Nvidia Corp. investors showed their disappointment in the chip maker's earnings by obsessing over a previously anticipated slight drop in gross profit margins, but they are missing the forest for the trees.
Nvidia's GAAP gross margins - forecast at 73% for the company's fiscal fourth quarter - are still enviable across the semiconductor industry. As one analyst told MarketWatch on Wednesday, "Many companies would chew their arm off for a mark-up of over 70%."
Nvidia's shares $(NVDA)$ fell 2.5% in after-hours trading Wednesday. Its shares have risen almost 200% so far this year, so clearly Wall Street wanted more, even as some analysts had already been discussing the margin issue, which is related to a major product transition to Nvidia's new Blackwell line of chips.
"We note new products create some uncertainty around margins and the level of dilution," Susquehanna Financial Group analyst Chris Rolland said in a note earlier this week. Nvidia has higher costs as it transitions to the new product line, and Third Bridge analyst Lucas Keh also believes that Nvidia could be initially pricing the Blackwell family at slightly lower prices. The topic of pricing was not brought up on the earnings conference call.
"If a transition toward more complex GPUs are negatively impacting Nvidia's margins, this confirms Nvidia's pricing toward Blackwell systems will not be as aggressive initially to spur adoption against competitive threats in the market like AMD," Keh wrote in a note to clients.
According to FactSet, Nvidia current ranks No. 3 among semiconductor companies in terms of gross profit margins. Arm Holdings Plc. $(ARM)$, which licenses its intellectual property, has 97% margins, and Broadcom Inc. $(AVGO)$, which now has a bigger software business, has 76.6% margins. Nvidia, which last quarter reported 75% margins, saw margins fall slightly in its fiscal third quarter, and forecast them to fall again in the fourth quarter.
But even so, investors spent some of the company's conference call with Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress and Chief Executive Jensen Huang trying to get a sense of when margins will rebound. One analyst asked if gross margins will rebound to the mid-70s by the end of calendar 2025.
"Could we reach the mid-70s in the second half of next year? ... Yes, I think it is reasonable assumption or goal for us to do, but we'll just have to see how that mix of ramp goes," Kress said. "But yes, it is definitely possible."
Analysts also may have had another quibble and were slightly disappointed that the revenue forecast for the fiscal fourth quarter, ending in January 2025, was $37.5 billion, plus or minus 2%. Whisper numbers for Nvidia's forecast were in the $39 billion to $41 billion range. That too, could also be explained by a combination of product transition and lower-than-expected pricing of the Blackwell line.
Ultimately, investors should realize that right now, Nvidia is still one of the driving forces behind the AI boom. "Today's results reinforce the view that Nvidia is a once-in-a-generation company, shaping the next industrial revolution," said Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, in a note to clients.
Perhaps comparing Nvidia's 70%-plus margins to former chip leader Intel Corp.'s $(INTC)$ recent third-quarter GAAP margins of 15% will make investors more appreciative. No matter how much Wall Street quibbles, Nvidia's numbers are still pretty amazing.