Nvidia (NVDA) reported its fiscal first quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday, beating analysts' expectations on the top and bottom line on the strength of its data center business. The company also said it expects Q2 revenue to come in at about $11 billion, plus or minus 2%. Wall Street was expecting $7.2 billion.
Nvidia is at the center of the AI explosion thanks to its high-powered graphics cards and server products, and its stock price is soaring. Over the last year, shares of Nvidia have jumped 77%, while rival AMD (AMD) has jumped 12%. Intel (INTC) shares are down 30% in the same timeframe.
Here are the most important numbers from the report compared to what was expected, as compiled by Bloomberg.
Revenue: $7.2 billion versus $6.5 billion expected
Adj. EPS: $1.09 versus $0.92 expected
Gaming: $2.2 billion versus $1.9 billion expected
Data center: $4.2 billion versus $3.9 billion expected
Shares of Nvidia were up more than 13% following the announcement.
“The computer industry is going through two simultaneous transitions — accelerated computing and generative AI,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement.
“A trillion dollars of installed global data center infrastructure will transition from general purpose to accelerated computing as companies race to apply generative AI into every product, service and business process."
While shares of Nvidia are riding the AI wave, thanks to the introduction of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Microsoft (MSFT) and Google’s (GOOG, GOOGL) own generative AI efforts, the company is still contending with a vicious slowdown in the gaming industry.
Much of that has to do with the broader downturn in consumer spending on electronics following the explosive growth the industry experienced during the pandemic. With nothing to do but sit at home, consumers bought up graphics cards and similarly equipped PCs to pass the time.
Now that gamers have those systems in their hands, however, there’s little reason to upgrade anytime soon. Intel and AMD are experiencing the same kind of problems with their own client computing groups.
But the slowdown should be coming to an end soon. Wall Street expects Nvidia to post revenue growth in its gaming business for the first time in a year in Q2, according to Bloomberg data. That would go a long way to helping Nvidia’s overall revenue growth after a third consecutive quarter-over-quarter decline as of Q1.
That said, Nvidia’s data center business continues to perform, with the company reporting 14% revenue growth for the quarter.