NVIDIA posts $58.3bn profit

Nvidia reported another quarter of record sales on May 20, but the numbers landed in a market that is now asking a narrower question: how much of the company’s growth can keep compounding once China is largely gone. The company said first-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue rose 85% from a year earlier to $81.6 billion, while data-center revenue climbed 92% to $75.2 billion. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) Nvidia also announced an additional $80 billion share repurchase authorization and raised its quarterly cash dividend from $0.01 to $0.25 a share. The headline point is that Nvidia is still growing at a scale that would be unusual for almost any company, let alone one already valued as a market heavyweight. (seekingalpha.com) The catch inside the release is geographic and strategic: management said it expects no data-center revenue from China in the current quarter, extending a constraint that investors have been tracking for months. ### How big was the quarter, really? The clearest measure is the top line. Nvidia’s $81.6 billion in quarterly revenue was up 20% from the prior quarter and 85% from a year earlier, according to the company’s earnings release. Net income was $18.8 billion for the quarter, and diluted earnings per share were $0.76. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) Data center remained the engine. Nvidia said that segment generated $75.2 billion, or roughly 92% of total sales, as Blackwell systems ramped across cloud providers and enterprise customers. CNBC reported that the business continues to be driven by hyperscalers, but management also pointed to AI-native clouds, sovereign AI projects and on-premises infrastructure. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) ### Why didn’t results like that satisfy everyone? The issue was not whether demand exists. It was what the next increment of growth looks like once China contributes little or nothing. Seeking Alpha’s transcript summary of the earnings call said Nvidia projected $91 billion in second-quarter revenue while outlining that it expects no data-center sales to China in the period. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) China has mattered before. Nvidia said in its first-quarter fiscal 2026 release last year that U.S. export licensing requirements for H20 products forced a $4.5 billion charge tied to excess inventory and purchase obligations, after the company had recorded $4.6 billion of H20 sales before the new restrictions. That earlier disclosure helps explain why investors continue to focus on the China line even after another record quarter. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) ### What did Jensen Huang signal about Huawei? Jensen Huang has been increasingly direct that the China market is no longer one Nvidia can count on in the same way. The user-provided source briefing cites BBC reporting that Huang said he had largely conceded that market to Huawei, framing the issue as competitive as well as regulatory. (seekingalpha.com) Reuters did not surface in the search results I found, so I am relying here on the briefing’s cited BBC account for that characterization. That matters because it shifts the investor debate. If China is structurally impaired for Nvidia, then future upside has to come from the rest of the AI buildout: U.S. cloud spending, sovereign compute projects, enterprise deployments and newer categories such as robotics and edge systems. (investor.nvidia.com) That is an inference from Nvidia’s segment disclosures and outside coverage, not a company quote. ### Is demand broadening beyond the biggest cloud companies? SiliconANGLE reported that Nvidia’s edge-computing platform generated $6.4 billion in revenue, up 29% from a year earlier, helped by Blackwell workstations, robotics and automotive demand. That is still much smaller than data center, but it shows management is trying to demonstrate growth outside the core hyperscaler spending cycle. (fool.com) CNBC said some investors may be underestimating demand from smaller AI customers and newer infrastructure buyers. Nvidia executives have also pointed to sovereign AI and enterprise deployments as additional demand pools alongside the largest cloud operators. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) ### What comes next? The next test is guidance. Nvidia said it expects second-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue of about $91 billion, and the company’s investor relations site lists its first-quarter fiscal 2027 materials and webcast archive for May 20, 2026. Investors will be watching whether that forecast holds up without China data-center sales and whether newer businesses such as edge, robotics and automotive start to contribute a larger share of growth. (siliconangle.com) (seekingalpha.com) (cnbc.com)