Nvidia Corp forecast a larger-than-expected jump in quarterly revenue and its chief executive said the chipmaker’s mobile business was accelerating, sending its shares skyrocketing.
Although once known for graphics cards, Nvidia has since expanded into mobile devices such as tablets. The company said its phone business ramped up toward the second half of the second quarter and that more devices carrying its Tegra chips are going into production.
Nvidia, whose name is well-known to a community of gamers, graphic designers and other high-end users, this year made a splash at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, where it unveiled a series of “design wins” — electronics manufacturers agreeing to use its mobile chips in phones and tablets.
On Wednesday, Nvidia said Samsung Electronics will use the Tegra in the new Galaxy R smartphone, the first time Asia’s biggest electronics firm has used that chip in one of its phones.
“In terms of if the [mobile] business is on track, the business is doing better than ‘on track’ in the sense that our design win momentum is better than ever,” Nvidia chief executive Huang Jen-hsun (黃仁勳) told analysts on a conference call.
However, while other business segments will grow, revenue from Tegra will hold steady this quarter from last, added Huang, a Taiwanese native who co-founded Nvidia in the 1990s and is known in Silicon Valley for his love of Ferraris and other fast cars.
The company’s quarterly guidance implies revenue of between US$1.06 billion and US$1.08 billion, compared with analysts’ average forecast of US$1.05 billion.
Anxious to move beyond personal computers, which are suffering from lackluster sales, Nvidia jumped into mobile devices this year, with its chips appearing in tablets and phones made by Samsung, Motorola Mobility and LG Electronics.
However, while several tablets have been launched, none have become a real challenge to Apple Inc’s iPad and sales have been lower than expected.
New processors launched by Intel Corp this year have led PC manufacturers to build an increased number of high-end laptops using discrete graphics chips provided by Nvidia, but a trend toward including graphics horsepower on central processors is seen as cannibalizing demand for low-end graphics chips that Nvidia also sells.
A few weeks ago, Intel trimmed its forecast for personal computer unit sales this year, warning of softness in mature markets, but pointing to healthy expansion in China.
Nvidia’s revenue of US$1.02 billion in the quarter ending July 31 was slightly above the US$1.01 billion average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
The company reported non-GAAP (Generally Agreed Accounting Principles) earnings of US$193.5 million, or US0.32 a share, up from US$47.6 million, or US0.08 a share, one year ago.
Nvidia Corp’s demand for advanced packaging from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) remains strong though the kind of technology it needs is changing, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, after he was asked whether the company was cutting orders. Nvidia’s most advanced artificial intelligence (AI) chip, Blackwell, consists of multiple chips glued together using a complex chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) advanced packaging technology offered by TSMC, Nvidia’s main contract chipmaker. “As we move into Blackwell, we will use largely CoWoS-L. Of course, we’re still manufacturing Hopper, and Hopper will use CowoS-S. We will also transition the CoWoS-S capacity to CoWos-L,” Huang said
Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) is expected to miss the inauguration of US president-elect Donald Trump on Monday, bucking a trend among high-profile US technology leaders. Huang is visiting East Asia this week, as he typically does around the time of the Lunar New Year, a person familiar with the situation said. He has never previously attended a US presidential inauguration, said the person, who asked not to be identified, because the plans have not been announced. That makes Nvidia an exception among the most valuable technology companies, most of which are sending cofounders or CEOs to the event. That includes
INDUSTRY LEADER: TSMC aims to continue outperforming the industry’s growth and makes 2025 another strong growth year, chairman and CEO C.C. Wei says Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), a major chip supplier to Nvidia Corp and Apple Inc, yesterday said it aims to grow revenue by about 25 percent this year, driven by robust demand for artificial intelligence (AI) chips. That means TSMC would continue to outpace the foundry industry’s 10 percent annual growth this year based on the chipmaker’s estimate. The chipmaker expects revenue from AI-related chips to double this year, extending a three-fold increase last year. The growth would quicken over the next five years at a compound annual growth rate of 45 percent, fueled by strong demand for the high-performance computing
TARIFF TRADE-OFF: Machinery exports to China dropped after Beijing ended its tariff reductions in June, while potential new tariffs fueled ‘front-loaded’ orders to the US The nation’s machinery exports to the US amounted to US$7.19 billion last year, surpassing the US$6.86 billion to China to become the largest export destination for the local machinery industry, the Taiwan Association of Machinery Industry (TAMI, 台灣機械公會) said in a report on Jan. 10. It came as some manufacturers brought forward or “front-loaded” US-bound shipments as required by customers ahead of potential tariffs imposed by the new US administration, the association said. During his campaign, US president-elect Donald Trump threatened tariffs of as high as 60 percent on Chinese goods and 10 percent to 20 percent on imports from other countries.
RSS