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NVIDIA Earnings Are Out: Here's What You Need to Know

Eric Bleeker

Published: August 28, 2024 4:37 pm

Last Updated: August 28, 2024 6:08 pm

The main event of earnings season is here. NVIDIA (Nasdaq: NVDA) just reported earnings. Here’s what you need to know. 

This post is live and being updated as more information comes from NVIDIA. Its earnings call begins at 5 p.m. ET. 

The Main Numbers

• Revenue: $30.04 Billion (versus Wall Street expectations of $28.73 billion) 
• Earnings Per Share: $.68 (versus Wall Street expectations of $.64)

Outlook for the next quarter is:

• Revenue of $32.5 billion 
• Adjusted gross margins of 75%

Other Notes:

• NVIDIA’s board approved a new $50 billion share repurchase plan
• NVIDIA had a rare slight miss on a financial metric. Free cash flow of $13.48 billion came in under Wall Street expectations of $13.57 billion. 

The Market Reaction

As of 6:00 p.m. ET, NVIDIA shares are down about 8%. The primary reasons for this move down were 1.) Guidance for next quarter that may have disappointed institutional (‘buy side’) investors and 2.) NVIDIA’s next-generation Blackwell chip only shipping ‘several billion’ in revenue by the end of the fiscal year.

Also, keep in mind that NVIDIA shares were up 27% the past three weeks heading into earnings, so expectations have been growing. 

NVIDIA Discusses Blackwell Delays 

In the CFO commentary on NVIDIA’s Investor Relations page, there is discussion on the delay of the company’s next-generation chip Blackwell. 

“We shipped customer samples of our Blackwell architecture in the second quarter. We executed a change to the Blackwell GPU mask to improve production yield. Blackwell production ramp is scheduled to begin in the fourth quarter and continue into fiscal 2026. In the fourth quarter, we expect to ship several billion dollars in Blackwell revenue. Hopper demand is strong, and shipments are expected to increase in the second half of fiscal 2025.”

This comment may be a cause for NVIDIA’s share price decline as it shows NVIDIA will only likely ship ‘several billion dollars’ of Blackwell chips by the end of this fiscal year which ends in January.

The main concern recently weighing on NVIDIA’s shares is how severe Blackwell delays are. Overall, today’s earnings release shows NVIDIA is still delivering on strong sales growth even while customers wait longer for Blackwell deliveries.

However, Blackwell only beginning to ship in very low volumes by the end of January means the company will be ramping sales late enough that some of the higher-end projections for calendar 2025 earnings may not be realized. 

Guidance Above Street Estimates But Below ‘Whisper Numbers’ 

Another factor that could weigh on NVIDIA’s performance after hours is next quarter’s guidance. NVIDIA guided to $32.5 billion in revenue next quarter, which was above Wall Street consensus estimates of $31.7 billion. However, long-time chip analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has stated that buy-side estimates for NVIDIA’s guide were higher, at $33 to $35 billion. 

If expectations were actually this high for NVIDIA’s guidance, it could explain muted reactions to NVIDIA’s earnings. With NVIDIA not booking any Blackwell revenue in its fiscal third quarter, hitting a revenue number in the $33 billion to $35 billion range was an aggressive target. 

Margins in Focus 

NVIDIA’s gross margins slipped from 78.9% last quarter to 75.7% this quarter. It’s expected that margins will slip some as NVIDIA readies to ship Blackwell, but margin compression is another risk factor investors are watching as suppliers like Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE: TSM) have made noise about pushing through pricing increases. 

NVIDIA’s Conference Call

NVIDIA closed their conference call by highlighting the vast number of products going into their launch Blackwell systems. In a recent press release, NVIDIA highlighted all the products present in the Blackwell platform:

“NVIDIA Blackwell is the ultimate full-stack computing challenge. It comprises multiple NVIDIA chips, including the Blackwell GPU, Grace CPU, BlueField data processing unit, ConnectX network interface card, NVLink Switch, Spectrum Ethernet switch and Quantum InfiniBand switch.”

With investors questioning what kind of “moat” NVIDIA has, the company is getting more aggressive in promoting how important the surrounding technologies around its GPUs are. With data centers going from thousands of connected GPUs to perhaps a million in the year to come, no company has as complete a product offering as NVIDIA.