NVIDIA Releases Q4 FY 2015 And Full Year Results: Record Revenue For Quarter And Full Year
by Brett Howse on February 11, 2015 5:35 PM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
- NVIDIA
- Financial Results
NVIDIA released their earnings report for the fourth quarter of their fiscal year 2015, which ended January 25th, 2015. FY 2015 was a record for the company, with revenues coming in at $4.68 billion, up 13% from 2014. Q4 also had record revenue, following Q3 2014 which was also a record for NVIDIA. For the most recent quarter, NVIDIA had revenues of $1.25 billion, up 9% from 2014 and up 2% from Q3 2015. Gross margin for Q4 2015 was $699 million, or 55.9% which is up 1.8% over Q4 2014, and 0.7% over Q3 2015. Net income came in at $193 million, also up quarter-over-quarter 13%, and year-over-year 40%. Earnings per share were $0.35 (GAAP), up 13% over last quarter and 40% over last year, and beating analysts expectations.
NVIDIA paid back $46 million in cash dividends, and bought back 200,000 shares in Q4, bringing the 2015 fiscal year up to a total of $186 million in dividends and 44.4 million shares repurchased for $814 million, meaning NVIDIA was able to return $1.0 billion during the year. For FY 2016, NVIDIA intends to return an additional $600 million through these methods. The next dividend will be $0.085 per share, paid on March 19 to all shareholders on record as of February 16.
| NVIDIA Q4 2015 Financial Results (GAAP) | |||||
| Q4'2015 | Q3'2015 | Q4'2014 | Q/Q | Y/Y | |
| Revenue (in millions USD) | $1251 | $1225 | $1144 | +2% | +9% |
| Gross Margin | 55.9% | 55.2% | 54.1% | +0.7% | +1.8% |
| Operating Expenses (in millions USD) | $468 | $463 | $452 | +1% | +4% |
| Net Income | $193 | $173 | $147 | +12% | +31% |
| EPS | $0.35 | $0.31 | $0.25 | +13% | +40% |
NVIDIA has also released Non-GAAP figures which exclude the stock-based compensation, legal settlements, acquisition costs, investments, and a credit related to weak die/packaging material set.
| NVIDIA Q4 2015 Financial Results (Non-GAAP) | |||||
| Q4'2015 | Q3'2015 | Q4'2014 | Q/Q | Y/Y | |
| Revenue (in millions USD) | $1251 | $1225 | $1144 | +2% | +9% |
| Gross Margin | 56.2% | 55.5% | 53.8% | +0.7% | +2.4% |
| Operating Expenses (in millions USD) | $420 | $415 | $408 | +1% | +3% |
| Net Income | $241 | $220 | $187 | +10% | +34% |
| EPS | $0.43 | $0.39 | $0.32 | +10% | +34% |
The GPU business is still the main part of NVIDIA, and they had a nice boost. During Q4, NVIDIA launched the GTX 960 GPU, as well as the GTX 965M. This, combined with the GTX 980 , 970, 980M, and 970M launches recently have propelled the GPU revenue up to $1.073 billion for the quarter. This is an 8% increase over Q3 2015, and a year-over-year gain of 13%. Maxwell based cards have been very popular, and NVIDIA has seen strength in the PC gaming market for their high-end offerings. Notebooks with discrete GPUs have also been selling well, showing sales well above year-ago levels.
Tegra sales fell quite substantially this quarter, after several quarters of strong growth. For Q4 2015, Tegra revenue was $112 million, down from $168 million in Q3, and $131 million a year ago. This represents a decrease in revenue of 33% quarter-over-quarter, and 15% year-over-year. Smartphone and tablet design wins featuring NVIDIA Tegra drove the decline, however automotive Infotainment sales more than doubled. This helps explain why NVIDIA focused solely on the Tegra X1 at CES this year, as it has been a very strong market for their processors.
The remaining revenue is $66 million, which is a licensing fee paid by Intel to NVIDIA every quarter.
| NVIDIA Quarterly Revenue Comparison (GAAP) | |||||
| In millions | Q4'2015 | Q3'2015 | Q4'2014 | Q/Q | Y/Y |
| GPU | $1073 | $991 | $947 | +8% | +13% |
| Tegra Processor | $112 | $168 | $131 | -33% | -15% |
| Other | $66 | $66 | $66 | flat | flat |
It was a great FY 2015 for NVIDIA. Strong GPU sales offset the weaker smartphone and tablet SoC sales, but Tegra in the automotive space continues to perform very well.
For Q1 FY 2016 (yes, NVIDIA’s fiscal year is almost an entire year ahead of calendar year) the company is expecting revenues of $1.16 billion, plus or minus 2%, and GAAP margins of 56.2%, with Non-GAAP margins of 56.5%.
Source: NVIDIA
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TheJian - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
ROFL. Car revenue from SOCS/infotaintment systems is expected to be 15B by 2017. NV is shaping up to be a leader there and only needs 1/3 of that to more than double the size of their whole company revenue. They only need to crack ~$1B revenue for tegra to be profitable. They are not that far off and we have all been watching the fakes up to x1 which is the FIRST one will a TRUE mobile gpu on it (kepler wasn't built for this, maxwell was but we lost denver due to tsmc for this rev).Tegra is just starting, not ending. I don't believe we'll see the full affect until the chip AFTER X1 though when they put back Denver on 14nm samsung with maxwell in too. Both of those together should be very good. You have to remember Denver was NOT made for 28nm, but TSMC screwed up the schedule forcing them to go with quick IP from ARM instead of remaking changes again to 20nm (after having to already do that to put it out at 28nm). So the real deal got delayed a bit, but we'll see it at 14nm and then I think we'll see it be able to be used in many more phones/tablets paired with samsung modems most likely (since they just hit cat10 while qcom is now seeming behind at cat9). We will also know more about the NV suit vs. samsung in another quarter or two and how that affects pricing on NV getting stuff fabbed over there, or if there's a huge payout over 6yrs like Intel etc, or if it was to get free modems from samsung included etc. Who knows how that works out.
I can't remember the stat group that said auto socs/systems would be $15B, but this year semiconductor automotive crap as a whole is 34B. That's a lot of dough, and with cars doing FAR more in all this soon and across the board, we'll see them use 16-20 socs per car (which is why this market is so huge) with all kinds of driver assistance crap, etc.
http://www.statista.com/statistics/277926/projecte...
The whole ball of wax. I'd have to dig further to find the part that singled out the soc part of that for 2017 but it was 15B estimated (it was an article about NV infotainment systems/ADAS for auto IIRC and the data point was mentioned). They make more from the car "solution" than from a soc sale to a mobile device and that stuff is just starting. They can wait a few revs for their desktop gpu drivers (now used in mobile) to take over gaming on android etc. Cars will more than make up for it shortly.
Intel is losing 4B+ a year on mobile. They aren't going to quit...LOL. They are hoping to shrink their way in, same way NV is hoping to shrink in a modem at some point while keeping great gpu power for gaming and utilizing 20yrs of gaming drivers to help take over anything gaming in mobile (already gaming has taken over all the app stores). The first 5-6 years of cuda were to get them where they are now also (owning 80% of the workstation market and some server stuff). You don't seem to get the LONG game. Intel and NV do. Having said that I think Intel either buys NV or loses that war (and maybe at some point a good portion of notebooks/desktops as sheer numbers drive apps/games up in quality from devs on 64bit arm). To beat the enemy here I think they have to join them (buy NV and make a better ARM than all other arm's...LOL).
NV can lose 2.5B over 5-6yrs of tegra if it makes them 1-3B a year for years to come in the next few years. Profit over revenue I mean, as again, they are chasing an estimated 15B revenue here alone, assuming NO gain in mobile devices. So if they took say 1/3 of that at $5B they're chasing (and they could end up leading it all taking 70-80% like discrete/workstation stuff), they could easily make 1-3B profit on it as they sell a whole solution here. That would only be a 60% margin at 3B profit on 5B or so revenue, more than doubling the revenue of the company and blowing up profits big time. If you don't get the point of tegra, I guess you just don't understand where we're headed. Once gaming takes over mobile even more (with xbox360 and up type gaming quality), you will see NV start to take some real numbers from mobile. Intel is basically paying for any tegra losses...LOL. If samsung gets bit for just as much or more (they make far more than Intel), and of course Intel has to re-up again in 2016 (or go back to court and lose again) they could take it in the shorts for a few more years until auto is at 15B and laugh. I expect a few people to lic NV gpu IP soon (samsung? Maybe apple if they start losing big to 14nm maxwell and beyond). It's a LONG game, not 5yr war. Can you imagine gpu revenue from PC's etc being the smallest portion while cars pulled in even 1B+ PROFIT? ROFL. Quit tegra? You must be kidding. As 64bit apps and far better games amp up they could fight for a piece of the PC desktop/notebook pie for real (way past chromebook crap). Yearly x86 pc numbers vs. ARM numbers are pathetic and getting worse. Wintel is in trouble soon.
Nvidia never made more than ~825mil in a year (2007/2008 depending on how you count quarters), but we're gaining on that now and this isn't including cars exploding, share buybacks that are now getting them to 2007 levels (when stock was ~$38 at ~800mil income, far weaker company), the 1000 companies testing grid, or at some point making something from mobile. Grid and shield each cost 10mil to develop, but may end up yielding huge returns in the end game. I think Jen just laughed at your post as he ponders Tegra 5yrs from now ;) Cuda took 8yrs to get to basically domination. Google's car solution is 150K of high tech gear for self driving crap, while NV plans to do it with 16-20 socs and a dozen cheap cameras (with grid helping) making it affordable for everyone at some point. What is that $400-600 or so in socs, and a few hundered on cameras vs. 150K per car?...LOL - add a few hundred more in software or something etc, the point is far cheaper. Google will have to go NV (someone else? Maybe apple, we'll see how they go) or give it up.
http://ragingbull.com/forum/topic/1021687
You can google the crap they're talking about here if desired.
https://www.abiresearch.com/press/global-advanced-...
Driver assistance crap blowing up huge soon. As stated from 11.1B 2014, $90B 2020, $200B 2024 as it goes mass market shortly. No longer just in a tesla etc. That's a lot of dough to fight for (not all a soc, but it is a huge part of the equation here, predicting everything, dash crap, infotaintment etc). You have ARM, Apple, Google, Nvidia, Qcom, probably Intel at some level all fighting over portions of it all but no denying NV has a decent shot at a good bit of it. NV's tech is a good fit for auto which is why it is no surprise they left mobile to some degree (where they were not a market share leader for now) and went to where it's a wide open HUGE market with no real leader.
jjj - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
The Tegra segment is almost entirely auto, Shield/ Shield Tab, Note and old consoles. You can count their wins on one hand and all are low volume- it's not at all hyperbolic, it's just what it is.If you look at the press release they intentionally avoid mentioning the Tegra brand , they mention it once when talking auto highlights and given the SF event on March 3 , i wonder if they even plan to attend MWC.
tviceman - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
Nexus 9.lucam - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
The most sold tablet of the year, isn't ?jjj - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
And Xiaomi Mipad and some Chromebooks, all low volume.Again i am not assuming or speculating , it's a fact Nvidia itself acknowledges, the Tegra segment was mostly other things not SoC sales in mobile.
darkich - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
On terms of design wins, Tegra K1 was the most successful high end Android tablet chip.Can you name me one tablet that uses the Snapdragon 805?
Android tablet space is all about cheap processors from MTK, Allwinner, Rockckip and Intel(given away in tens of millions)
jjj - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
805 was a stopgap chip not worth using in anything with the 810 supposed to show up sooner than it did.The Exynos 5420 had a lot more volume, so did the SD800 (and it's overclocked rebrand 801).
Tegra K1 has 3 wins in tabs with 2 chips, the Mipad, the Nexus 9 and the Shield Tab, all of them low volume, the Mipad on lack of availability outside China ,the others mostly on high to very high prices- the ipad mini gen 2 has better value at 300$ than the Shield and when you can't even compete with Apple something is very wrong.
The Android market is what it is because the big brands can't offer any decent buys,there is none.
A couple of weeks ago a friend that has been waiting for about a year for a decent tab, just bought a 50$ used one, that's how bad the current tablet offering is (outside China), you can't find anything worth buying even when you really really need one. They make the market by failing to offer compelling products.
lucam - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
By the way Shield tablet is not a win tablets since it's in a house product.Pneumothorax - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
I guess when you're pulling in over $1 Billion in revenue you can't afford to refund a few disgruntled 970 owners who were essentially lied to.f0d - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
as far as i know they got their refundstheres a fair few i know of that got a refund then got a 980 afterwards