Nvidia gets tepid reaction to forecast, boosts investor rewards

Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company, delivered a sales forecast that drew a tepid reaction from investors, even as revenue from data center operators continued to surge. Sales in the three months ending in July will be $91 billion, the company said in a statement late Wednesday. Though analysts estimated $87 billion on average, projections ranged as high as $96 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Nvidia also dialed up its shareholder rewards, with the company increasing its quarterly dividend to 25 cents a share from a penny. And the company announced $80 billion in stock repurchases. The outlook let down investors who have grown accustomed to Nvidia shattering expectations. The company also is facing the first major challenges to its dominance in AI computing, with a variety of chipmakers trying to carve out of a piece of the business. Nvidia shares fell less than 1% in late trading after the results, from the company’s first quarter, were released. They had gained 20% this year, a performance that outpaced the S&P 500 but lagged most major chip peers. Nvidia is the top seller of so-called AI accelerators, chips used to develop artificial intelligence models. But it faces growing competition from across Silicon Valley. Advanced Micro Devices has rival processors, and Broadcom and Alphabet’s Google are attacking the market with their own technology. For now, Nvidia has an enviable position — with Wall Street predicting that the company’s revenue will account for more than a third of the entire semiconductor sector’s sales this year. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang has stuck to his assertions that Nvidia will continue to deliver unprecedented growth as demand remains strong for the foreseeable future. Data center spending—the main source of Nvidia’s revenue—hasn’t shown signs of letting up. The major spenders in this area, a group known as hyperscalers, plan to shell out a combined roughly $725 billion on AI this year. Read More: Alphab