnings and sales both beat Wall Street expectations. Revenue in the quarter totaled $5.66 billion U.S. versus $5.41 billion U.S. estimated by analysts. Earnings per share came in at $3.66 U.S. versus $3.28 U.S. per share that analysts had forecast.
Nvidia’s latest earnings come during a period of massive growth in its business amid a worldwide shortage of semiconductors and microchips. Nvidia said it expects $6.30 billion U.S. in revenue in the current second quarter, which would be a 62% increase over last year.
The graphics processor units (GPUs) that Nvidia makes are essential for personal computer (PC) games, artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency mining.
Nvidia has had supply issues for months. Its consumer graphics cards are consistently sold out around the world, and Nvidia has added new software to make them less attractive to cryptocurrency miners in order to reserve supply for other buyers.
Nvidia said on Wednesday that it expected graphics cards to remain in short supply through the second half of the year, but that its new line of dedicated cryptocurrency chips, called "CMP," could help alleviate the shortages.
Nvidia said its graphics segment, comprised mostly of graphics cards, was up 81% to $3.45 billion U.S. in revenue. The company said that gamers and students are behind the increased demand for its GPUs and that it expects that the current upgrade cycle will continue to be strong through the rest of this year.
The company’s compute and networking segment, which includes chips for data centers, was up 88% to $2.21 billion U.S. Nvidia said that sales were boosted partially by Mellanox, a data center company it bought last year, as well as increased demand for graphics processors in servers.
Nvidia said that the CMP processors it sells specifically for cryptocurrency miners had revenue of $155 million U.S. In the current second quarter, Nvidia is expecting CMP sales of around $400 million U.S.
Nvidia announced last year that it planned to buy ARM, a core processor technology company, for $40 billion U.S. The company said that the transaction was on track to close in 2022.
Last week, Nvidia announced that it plans to split its stock on a four-to-one basis, pending shareholder approval.
Tech Insider
