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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Flunk - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
I wonder what percentage of purchasers know what ROPs are?chizow - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
Sounds like you may have benefitted from the full spec 980, but I am sure the 970 was attractive to you because it offered roughly 80% of the performance at 60% of the price of the 980? Interestingly, this paradigm has not shifted at all, despite Nvidia restating some other specifications on the 970.FlushedBubblyJock - Sunday, February 15, 2015 - link
Exactly, and we have been over that again, and again, but of course the idiocy in the gamers arenas, even what everyone calls the high end is enormous.If the gaming gooober doesn't "FEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL" good "about his rig", well then no amount of smooth FPS gaming can soothe the mental midget.
Have no doubt many of them will a few years from now fire up a game at 4k, wait 15 minutes, then get the 3.27fps fraps report and say "see, I told you so ! " - no amount of explaining that 3fps is not playable will suffice. The insane nutter butter peanut butter hamwhich kookie needs his ego massage more than life itself.
Klimax - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
Not yet. And it will be likely very small. Reports state that only 5% or so are returned. (Also might include other causes)Some e-shops (like Czech CZC) report defect rates if available. (An ASUS 290X DCII has for example ~24% rate, while MSI with 290X got 8%. GTX 970 ASUS DCII got ~%, didn't check any further)
Could be fun time for data mining...
chizow - Thursday, February 12, 2015 - link
@jackstar7, the 970 undoubtedly played a huge role in driving Nvidia to record profits and margins, and the price cuts it forced upon AMD's flagship 290/X parts clearly had the opposite effect on AMD's quarter (greatly reduced revenue, profits, margin on their GPU business).For most buyers, the relevance of Nvidia correcting and restating the 970's specs will never materialize beyond a few bits in an article or on a PDF, because the paper changes do not change the performance level they paid for when they bought the card. I guess if Nvidia's pricing of the 970 at launch seemed too good to be true, it probably was and one of the warts compared to the 980 was exposed.
Is that enough to make people return their cards or pay the premium for the 980? Looks like the answer is no.
tviceman - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
What has been years in coming has finally happened (albeit not under the circumstances either company expected). Nvidia has overtaken AMD in revenue. AMD is now officially second fiddle in both technology and revenue to all their main competitors sans consoles. Even as Tegra continues to flounder, Nvidia continues to prosper. I don't see AMD ever coming back to be a significant force. Their next GPU release might be their last big high-end competitive launch unless Nvidia massively stumbles in future GPU iterations.HighTech4US - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
Tegra is not floundering.http://investor.nvidia.com/common/download/downloa...
Tegra revenue for FY15 was $579 million up 45% from FY14's $398 million.
The data from the article is only for ONE QUARTER and the reason: Tegra Processor sales declined 15 percent from a year ago, driven by the product life cycle of several smartphone and tablet designs.
You should not use one quarter's data as a measurement as there is too much variability from one quarter to the next you should use Y-to-Y.
jjj - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
Listen to their post results call at min 35 and 20 sec http://investor.nvidia.com/eventdetail.cfm?eventid..." between automotive and Shield (our gaming platform) that represents the vast majority of Tegra now "
So they admited SoC sales to others are almost nothing
In other call related news while talking about Tegra they said they have gaming news soon so the March 3 event is Tegra related for sure.
HighTech4US - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
So what they still made $579 million or 45% more than the $398 million from FY14.Expect FY16 to have the same Y-on-Y growth.
jjj - Wednesday, February 11, 2015 - link
No they didn't made 579 million,they had revenue of that much and if you want to look at historic data look at previous years too. I'll get you started by letting you know that in 2012 Tegra revenue was 591 mil, in 2012 Tegra was 764.447 millions revenue.Then look at their SEC fillings and you'll find how much money Tegra is (mostly) losing. In 2011 Tegra op income was 43.736 mil , in 2012 Tegra op income was 40.508 millions and in 2013 Tegra op loses were 268.068 million while in Q1 2014 the op loss was 61.440 million.Tegra as a mobile SoC is dead ,it it gets revived or not it remains to be seen.