NVIDIA posts $81.6B quarter, $58.3B profit

Nvidia’s latest quarter did two things at once: it extended the company’s AI growth streak and raised the bar again for what investors now expect. On May 20, Nvidia reported fiscal first-quarter revenue of $81.6 billion and net income of $58.3 billion for the quarter ended April 26, according to the company’s earnings release. The company also forecast $91 billion in revenue for the current quarter, plus or minus 2%, and said that outlook assumes no China data-center compute revenue. After the report, the stock slipped in extended trading even as the results topped already elevated expectations. ### How big was the quarter in plain numbers? Nvidia said first-quarter revenue rose 85% from a year earlier and 20% from the prior quarter. Net income climbed 211% from a year earlier to $58.3 billion, the New York Times reported, underscoring how much of the company’s growth is still flowing through to profit. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) Data center remained the center of the story. Nvidia reported record data center revenue of $75.2 billion, up 92% from a year earlier, meaning that business accounted for the vast majority of total sales in the quarter. ### What did Nvidia say is driving the growth? Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, said in the earnings release that “AI inference token generation has surged tenfold in just one year,” and that demand for the company’s Blackwell architecture was broadening across cloud providers and model makers. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) Nvidia also said every major hyperscaler is ramping Blackwell deployments. Colette Kress, Nvidia’s finance chief, said on the company’s materials that Blackwell systems were being deployed at scale and that networking demand remained tied to AI infrastructure buildouts. Reuters, in its account of the earnings call, reported Huang said new data-center chips and a wider customer base would help Nvidia push toward a $1 trillion sales target for its flagship AI chips. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) ### Why did the China line in the forecast stand out? Nvidia said its $91 billion revenue forecast for the current quarter assumes no China data-center compute revenue. That detail matters because China had been a meaningful market for advanced AI chips before tighter U.S. export controls limited what Nvidia could sell there. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) CNBC reported Nvidia also said it has “largely conceded” China’s AI chip market to Huawei. The company’s decision to exclude China data-center compute from guidance suggests Nvidia is telling investors to judge the forecast on demand elsewhere, not on a rebound in Chinese sales. That reading is an inference from the company’s stated assumption and CNBC’s reporting. ### If the numbers were so strong, why did the stock fall? (nvidianews.nvidia.com) CNBC reported that Nvidia shares slipped after the report even though data center revenue nearly doubled and the company beat on key metrics. That pattern has become familiar for Nvidia: the numbers can be exceptional, but the stock reaction depends on whether they exceed expectations that were already extremely high going in. (cnbc.com) The company also announced an additional $80 billion share repurchase authorization and raised its quarterly cash dividend from $0.01 per share to $0.25 per share. Those moves returned more cash to shareholders, but they did not prevent the initial after-hours decline. ### Why did SoftBank rise on Nvidia’s results? (cnbc.com) SoftBank shares in Tokyo jumped 19.85% on May 21, adding more than $35 billion in market value, CNBC reported. The move reflected investor appetite for companies tied to AI infrastructure after Nvidia’s results reinforced demand for chips, servers and related systems. SoftBank’s AI exposure runs through its stake in Arm and its investments linked to OpenAI, CNBC said. (nvidianews.nvidia.com) Nvidia’s quarter did not change SoftBank’s fundamentals directly, but it gave investors a fresh data point on the pace of spending across the AI supply chain. ### What comes next in this story? Nvidia’s next test is the current quarter ending in late July, when investors will measure the company against its $91 billion revenue forecast. (cnbc.com) The company’s investor relations site lists the first-quarter fiscal 2027 materials and webcast from May 20, and the next formal update will come with second-quarter fiscal 2027 results. (investor.nvidia.com)