Nvidia Gives Low Sales Forecast on Weak Cryptocurrency Demand
Nvidia gave a lower that expected sales forecast for the current quarter, showing the loss of demand from the collapse of cryptocurrency mining.
The company's revenue in the fiscal fourth quarter will be $2.7 billion, plus or minus 2 percent.
Nvidia's gaming revenue outlook for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019 is impacted
by the expected work-down of Pascal mid-range gaming card inventory in the channel,
and a decline in gaming console reflecting seasonal build patterns.
"This assumes no meaningful shipments of mid-range Pascal GPUs during the quarter, so that channel inventory can approach normal levels by the end of the fourth quarter," said Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress.
Last month, rival AMD blamed dwindling demand for chips from cryptocurrency miners for its lower-than-expected fourth-quarter revenue forecast.
Nvidia reported a profit of $1.23 billion in the third quarter, compared with $838 million in the same period a year earlier.
Revenue was $3.18 billion, up 21 percent year over year and up 2 percent sequentially. Three of Nvidia's market platforms - Professional Visualization, Datacenter, and Automotive - posted record revenue.
Gaming revenue was short of the company's expectations. Sales from gaming rose 13 percent to $1.76 billion but declined from the prior quarter.
Data center revenue increased 58 percent to $792 million. The business powers cloud computing services of customers including Amazon.com Inc’s Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Corp’s Azure as well as Alphabet Inc’s Google Cloud.
The company’s founder and Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang is trying to make Nvidia more than just the leading provider of technology that makes games more realistic. Yet the gaming market still provides the company with the bulk of its sales.