NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA) released its FQ4 2018 earnings results after closing bell. On a non-GAAP basis, NVIDIA earnings came in at $1.72 per share on $2.91 billion in sales. Analysts had been expecting earnings of $1.16 per share on $2.67 billion in revenue. In the year-ago quarter, NVIDIA earnings amounted to $1.13 per share on $2.17 billion in revenue.
On a GAAP basis, NVIDIA earnings came in at $1.78 per share, versus the 99 cents per share the company reported in the same quarter a year ago. The chip maker’s GAAP gross margin rose to a new record of 61.9%, while its non-GAAP gross margin was 62.1%, compared to 60% and 60.2%, respectively, in the same quarter a year ago.
NVIDIA management said adoption of the company’s Volta GPUs has been strong among industries and that “hundreds” of transportation firms are using the NVIDIA DRIVE platform.
“We achieved another record quarter, capping an excellent year,” founder and CEO Jensen Huang said in a statement on the NVIDIA earnings results. “In a powerful sign of our progress, attendees at NVIDIA’s GPU Technology Conferences reached 22,000, up tenfold in five years, as software developers working in AI, self-driving cars, and a broad range of other fields continue to discover the acceleration and money-saving benefits of our GPU computing platform.”
For FQ1 2019, NVIDIA management expects revenue to come in around $2.9 billion, plus or minus 2%, which is very strong versus the consensus of $2.46 billion. They expect the GAAP gross margin to be 62.7% and the non-GAAP gross margin to be 63%, plus or minus 50 basis points on each estimate. They expect GAAP operating expenses to be about $770 million and non-GAAP operating expenses to be about $645 million.
The chip maker plans to return $1.25 billion to shareholders in fiscal 2019. It returned $1.25 billion in fiscal 2018.
Following the NVIDIA earnings release, the company’s stock skyrocketed in after-hours trades, climbing by about 12% to as high as $243.08 per share.
