Nvidia is finding the recovery from the post-pandemic gaming slump is slower than expected, with profits diving 53 per cent for the quarter, and 55 per cent for the fiscal year.
Nvidia reported a 21 per cent revenue drop for the quarter ending January 29, to A$8.88 billion. Gross margins were down 2.1 per cent, with operating expenses up 27 per cent.
Operating income was down 58 per cent, with net income crashing 52 per cent to A$2.07 billion for the quarter, compared to the same quarter the prior year.
For the full year ending January 29, revenue remained flat, at A$39.61 billion, however operating expenses jumped by a massive 50 per cent, dragging operating income down 58 per cent, and net income down 55 per cent, to A$6.42 billion for the year.
For its gaming division, fourth-quarter revenue was A$2.69 billion, down 46 per cent from a year ago, but up 16 per cent from the previous quarter, showing the softer sales may be over soon. Fiscal-year revenue was down 27 per cent to A$13.32 billion.
“Gaming is recovering from the post-pandemic downturn, with gamers enthusiastically embracing the new Ada architecture GPUs with AI neural rendering,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA.
Huang has reason to be positive.
During the past year, Nvidia unveiled the GeForce RTX 40 Series for laptops, which it said provided the company’s “largest-ever generational leap in performance and power efficiency”.
It also launched the GeForce NOW Ultimate membership tier, and signed a 10-year agreement with Microsoft to bring the Xbox PC game lineup, including Minecraft, Halo and Flight Simulator — and shortly, Call of Duty and Overwatch, to the service.
The company also saw its data centre perform well, with fourth-quarter revenue of A$5.32 billion, up 11 per cent from a year ago – albeit down 6 per cent from the previous quarter.
Fiscal-year revenue for the sector rose 41 per cent, to a record A$22.05 billion.
“AI is at an inflection point, setting up for broad adoption reaching into every industry,” said Huang.
“From startups to major enterprises, we are seeing accelerated interest in the versatility and capabilities of generative AI.
“We are set to help customers take advantage of breakthroughs in generative AI and large language models.
“Our new AI supercomputer, with H100 and its Transformer Engine and Quantum-2 networking fabric, is in full production.”
