Nvidia Corporation hit its full-year guidance with top-line revenues of US$27bn per Wednesday’s annual earnings report, showing essentially no movement year on year.
That sounds mediocre at face value, but following a year of record pandemic-era GPU sales was always going to be a tough ask for the California-based technology multinational.
Plus, investors appeared more than pleased with the results, with Thursday’s pre-market trade pointing to an 8% rally.
Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share for the fourth quarter was $0.88, down 33% from a year ago but up 52% from the previous quarter.
During the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2023, NVIDIA returned US$1.15bn to shareholders in share repurchases and cash dividends, bringing the return in the fiscal year to US$10.44bn.
A quarterly cash dividend of $0.04 per share on March 29 to all shareholders of record on March 8, 2023 was also announced.
Segment breakdown
Nvidia’s budding autotech department enjoyed the strongest growth, enhanced by a strategic tie up with Foxconn to develop automated and autonomous vehicle platforms based on NVIDIA DRIVE Orin and DRIVE Hyperion tech.
Autotech, however, remains a niche revenue driver for Nvidia, representing 3.3% of the top line despite increasing 60% year on year.
The group’s core data centre segment rose 41% to a record US$15bn, buoyed by a number of lucrative partnerships, including with Deutsche Bank to extend the use of AI in the financial services sector.
News wasn’t as good in the gaming segment, which refers to sales of Nvidia’s world-leading graphics processing units (GPUs).
Fiscal-year revenue was down 27% to $9.07bn, despite GPU prices nearly doubling in the past year.
Although Nvidia is the king among GPU manufacturers, GPU shipments have fallen steeply following the massive spike in pandemic-era sales.
Nvidia also has its fingers in the metaverse pie through its cutting-edge Omniverse technology, although revenues in that department from a minuscule part of the top line and fell sharply throughout the year as interest for metaverse technologies waned.
Outlook
Nvidia is expecting revenues of US$6.5bn, plus or minus 2%, for the first quarter of the 2024 fiscal year, while GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins are expected to be 64.1% and 66.5%, respectively.
GAAP and non-GAAP operating expenses for the quarter are expected to be US$2.53bn and US$1.78bn respectively, while income is expected o be approximately US$50mln, excluding gains and losses from non-affiliated investments.