NVIDIA Reports Financial Results for Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2010

NVIDIA Corp. (NASDAQ: NVDA) today reported revenue of $982.5 million or 23 cents a share, compared to a loss of $147.7 million, or 27 cents a share in the same period a year earlier for their fourth quarter of fiscal 2010 ended Jan. 31, 2010.  Revenue is up 9 percent from the previous quarter and more than double the $481.1 million reported in the same period a year earlier. For the full fiscal year, revenue was $3.3 billion compared with $3.4 billion for the fiscal year ended Jan. 25, 2009, a decrease of 3 percent.

Excluding special items, NVIDIA said fourth-quarter earnings were 23 cents a share. This was better than expected as analysts polled by Reuters had expected NVIDIA to post earnings of 20 cents a share.

On a GAAP basis, the company recorded net income of $131.1 million, or $0.23 per diluted share, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2010, compared with a GAAP net loss of $147.7 million, or $0.27 per share, in the same period a year earlier. GAAP net loss for the fiscal year ended Jan. 31, 2010 was $68.0 million, or $0.12 per share, compared with a net loss of $30.0 million, or $0.05 per share, for the fiscal year ended Jan. 25, 2009.

Non-GAAP net income(1) for the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2010 was $141.4 million, or $0.26 per diluted share, compared with net income of $160.3 million, or $0.29 per diluted share, for the same period a year earlier.

                            Quarterly Highlights     Fiscal Year Highlights
($ in millions except
 per share data)     Q4 FY2010  Q3 FY2010  Q4 FY2009    FY2010     FY2009
Revenue                $982.5     $903.2     $481.1     $3,326     $3,425
                     =========  =========  =========  =========  =========
GAAP:
Gross margin            44.7%      43.4%      29.4%      35.4%      34.3%
Net income (loss)      $131.1     $107.6    ($147.7)   ($68.0)    ($30.0)
Income (loss) per
 share                  $0.23      $0.19     ($0.27)   ($0.12)    ($0.05)
Non-GAAP: (1)
Gross margin            44.7%      40.7%      28.1%      38.6%      39.9%
Net income (loss)      $131.1      $77.4    ($145.3)    $141.4     $160.3
Income (loss) per
 share                  $0.23      $0.13     ($0.27)     $0.26      $0.29
                     =========  =========  =========  =========  =========

(1) Commencing with the fourth quarter, non-GAAP is now defined to include stock based compensation. As a result, stock-based compensation will no longer be a reconciling item between GAAP and non-GAAP measures. All historical non-GAAP measures presented here have been prepared on this basis.

“NVIDIA’s business continued to accelerate in the fourth quarter, with strong demand in our PC and workstation markets,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, NVIDIA’s president and chief executive officer. “While the yield of chips made using the latest 40nm process has improved significantly, demand continues to exceed our constrained supply. Looking ahead this year, we are excited to raise the bar again with our next-generation Fermi GPU architecture; our Tegra mobile processor will enable a new class of amazing mobile devices like tablets; and our 3D Vision glasses and accompanying technology will bring a whole new dimension to personal computing.”

Gross margin increased to 44.7 percent for the fourth quarter fiscal 2010 from 43.4 percent in the previous quarter and 29.4 percent in the same period a year earlier. The company’s third quarter results included a non-recurring $25.1 million credit for insurance proceeds, of which $24.1 million was recorded as a benefit to cost of revenue. Excluding this benefit, fourth quarter non-GAAP gross margin improved 4.0 points sequentially to 44.7 percent from 40.7 percent.

Outlook

The outlook for the first quarter of fiscal 2011 is as follows:

--  Revenue is expected to be flat from the fourth quarter.
--  GAAP gross margin is expected to be in the range of 44 to 45 percent.
--  GAAP operating expenses are expected to be flat, at approximately $305
million.
--  Tax rate of 12% to 14% assuming a renewal of the U.S. R&D tax credit,
14% to 16% otherwise.

Fourth Quarter Fiscal 2010 and Recent Highlights:

--  NVIDIA(R) GPU revenue was up 22 percent quarter on quarter.  Within
that, desktop GPU revenue was up 19 percent, notebook GPU revenue was up 27
percent and Quadro(R) graphics revenue was up 25 percent.
--  NVIDIA launched its next-generation Tegra(TM) chip: demonstrated Flash
10.1, Epic's Unreal Engine 3 and 1080p HD video on tablets; and announced
that Volkswagen and Audi will use next-generation Tegra starting in 2012.
--  NVIDIA launched Optimus(TM) technology, a combination of software and
hardware innovations for notebooks, which provides the performance of
discrete graphics while still delivering great battery life.  Eight models
are available now, with 50 systems to be available by the summer.

The main points:

— Revenue rose 9 percent quarter-on-quarter to $982.5 million

— GAAP net income of $131.1 million, or $0.23 per diluted share

— GAAP gross margin of 44.7 percent

Considering the struggling worldwide economy, NVIDIA is doing pretty well financially and we gamers are particularly looking forward to the release of their new GF100 graphics chips later on this quarter.  We are currently discussing this topic as well as NVIDIA’s conference call here:

http://alienbabeltech.com/abt/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=20289

Mark Poppin

ABT Senior Editor

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