Nvidia doubles quarterly revenue to $96.2 billion, tops Wall Street estimates as demand for AI chips accelerates
Key Takeaways
- •Nvidia's second-quarter revenue of $96.2 billion rose 106% from a year earlier and surpassed analyst estimates of $92.2 billion.
- •Data center revenue reached $89 billion, exceeding the $85.7 billion analysts expected, including $48.7 billion from hyperscale customers and $40.3 billion from AI clouds, industrial, and enterprise.
- •Non-GAAP diluted earnings of $2.22 per share beat expectations of $2.06 to $2.09, though comparisons with earlier periods are complicated by Nvidia's decision to include stock-based compensation in non-GAAP results.
- •Nvidia issued a rare fiscal 2028 outlook projecting 70% annual sales growth, well above the 44% analysts anticipated, and guided current-quarter revenue to $91 billion plus or minus 2%.
- •After an initial dip following the release, Nvidia shares rose more than 5% in after-hours trading, and CEO Jensen Huang said AI has reached its inflection point with demand accelerating.
Nvidia doubled its revenue and profit year over year in the second quarter and forecast sales in the current quarter that topped analyst estimates, as strong demand for its AI chips continued to support the company’s results. The report added another sign that spending on AI infrastructure remains concentrated in a small group of major customers, especially cloud and data center operators that are building out capacity to train and run large models.
Revenue in the three months ended July 26 totaled $96.2 billion, up 18% from the prior quarter and 106% from the year-ago period, the company reported Wednesday, beating analyst estimates of $92.2 billion.
In a rare move, the chipmaker also provided a revenue growth outlook for fiscal 2028 that projected annual sales would increase 70% from the prior year. Nvidia did not give a specific revenue figure for fiscal 2028, but the 70% growth rate is well above the 44% growth expected by analysts.
Shares of Nvidia initially fell slightly after the earnings report, then reversed course and rose more than 5% in after-hours trading as company executives discussed the results on the conference call.
“AI has reached its inflection point. It’s doing useful work. Its tokens are productive and profitable. Now, compute is revenue,” Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia, said in a statement. “And demand is accelerating,” he said.
For the current quarter, Nvidia guided revenue to $91 billion plus or minus 2%, outpacing the average analyst expectation of $103.9 billion.
Data center revenue, the overwhelming majority of Nvidia’s AI business, came in at $89 billion, compared with analyst estimates of $85.7 billion. In the previous quarter, the data center segment generated $75.2 billion in revenue, up 92% from a year earlier, when revenue was $39.1 billion. Within the data center business, Nvidia reported $48.7 billion in hyperscale revenue and $40.3 billion in AI clouds, industrial, and enterprise (ACIE) revenue, a breakdown the company adopted to distinguish large cloud customers from AI-native clouds, sovereign AI, and on-premises enterprise.
Nvidia reported non-GAAP earnings of $2.22 per diluted share, above analysts’ expectations of $2.06 to $2.09. In the prior quarter, Nvidia earned $1.87 per share on a non-GAAP basis and $2.39 on a GAAP basis. The company began including stock-based compensation in its non-GAAP results, making direct comparisons with previous fiscal years less straightforward.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com.
