NVIDIA Stuns Investors With Record Earnings

NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) released its fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report after the markets closed Wednesday. The company had $0.52 in earnings per share (EPS) on $1.40 billion in revenue compared to Thomson Reuters consensus estimates that call for $0.32 in EPS on $1.31 billion in revenue. The same period from the previous year had $0.35 in EPS on $1.25 billion in revenue.

During the fourth quarter, NVIDIA paid $62 million in cash dividends and received 4.3 million shares in connection with an accelerated share repurchase agreement that it had entered into in the quarter.

In terms of guidance for the first quarter, NVIDIA expects to have revenue of $1.26 billion and a gross margin of 57.5%. There are consensus estimates that call for $0.28 in EPS on $1.23 billion in revenue for the first quarter.

On the books the company had cash, equivalents and marketable securities totaling $5.04 billion, compared to $4.62 billion in the same period from the previous year.

Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and CEO, commented on earnings:

We had another record quarter, capping a record year. Our strategy is to create specialized accelerated computing platforms for large growth markets that demand the 10x boost in performance we offer. Each platform leverages our focused investment in building the world’s most advanced GPU technology.

Huang continued:

NVIDIA is at the center of four exciting growth opportunities — PC gaming, VR, deep learning, and self-driving cars. We are especially excited about deep learning, a breakthrough in artificial intelligence algorithms that takes advantage of our GPU’s ability to process data simultaneously.

Shares of NVIDIA closed Wednesday up 2.5% at $27.66, with a consensus analyst price target of $32.04 and a 52-week trading range of $19.09 to $33.94. Following the release of the earnings report, the stock was up 8.1% at $29.90 in the after-hours trading session.