NVIDIA Announces Record Q4 2018 Results
by Brett Howse on February 8, 2018 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- NVIDIA
- Financial Results
This afternoon NVIDIA announced yet another record quarter, with revenues of $2.91 billion, which is up 34% from a year ago. Gross margin was 61.9%, and operating income was up 46% to $1.07 billion. Net income for the quarter was $1.12 billion, up 71% from a year ago, which provided diluted earnings per share of $1.78.
| NVIDIA Q4 2018 Financial Results (GAAP) | |||||
| Q4'2018 | Q3'2018 | Q4'2017 | Q/Q | Y/Y | |
| Revenue | $2911M | $2636M | $2173M | +10% | +34% |
| Gross Margin | 61.9% | 59.5% | 60.0% | +2.4% | +1.9% |
| Operating Income | $1073M | $895M | $733M | +20% | +46% |
| Net Income | $1118M | $838M | $655M | +33% | +71% |
| EPS | $1.78 | $1.33 | $0.99 | +34% | +80% |
For their 2018 fiscal year, NVIDIA racked up $9.71 billion in revenue, which is up 41% from a year ago. Earnings per share for the year were $4.82, up 88%.
NVIDIA has kind of hit a magic sweet spot, where they had been diversifying into growing markets, but have found themselves also swept up in the GPU fed craze of cryptocurrency, feeding their core business as well.
Gaming, which is their GeForce lineup, had revenues for the quarter of $1.74 billion, up almost $400 million from a year ago. But for the entire fiscal year, they haven’t even refreshed their lineup, although the Pascal series of GPUs have certainly been strong in terms of performance and efficiency. But you’d be lucky to find any in stock thanks to the copious number of GPUs purchased for mining coins. It’s not been ideal for gamers, but for NVIDIA’s R&D, and their investors, it’s been welcome news.
Professional Visualization was also up about 13% to $254 million. Growth here was attributed to the ultra-high-end and high-end desktop workstations, such as the Quadro GP100 launched earlier in the fiscal year.
NVIDIA’s foray into the datacenter is also paying off with substantial growth. Datacenter includes Tesla, GRID, and DGX systems, and for the quarter, NVIDIA saw revenues of $606 million, which are up 105% from a year ago.
Automotive was up a more modest 3% to $132 million, and we’ve seen NVIDIA get some big design wins with large automotive companies with their DRIVE platforms.
Automotive is powered by Tegra, and including the automotive sales, Tegra brought in $450 million this quarter, and the very popular Nintendo Switch is likely a nice chunk of that.
OEM and IP was $180 million for the quarter, which is up about 2.2%, and NVIDIA stated their licensing agreement with Intel concluded in the first quarter of fiscal year 2018.
| NVIDIA Quarterly Revenue Comparison (GAAP) ($ in millions) |
|||||
| In millions | Q4'2018 | Q3'2018 | Q4'2017 | Q/Q | Y/Y |
| Gaming | $1739 | $1561 | $1348 | +11% | +29% |
| Professional Visualization | $254 | $239 | $225 | +6% | +13% |
| Datacenter | $606 | $501 | $296 | +21% | +105% |
| Automotive | $132 | $144 | $128 | -8% | +3% |
| OEM & IP | $180 | $191 | $176 | -6% | +2% |
For Q1 2019, NVIDIA is forecasting revenues of $2.9 billion, plus or minus 2%.
Source: NVIDIA Investor Relations
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mode_13h - Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - link
They actually do care, because they know it's hurting the future gaming market. They might not care that *much*, but they do care.Gunbuster - Friday, February 9, 2018 - link
Indeed. No doubt it takes pressure off your supply chain logistics when you roll cards from one factory in Asia over next door into a mining operation ;)souperior intellect - Friday, February 9, 2018 - link
2018 !!!Are these future predictions?
Yojimbo - Friday, February 9, 2018 - link
Never fails...Fiscal year 2018, not calendar year 2018. NVIDIA's FY 2018 started around February 2017 and just ended.
nfriedly - Friday, February 9, 2018 - link
I have a feeling that, to a large extent, Nvidia is just getting future profits in early due to crypto mining. I think that eventually, crypto mining is going to come crashing down, and the market will suddenly be flooded with used GPUs.When that happens, Nvidia's sales are going to take a hit. They'll probably still be profitable overall, but I expect their margins will take a serious hit as prices come down to compete with all the used mining cards.
(This kind of happened once already, except it didn't last very long.)
CiccioB - Friday, February 9, 2018 - link
It depends on when the crash will happen.If Ampere is already out and selling, a flood of old, worn, slower used GPUs will not be a problem, as the used market is not a problem whenever a new series is launched.
The one going to be hit mostly will be AMD, as not having anything new (and that will happen only in 2019) it will see the market flooded by the same GPUs it is selling as new. That would really bring its GPU prices to low prices, lower than the one they are applying now that grant them no margins at all.
StrangerGuy - Saturday, February 10, 2018 - link
AMD is completely toast if mining dies. From Steam stats NV now is outnumbering them 10:1 in installed base. Heck, even the 1080 Ti has beat any AMD card ever released in that metric, and don't tell me nobody buy 1080 Tis for mining.mode_13h - Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - link
I don't understand how AMD doesn't have any new gaming products, this year. 2016 = Polaris. 2017 = Vega + rebadged Polaris. How can they not have anything for 2018?This is a joke. You can't see how they take the gaming market seriously.
mode_13h - Wednesday, February 21, 2018 - link
Oh, and 2015 = Fury.Don't understand how they could let the pipeline run dry.
StrangerGuy - Friday, February 9, 2018 - link
But-but-but the stingy AMD fanboys told us NV will be dead in short order because nobody wants to pay more for G-sync.What is even more ironic is that it looks entirely possible for Switch's Tegra to make more overall profit for NV than PS4/XB1 APUs for AMD.