Nvidia Corp shares are trading near all-time highs in advance of the chipmaking giant’s third-quarter earnings statement, due after US markets close today.
The highly anticipated report is expected to show considerable year-on-year revenue gains, with Nvidia’s internal guidance estimating $32.5 billion worth of sales.
This is in the ballpark of an 80% year-on-year increase. Even with Nvidia’s astronomical growth trajectory in mind, this is a lofty target.
The Street, meanwhile, expects Nvidia to slightly exceed this target, given that the group’s internal guidance has historically proven conservative.
If Nvidia is able to impress with its results, it will only take an 11% share price rally to make Nvidia the world’s first-ever $4 trillion company.
All’s well that’s Blackwell
Key to Nvidia’s performance will be the nascent rollout of its new flagship ‘Blackwell’ AI chip.
The super-powerful processor, named after African American mathematics trailblazer David Blackwell, represents the cutting-edge of AI chip design.
“Any steer as to how well the recently launched ultra-fast Blackwell chip is selling will… be closely scrutinised,” said Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown.
“There’s no shortage of demand as the likes of Meta, Microsoft, Google, Amazon look to gain an edge in the AI race,” stated Nathan, although he cautioned that “there remain some unanswered questions about NVIDIA’s supply chain’s ability to keep pace”.
Demand is also coming from Japanese multinational SoftBank, which is using Blackwell chips to build Japan’s most advanced AI supercomputer.
The project is in a similar vein to Nvidia’s collaboration with Elon Musk’s xAI, whose Colossus supercomputer cluster comprises 100,000 Nvidia processors.
These and other projects have cemented Nvidia’s status as the world-leading AI company, at least in the hardware space.
But whether sales are sufficient enough to placate investors will be determined next Wednesday.