Nvidia reported second-quarter earnings that fell short of Wall Street’s revenue and EPS estimates.
The report was in line with Nvidia’s preliminary earnings two weeks ago. The chipmaker warned that it will miss Wall Street expectations and that growth has slowed significantly amid disappointing gaming sales due to macroeconomic conditions. It also warned that its gross margins would decline.
Nvidia said it had “minimal” sales of its cryptocurrency mining processors (CMPs) in the second quarter of fiscal 2023, which ended July 31, down from $266 million a year ago. Nvidia said that while the chipmaker generated $289 million in sales to cryptocurrency miners in the first quarter, that revenue is likely to fall by two-thirds in the current period.
Nvidia CFO Colette Kress said the company has been unable to estimate the impact of reduced demand for cryptocurrency mining on its second-quarter results. However, some analysts pointed out that the collapse in the demand for graphics cards caused by the collapse of the encryption market also brought a lot of impact to Nvidia. As cryptocurrencies depreciate, miners have less need for expensive graphics cards.
The chipmaker said it expects sales of $5.9 billion in the fiscal third quarter. Nvidia’s gaming division revenue fell 33% year over year to $2.04 billion, a larger-than-expected decline. Nvidia said the miss was due to lower sales of its gaming products, which are mostly graphics cards for PCs.
“Global macroeconomic headwinds have led to a sudden slowdown in consumer demand for the company’s gaming products,” Nvidia Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said on a conference call with analysts. Nvidia said it will work with retailers to adjust prices in response to “challenging market conditions” in the industry.
Much of Nvidia’s success over the past two years has been due to the quality of its latest-generation graphics cards, which have been in high demand for PC gaming during the pandemic.
It is worth mentioning that on August 10th, Nvidia released a new set of development tools focused on virtual world environments (metaverse), including new artificial intelligence capabilities, simulations and other creative assets. Creators using the Omniverse suite and apps like Nucleus, Audio2Face, and Machinima will be able to access the new upgrades.
A major function of these tools will be to help enhance the construction of “accurate digital twins and lifelike avatars,” Nvidia said. The new Nvidia toolkit includes the Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine (ACE). Developers claim ACE will improve conditions for building “virtual assistants and digital humans.” Another addition to the Nvidia update includes Nvidia PhysX, an “advanced real-time engine for simulating realistic physics.”