Nvidia reports beat, authorizes $80 billion buyback

Nvidia reported record fiscal first-quarter revenue of $81.6 billion on May 20, up 85% from a year earlier, and said adjusted earnings per share were $1.87. Wall Street had been looking for about $78.86 billion in revenue and $1.76 in adjusted earnings per share, according to CNBC’s compilation of analyst estimates. The company also disclosed an additional $80 billion share repurchase authorization and a sharply higher quarterly dividend. The stock still fell after the report, extending a pattern in which strong results have not produced a post-earnings rally. ### Why did the quarter count as a beat? Nvidia said first-quarter revenue reached $81.6 billion for the period ended April 26, 2026, while adjusted gross margin was 75.0% and adjusted earnings per diluted share were $1.87. CNBC reported those figures topped consensus expectations for both revenue and profit, and said the company’s guidance also came in ahead of Wall Street forecasts. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) Data center remained the main driver. Nvidia said data center revenue was $75.2 billion, up 92% from a year earlier, including $60.4 billion in data center compute revenue and $14.8 billion in networking revenue. ### What exactly did Nvidia authorize on buybacks? Nvidia said that as of the end of the first quarter it had $38.5 billion remaining under its existing repurchase authorization. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) The company then said its board, on May 18, approved an additional $80.0 billion for share repurchases, with no expiration date. That matters because the new authorization is incremental, not a replacement. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) In practical terms, Nvidia now has far more capacity to keep buying back stock over time, in addition to the repurchases it already executed during the quarter. Nvidia said it returned about $20.0 billion to shareholders in the first quarter through share repurchases and cash dividends. ### Why did the shares fall anyway? CNBC reported Nvidia shares sank after the analyst call and said the move put the company on track for a fourth straight post-earnings decline. That reaction points less to a miss in the reported numbers than to how elevated expectations had become going into the print. Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s founder and chief executive, used the release to argue demand remains intense. “The buildout of AI factories … is accelerating at extraordinary speed,” Huang said, adding that “agentic AI has arrived.” CNBC separately quoted Huang on the earnings call saying, “Demand has gone parabolic.” (nvidianews.nvidia.com) ### What else changed for shareholders? (cnbc.com) Nvidia said it is raising its quarterly cash dividend to $0.25 per share from $0.01 per share. The company said the dividend will be paid on June 26, 2026, to shareholders of record on June 4, 2026. The company also said it is changing how it reports its business lines. Nvidia said it will move to two market platforms — Data Center and Edge Computing — with Data Center split into Hyperscale and ACIE, which stands for AI Clouds, Industrial and Enterprise. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) ### What should investors watch next? June 4 is the next concrete shareholder date because it is the record date for Nvidia’s higher dividend, and June 26 is the payment date. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) The next quarterly filing and earnings release will show how much of the newly expanded repurchase authorization Nvidia actually uses and whether data center growth remains at the levels reported for the quarter ended April 26.