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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bznotins - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
Hah, if the "fix" impacted benchmarks, I would be upset. But guess what -- the benchmarks are the same today as they were before the error.Who really buys cards on tech specs? I buy mine on benchmarks.
If tech specs were all that mattered, Porsche wouldn't be making 78% margins with flat-sixes. People would only be buying V8s.
Pneumothorax - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
Look what Mazda did with the RX-8 when they were caught inflating the Hp by around 10. Yes, the car mags already benchmarked the cars and you knew what performance you're going to get, yet they still offered free maintenance or was willing to take back the cars to please their customers. These are $26,000 cars not $330 video cards folks! Yet, Mazda while willing to do this during the years they were losing billions of Yen. Look at Nvidia, flush with cash and they're not willing to take these cards back. Most of us weren't asking for a free upgrade to a 980, just an option for a refund as most retailers/aibs won't take the cards backFlushedBubblyJock - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
Ah, there we have it, a free 980 upgrade exchange...that's why the sour lemonage is there.So let's see what reality is - .5Gb of 4.0GB is one eighth, and we have the GPU, the driver/capabilities, and the RAM as one third each of the package, so one third of one eighth is one 24th, and I'd round to one 25th since there is .5GB just a slow .5, and 1/25th of $300 is Twelve Dollars.
That's what you deserve at best, $12.
Dribble - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
I bet the engineers did after the first reviews went out, and I bet they complained loudly and the marketing department told them to shut up because it was too late. I bet they then told marketing someone will find out, you can't hide this, and marketing said we've hid plenty of stuff in the past. Now there'll be a lot of "I told you so's" going around and marketing people trying to pass on the blame.dragonsqrrl - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
Yes, I bet that's exactly what happened...FlushedBubblyJock - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
And I'd bet no one dared say a word, because they keep their heads down and do their jobs, and I'd bet when it came to any engineer that even caught wind or noticed, they would chuckle and think the idiots will never know, and then they watched all the reviewers and concluded: "Yep they are all so stupid after bragging about their massive expertise, they just have not clue one".And thus it went on, even though the prior 2 rounds of core releases had fits over 4GB "needed" for "future proofing", and to drive the 970 up beyond 2-3 GB used required ridiculously slow frame rates that "enthusiasts" won't tolerate for even a few minutes, and so SLI udeage or bored users eventually whined about far out scenarios, and finally, after many months... still outlying cases speculating on half broken new games needing patches....
So really, nVidia was right, the morons of the masses of self proclaimed experts are so thick and so clueless and have such a hard time understanding what a fact is (they are "journalistic marketeers" and thus liars and spin artists), they never really knew anything.
nVidia had to tell them all.
TheJian - Friday, February 13, 2015 - link
Revenue isn't profit. But I've yet to hear from someone denied, and you assume they lied. Anandtech doesn't think so. But I guess you're right...LOL. Let me know when anandtech (or anyone) shows performance degrades as sold. This doesn't change the benchmarks, and doubtful many care with that being the case (as noted ~5% and some are due to bad cards etc).What good would a refund do you for perf? Not much. You're going to buy 980 or be happy you got a 970 for the price you paid. Anandtech still working on a corner case (surely NV had a budget to search for them too if desired). hmm...Whatever.
FlushedBubblyJock - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
I want to see the corner case so I can LOL and watch the grunting idiots demand a 980 replacement.I also want the grunters to produce the "case" two or three years from now since they are "future proofed" but aren't now...even capable of playing top games/slam the mem/ as the gpu core pukes out.
Taneli - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
What happened to their LTE development? Tegra 4i was launched almost two years ago, had only few design wins and nothing has followed. Are they still committed to phones or is Tegra going to be only higher TDP parts for tablets and cars?dragonsqrrl - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
They dropped smartphones around the time the K1 launched. They're focusing on automotive and ~5W TDP mobile devices, such as tablets and Chomebooks.