Nvidia It will report first-quarter results after the bell on Wednesday.
Here’s what Wall Street is expecting, according to LSEG’s consensus estimates:
- Earnings per Share: $5.59, adjusted
- Revenue: $24.65 billion
The chipmaker was a niche developer of 3D gaming hardware a decade ago, but now it’s at the heart of the technology.
Nvidia’s report comes after it first hinted to investors that the company is about to embark on breakneck growth driven by demand for artificial intelligence chips from companies like Google, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and OpenAI. It was announced about a year later.
Revenue has increased more than 200% in each of the past two quarters, and Wall Street expects that trend to continue, with some estimates putting first-quarter sales up 243% year over year. Net profit is expected to increase more than five times compared to the same period last year.
NVIDIA stock has more than tripled since the company reported first-quarter results last year and gave a surprisingly strong outlook for the second quarter.
The company’s current generation of AI graphics processing units (GPUs), called Hopper, are needed by top AI scientists to develop chatbots, translators, and image generators. Customers have been snapping them up en masse over the past year, with top cloud and Internet companies spending billions on technology to build their infrastructure.
But questions are swirling about the sustainability of Nvidia’s phenomenal growth as its many customers have to start making a profit from all that heavy spending. AI software costs significantly more to run than traditional software, partly because of the expense required for Nvidia GPUs.
Nvidia has also started shipping its next-generation AI GPU, called Blackwell, which could have some companies eyeing the upcoming chips, slowing sales of existing technology.
Starting in its fiscal second quarter, Nvidia will face tougher year-over-year comparisons compared to the early days of its AI-driven growth. Analysts expect expansion to fall below 100% in the July quarter and slow significantly in the next two periods.