Nvidia sees $44.06 billion revenue in Q1 2025, up 72% as stock futures surge in reaction
Nvidia reported a blowout first quarter on Wednesday, pulling in $44.06 billion in revenue—72% more than it made in the same period last year—according to data reported by LSEG.
The number landed well above expectations and immediately pushed Nvidia’s stock up around 6% in after-hours trading. The company also beat on earnings, posting 96 cents per share, adjusted, compared to the 93 cents analysts expected.
Despite new restrictions from Washington that blocked shipments of its H20 AI chips to China, Nvidia still delivered one of its strongest quarters ever. The company had been set to make nearly $8 billion more in revenue if not for the policy change.
During the quarter, the US government informed the company that the H20 chip, which had previously been cleared, would now require an export license. That decision forced Nvidia to take a $4.5 billion hit from excess inventory and wiped out $2.5 billion in potential sales.
China ban slams revenue, Jensen Huang says AI market is closed to US
Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang told investors during the earnings call that the new export controls effectively blocked US companies from competing in China’s massive AI chip market. “The H20 export ban ended our Hopper data center business in China,” Jensen said.
He added that the $50 billion AI chip opportunity in China is now “effectively closed to US industry.” The company’s gross margin came in at 61%, but would have been 71.3% if not for the China-related losses.
Still, Nvidia’s net income for the quarter climbed 26% to $18.8 billion, or 76 cents per share, compared to $14.9 billion or 60 cents per share a year ago. Revenue jumped from $26 billion a year earlier, driven largely by the company’s data center unit. That division, which includes the hardware powering AI tools like ChatGPT, rose 73% to $39.1 billion, accounting for 88% of total revenue.
Nvidia said that almost half of the data center business came from large cloud providers. Sales of networking products, which connect thousands of GPUs for AI training, hit $5 billion. Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress told investors that Microsoft has “deployed tens of thousands of Blackwell GPUs and is expected to ramp to hundreds of thousands” of the company’s GB200 chips, mainly due to its work with OpenAI.
Gaming, auto, and visualization units post solid gains
The gaming division, once the company’s main business, pulled in $3.8 billion, a 42% increase from the previous year. Nvidia still builds the processor for the upcoming Nintendo Switch 2, but many of these chips now double for AI purposes too.
The automotive and robotics unit brought in $567 million, up 72%, boosted by more demand for chips and software used in self-driving technology.
The professional visualization segment, including hardware like the DGX Spark and DGX Station, posted $509 million in revenue, up 19% from last year. These machines are used for AI and 3D design workloads.
The company also returned cash to shareholders in a big way. It spent $14.1 billion on share repurchases and issued $244 million in dividends during the quarter. Despite facing regulatory setbacks and a China chokehold, Nvidia is less than 5% off its record high from January and is currently sitting at its highest level in four months.
Outside of the company’s report, financial markets got another jolt late Wednesday when the US Court of International Trade ruled against President Donald Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs. The court said Trump had overreached and ordered the tariffs to be vacated.
S&P 500 futures rose 1.6%, Nasdaq 100 futures added 2%, and the Dow Jones futures climbed 511 points, or 1.2%. This came after a sluggish session where the S&P 500 fell 0.6%, the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.5%, and the Dow lost 245 points. But by the end of the week, things looked different.
Major indexes are now on pace to end both the week and the month higher. The S&P 500 is up 1.5%, the Dow rose 1.2%, and the Nasdaq gained 2%. The tech sector alone has surged over 10% in May, driven by the AI wave and announcements from companies like Alphabet.
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Original reporting: cryptopolitan.com
