Nvidia crushes earnings again, but shares tumble as Wall Street asks “what’s next?”
NEW YORK — Nvidia delivered another blockbuster quarter and forecast even more growth ahead, but its stock still dropped sharply Thursday as investors weighed how much of the artificial-intelligence boom is already baked into the company’s price — and how sustainable the spending surge will be.
Nvidia said late Wednesday that revenue for its fourth quarter ended Jan. 25 rose 73% from a year earlier to $68.1 billion, driven largely by demand for its data-center chips used to train and run AI systems. The company reported net income of $42.96 billion and earnings of $1.76 per share on a GAAP basis.
The company’s outlook also topped expectations. Nvidia projected revenue of about $78.0 billion for its current quarter, plus or minus 2%, but noted it is not assuming any data-center compute revenue from China in that forecast.
Still, Nvidia’s shares fell 5.5% — their worst drop since April — and pulled down major indexes, a sign that investors are demanding not just strong results, but proof that the AI buildout can keep paying off for Nvidia and its biggest customers.
Analysts and investors have increasingly questioned whether tech giants pouring hundreds of billions into data centers can reliably translate that spending into profits, and whether competition will intensify as rivals push new AI accelerators and large cloud customers invest in custom chips. Reuters also reported concerns about Nvidia’s capital spending and shareholder returns, alongside questions about how the competitive landscape is shifting.
For the full fiscal year, Nvidia reported revenue of $215.9 billion, up 65% from the prior year, and said it returned $41.1 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends.
