Nvidia's Q1 Mixed, Forcest Mediocre Revenue
Nvidia published a mixed bag of first quarter financial results and a lower-than-expected revenue for the second quarter, weighed down by lower demand for its graphic processor units due to a fall in personal computer sales. Nvidia's net income fell to $134 million, or 24 cents per share, in the first quarter ended April 26. Revenue rose 4.4 percent to $1.15 billion.
"The importance of visual computing is evident all around us," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. "Our expertise in this field enables us to take a leading position to advance deep learning, virtual reality and self-driving cars.
"Our singular focus on visual computing is aligned with some of the most exciting growth opportunities in computing today," he said.
During Q1, Growth was driven by GeForce GPUs for gaming, Tesla GPUs for accelerated computing, and automotive infotainment systems.
Revenue in the GPU business grew 5 percent from the first quarter of the prior year.
Revenue from GeForce GPUs for gaming desktops and notebooks grew 14 percent, fueled by continued strength in PC gaming, including high-end Maxwell-based GTX GPUs.
Within this gaming segment, notebooks continued to perform well above year-ago levels.
Tesla GPUs for accelerated computing increased strongly, driven by large project wins with cloud service providers.
Revenue from Quadro GPU products declined from the prior year.
Tegra Processor revenue increased 4 percent from a year ago, driven by automotive infotainment systems, development services, and SHIELD devices.
Total revenue decreased 8 percent sequentially. The GPU business declined 12 percent due to the seasonal decrease in consumer PCs.
Tegra Processor sales increased 29 percent due to automotive infotainment systems and development services.
License revenue from the company's patent license agreement with Intel remained flat at $66 million.
Nvidia is is looking forward to its case against Samsung and Qualcomm, set to be heard in June at the U.S. International Trade Commission. Last month, NVIDIA received a favorable pretrial claim construction ruling in the case.
In addition, Nvidia will wind-down its Icera modem operations in the second quarter of fiscal 2016. It is open to a sale of the technology or operations.
The company estimates that it will recognize restructuring charges in the range of $100 million to $125 million, primarily during fiscal 2016.
Nvidia forecast second-quarter revenue of $1.01 billion, plus or minus two percent.
A commercial slowdown after the Windows XP refresh and constrained demand in many regions due to currency fluctuations contributed to softness in the PC market during the first three months of the year, according to research firm IDC.