This week I appeared on Yahoo Finance to discuss NVIDIA’s quarterly earnings with anchor Josh Lipton alongside CFRA executive and equity analyst Angelo Zino. Click the link below to view our conversation, or read the rest of this post for an AI-generated, human-curated overview and summary of the discussion.
Link to edited segment. (My segment starts around 2:37.)
Overview
NVIDIA reports a major beat on Q4 revenue and EPS, with a particularly strong performance in its datacenter business, driven by hyperscalers like Microsoft, Meta, Amazon, and Google. The company posted revenue of $68.1 billion and provided a robust first-quarter guidance of approximately $78 billion, comfortably beating analyst consensus — even excluding potential China datacenter revenue, which NVIDIA management treats cautiously due to geopolitical uncertainty. Analysts Patrick Moorhead and Angelo Zino highlight NVIDIA’s powerful positioning in AI infrastructure, high margins, and strong execution, while noting rising competitive and execution risks, including HBM memory supply, packaging, and power constraints.
Outline
Pre-Earnings Expectations and Metrics
- Angelo Zino states that NVIDIA’s top line is the primary focus, with expectations for January quarter revenue around $66 billion to $67 billion.
- Zino emphasizes that the sustainability of demand and the trajectory of datacenter growth are the most critical factors for the year.
- Patrick Moorhead notes that a beat is already expected by the market, making the forward guidance the most important element of the report.
- Moorhead suggests that a forecast of $75 billion is necessary to impress investors, while anything less might be seen as a disappointment.
- Moorhead highlights Blackwell specifics, rack-scale systems, and datacenter power constraints as key details that could affect investor confidence.
Market Cycle and Competitive Landscape
- Josh Lipton observes that NVIDIA’s stock has remained relatively flat for the last six months despite the AI boom.
- Zino explains this stagnation as a result of investors compressing multiples due to increased risks as the semiconductor cycle matures.
- Moorhead discusses how the competitive landscape has shifted from a perceived NVIDIA monopoly to a market with viable alternatives.
- Moorhead identifies AMD’s scale-up architecture and Google’s TPU as significant threats to NVIDIA’s dominance.
NVIDIA’s Fourth-Quarter Financial Results
- Yahoo Finance editor Daniel Howley reports that NVIDIA posted fourth-quarter revenue of $68.1 billion and earnings per share of $1.62, beating estimates.
- Howley notes that the first-quarter revenue outlook of $76.44 billion to $79.56 billion far exceeded the Wall Street consensus of $72.8 billion.
- Howley specifies that the datacenter business earned $62.3 billion (versus an estimate of $60.2 billion), with over 50% coming from hyperscalers like Microsoft and Meta.
- Howley mentions that the gaming division brought in $4 billion, slightly missing estimates due to seasonality.
Post-Earnings Analysis and Future Outlook
- Moorhead expresses surprise that the stock did not rise further, given that the company crushed the whisper number of $75 billion. He emphasizes that demand is so strong that it’s not an issue.
- Zino points out that the strong guidance was achieved despite assuming no revenue from the China datacenter market.
- Patrick Moorhead says that AI infrastructure is essentially sold out until the end of 2027, driven by a multi-decade opportunity for hyperscalers. The one note of caution is that datacenters may be difficult to supply with electricity by the end of the 2020s.
- Zino suggests that geopolitical uncertainties make the long-term potential of the Chinese market difficult to quantify.
- Angelo Zino concludes that the stock remains a strong buy with potential upside as new AI use cases are unlocked through 2027.
Companies Mentioned
- NVIDIA
- TSMC
- Amazon
- Microsoft
- Meta
- AMD
- Google
- Broadcom
- OpenAI
AI-Assisted Keyword Summary
NVIDIA earnings, data center revenue, AI infrastructure spend, hyperscalers, capex, AMD, Google TPU, Broadcom, memory pricing, HBM, enterprise AI
Founder, CEO and Chief Analyst | + posts
Patrick Moorhead is the founder, CEO, and chief analyst of Moor Insights & Strategy. His big-picture view of technology is grounded in more than 20 years as an executive leading strategy, product management, product marketing, and corporate marketing functions at NCR, AT&T, Compaq, and AMD. He has shared his expertise in areas from silicon to infrastructure to enterprise SaaS and everything in-between in thousands of national broadcast appearances (CNBC, Yahoo Finance), articles (Forbes, CIO), research-based analyses, and podcast episodes. Today, he has 100+ CXO-level advisory clients and is often ranked the #1 technology industry analyst by ARInsights.
