Nvidia’s financial report for the fourth quarter exceeded expectations, with optimistic forecasts for the first quarter of 2025.
Key figures:
- revenue: $39.33 billion versus the expected $38.05 billion;
- earnings per share: $0.89 instead of the projected $0.84;
- net profit rose to $22.09 billion.
The chipmaker expressed confidence in continued growth thanks to the rapid development of the artificial intelligence sector. The company anticipates revenue of $43 billion in the first quarter of 2025, surpassing analysts’ expectations of $41.78 billion.
The forecast for the first quarter implies a 65% year-on-year growth. The trend is slowing: in the fourth quarter of 2024, the increase was 78%, whereas earlier figures were higher — 94%, 122%, 262%, 265%.
Nvidia’s report was under scrutiny following the hype around the Chinese AI model from DeepSeek, as investors questioned the significant expenses on the corporation’s products. Despite the positive numbers, the company’s shares fell by 1.49% in after-hours trading.
Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress stated that the company expects “significant growth” in sales of Blackwell — the next-generation AI chip — in the first quarter.
In the fourth quarter, Nvidia’s revenue from advanced AI chips amounted to $11 billion. According to CEO Jensen Huang, the demand for processors is “amazing.” Previously, the company’s chips were mainly used for training artificial intelligence, but now they are increasingly needed for inference — maintaining the operation of existing neural networks.
Kress dismissed doubts about demand for the firm’s products due to the emergence of cheaper models.
“A long-thinking, reasoning AI may require 100 times more computation per task compared to one-off inferences,” she said.
Huawei — A Competitor to Nvidia
Despite US efforts to limit Huawei’s capabilities, the company continues to compete with the American chipmaker.
Nvidia has listed the Chinese firm as a current competitor in four out of five areas: chips, cloud services, computing, and networking products.
“Competition in China is quite strong. Huawei and other companies are quite energetic and very, very competitive,” noted Huang.
Since 2019, the US has restricted Huawei’s access to technologies from American suppliers, such as advanced 5G chips and the Android operating system.
Back in late December 2024, it was revealed that Nvidia intends to focus on developing humanoid robots.