Nvidia's Results Beat Estimates, but Wall Street Wants More Cash Return 

Nvidia's Earnings Surpass Expectations, Investors Seek More Returns

By Arsheeya Bajwa and Stephen Nellis

Feb 25 (Reuters) - Chipmaker Nvidia posted better-than-expected results for the January quarter on Wednesday and forecast current-quarter revenue above market estimates, betting on Big Tech's unabated spending on its artificial-intelligence processors.

Investor Reactions and Expectations

But its stock traded flat after hours, as investors, used to solid revenue beats from the company for 14 straight quarters, were likely disappointed by the uneventful results that were released 10 minutes after the expected time. 

On the post-earnings conference call, UBS analyst Tim Arcuri asked executives whether Nvidia was looking to give back to shareholders some of the $100 billion cash it was likely to generate this year, because "no matter how good the results have been, the stock hasn't really gone up much." In response, Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said the company wanted to keep investing in the AI ecosystem.

CEO Jensen Huang said the output generated by AI models would be the foundation of future computing and Nvidia would keep building more infrastructure to support that. "This new way of doing computing is not going to go back," he said.

Supply Chain and Growth Strategies

Seeking to alleviate concerns that a supply crunch at its chip contract maker TSMC was getting in the way of its growth, Nvidia said it had secured enough chip inventory and capacity to meet demand beyond the next several quarters. The shortage, though, will affect its gaming business, the company said.

The world's most valuable company expects fiscal first-quarter sales of $78 billion, plus or minus 2%, compared with analysts' average estimate of $72.60 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.

"This was a good beat and raise, the usual for Nvidia, but based on the reactions preliminarily, it seems a lot was baked in to the cake so far," said Ken Mahoney, CEO at Mahoney Asset Management, which holds shares of Nvidia. 

AI Market and Competitive Landscape

CUSTOMER CONCENTRATION

The fourth-quarter results are good news for AI investors, who are looking to Nvidia's performance to gauge whether the hundreds of billions of dollars that Big Tech is pouring into data center infrastructure are paying off. Hyperscalers including Meta Platforms - a big Nvidia customer - have forecast total capital expenditure of at least $630 billion in 2026, with most of the spending earmarked for data centers and processors. 

"It’s clear from Nvidia’s latest numbers and their forecast that concerns about an AI slowdown simply are not showing up yet," said Bob O'Donnell, chief analyst at TECHnalysis Research. 

Still, there are signs of risk to Nvidia's long-held dominance in making AI chips. Smaller rival AMD is set to unveil a new flagship AI server later this year and has clinched deals with Nvidia's top customers, including Meta. Alphabet's Google, meanwhile, has emerged as a top rival with a deal to provide Claude chatbot creator Anthropic with its in-house chips called TPUs. Google is also in talks to supply Meta, according to media reports.

Big Tech is increasingly turning inward in the quest for more computing power, dedicating resources to designing in-house chips that they are deploying in their data centers.

Sales Concentration and Customer Insights

Nvidia's sales concentration among a few key customers crept up during its just-ended fiscal 2026, with two customers making up 36% of sales. During the previous fiscal year, three customers made up 34% of sales.

Geopolitical Factors and Revenue Projections

NO CHINA REVENUE YET

Nvidia reported January-quarter sales rose 94% to $68.13 billion, beating estimates of $66.21 billion. Adjusted profit came in at $1.62 per share, compared with estimates of $1.53, according to LSEG data.

Nvidia said its forecast for the current quarter did not include any expected revenue from sales of its data-center chips to China. However, the company said it had received licenses this month from the U.S. government to ship "small amounts" of its H200 chips to customers in China. These sales had been restricted due to export curbs placed by the U.S. government.

Rival AMD has added sales of AI chips back to its forecast for the current quarter after it received licenses to ship some of its modified processors to China. 

Nvidia also said it will include stock-based compensation expense in its non-GAAP financial measures at a time when tech firms are fighting each other for top AI engineers and researchers.

"Stock-based compensation is a foundational component of Nvidia's compensation program to attract and retain world-class talent," the company said in a statement.

(Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa and Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru, and Stephen Nellis and Max A. Cherney in San Francisco; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli, Sayantani Ghosh and Matthew Lewis)