Nvidia Profit Rises, Outlook Strong; Shares Up 4%

(RTTNews) - Nvidia Corp. (NVDA) Thursday reported a jump in its second-quarter profit, driven largely by a better-than-expected growth in revenues and strong margins. Shares of the graphics chip maker gained about 4 percent in extended hours, as it detailed a strong revenue outlook for the current quarter.

Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia's second-quarter profit surged to $253 million or $0.40 per share from $26 million or $0.05 per share last year. Adjusted earnings for the quarter increased to $313 million or $0.53 per share from $190 million or $0.34 per share last year.

On average, 19 analysts estimated earnings of $0.37 per share for the quarter. Analysts' estimates typically exclude one-time items.

Nvidia's revenues for the quarter climbed 24 percent to $1.43 billion from $1.15 billion last year. Analysts had a consensus revenue estimate of $1.35 billion for the quarter.

Nvidia's gross margin for the quarter improved to 57.9 percent from 55.0 percent last year.

"Strong demand for our new Pascal-generation GPUs and surging interest in deep learning drove record results," said Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and chief executive officer, NVIDIA. "Our strategy to focus on creating the future where graphics, computer vision and artificial intelligence converge is fueling growth across our specialized platforms -- Gaming, Pro Visualization, Datacenter and Automotive."

Nvidia specializes in graphics processing units for PCs and video game consoles, while it has also expanded into the smartphone and tablet chip markets with its Tegra series. The company has also turned its focus on producing computing chips for high-end cars.

Looking forward to the third quarter, the company expects revenues of $1.68 billion, plus or minus two percent. Analysts currently estimate revenues of $1.45 billion for the quarter.

NVDA closed Thursday's trading at $59.70, up $1.19 or 2.03% on the Nasdaq. The stock further gained $2.30 or 3.85% in the after-hours trade.