Nvidia posts solid Q3 results, says future of cheap PCs is tablets

[Jos]

Nvidia posted solid financial results for its fiscal third quarter ended October 28, helped by the growing demand for Tegra chips in smartphones and tablets as well as a successful rollout of its Kepler-based graphics lineup for PCs. Net income during the period rose to $209.1 million, up from $178.3 million a year earlier, on record revenue of $1.2 billion. That represents a 12.9% jump in revenue over last year and a 15.3% jump over the last quarter.

Discussing the PC side of things, Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang told analysts during a conference call that their Kepler family of graphics processors is gaining ground against rival AMD across the special-purpose markets the company serves, from gaming to design to supercomputing. Some of their growth came from a major win in the high-performance computing market to provide GPU accelerator cards for the Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Titan, but the consumer GPU unit also saw a 10% quarterly bump in revenue.

Despite this the company acknowledged there’s a slump in demand for personal computers that Tegra chips used in smartphones and tablets are helping make up for. In fact, some 30% of the company's income is now derived from "non-PC" chips, up from 7% just three years ago. Nvidia’s Tegra 3 SoC powers some of this year’s highlight devices like HTC's One X, Google's Nexus 7, and Microsoft’s Surface RT tablet.

Huang is optimistic about the transformation Nvidia is seeing as it dives into the mobile market. According to the CEO, consumers now realize that a "great tablet is better than a cheap PC,” but they don’t really see much cannibalization between their product lines because Nvidia doesn’t “play in the cheap PC market.”

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https://www.techspot.com/news/50761-nvidia-posts-solid-q3-results-says-future-of-cheap-pcs-is-tablets.html

 

[Lionvibez]

Lol whatever you say Jen-Hsun Huang!

I want to see you create a SQL database or do some coding on that Tablet.

Then I will believe your BS.

 

[mosu]

":because Nvidia doesn?t ?play in the cheap PC market.?""
LOL, they play in the ultra-cheap, by performance at least, Forcing legit players like TI out of the market deploying Intel and Apple like tactics, Someone just compare OMAP 5 series with Tegra 3 or OMAP 4 series with Tegra 2 and you'll understand.Thank you Lionvibez for sharing your opinion.

 

[Lionvibez]

":because Nvidia doesn?t ?play in the cheap PC market.?""
LOL, they play in the ultra-cheap, by performance at least, Forcing legit players like TI out of the market deploying Intel and Apple like tactics, Someone just compare OMAP 5 series with Tegra 3 or OMAP 4 series with Tegra 2 and you'll understand.Thank you Lionvibez for sharing your opinion.

Agreed with your post.

When these guys can design a tablet that can properly do content creation and not just consumption only then will I take it seriously.

Current tablets are just couch browser surfers and video watching devices and maybe some basic games.

Only the uninformed would buy a tablet now thinking it can replace a computer.

Its already happen saw a story about a school board that picked up a whole bunch of tablets to replace laptops only to find out you can't do real work on an IPad. Can't even plug a usb stick into it.

They may be able to push this crap to novice users in best buy but anyone with a brain can clearly see the limitations of current tablets.

 

[Dukenukemx]

Nvidia see's little future for the PC market for themselves. With Intel refusing to allow them to make chipsets for Intel chips, and AMD has their own Radeon graphics and chipsets, Nvidia is being left out.

With tablets you have ARM, and with ARM you have Tegra. The truth is you're better off with a cheap PC then any tablet. The fastest tablet is not as fast as the slowest $200 laptop. Far less capable then a $200 laptop. They can't even print, or run Crysis.

 

[dividebyzero]

Lol whatever you say Jen-Hsun Huang!
I want to see you create a SQL database or do some coding on that Tablet

Because people who'd buy the cheap PC alternative would be doing both those things? (n)

Forcing legit players like TI out of the market deploying Intel and Apple like tactics

Intel and Apple tactics = business competition. What do you expect your competition to do? come over at night and tuck you in- maybe read you a bedtime story?

 

[Lionvibez]

Because people who'd buy the cheap PC alternative would be doing both those things? (n)

That was just an example boss,

you want me to provide a list of stuff a cheap pc is better at than a tablet??

Your a smart boy I think you can figure it out.

 

[Lionvibez]

Nvidia see's little future for the PC market for themselves. With Intel refusing to allow them to make chipsets for Intel chips, and AMD has their own Radeon graphics and chipsets, Nvidia is being left out.

With tablets you have ARM, and with ARM you have Tegra. The truth is you're better off with a cheap PC then any tablet. The fastest tablet is not as fast as the slowest $200 laptop. Far less capable then a $200 laptop. They can't even print, or run Crysis.

And this my friend is the truth if you can read between the lines in is statement.

 

[dividebyzero]

you want me to provide a list of stuff a cheap pc is better at than a tablet??

That's OK. You can keep your cheap PC knowledge base for someone who cares about such things.
What you fail to realize is that JHH's comments are media PR for financial analysts. CxO's are prone to bombast. Don't believe me, I think I can find some classic Rory Read quotes which pretty much prove he doesn't know the first thing about the semiconductor industry. The take home message from JHH is basically what the financial outlets are already fapping over:

Research firm Gartner estimates the global sales of media tablets to increase by 98% this year, from 60 million units in 2011 to 119 million units in 2012, and reach close to 370 million units by 2016.

All in all, the comment is just a convenient sound bite. JHH spent more time talking about ARMv8, and what got reported depended on the whims of the individual site. In the end it's a small aside that people with nothing better to do can have a squeal about- especially when they can't find fault with the main substance of the article, which is of course that Nvidia are doing OK. 28nm process seems to be ramping well, and that they are for the first time matching their principle competitor in revenue ( $1.204bn for Nvidia, $1.27bn for AMD).

 

[Guest]

There really ins't much that JHH can do but push the ARM side of things and hope that other customers don't decide to go the way of Apple and spin their own chip. Both Nvidia and AMD (to a lessor extent) are looking at a declining PC market and almost no demand on the lower end graphics cards which are being pushed out by the integration of decent low end graphics into the CPU by both Intel and AMD. Without that lower end it gets even harder to turn a profit with all the design cost of the graphics chip, coding drivers, etc.

Problem is that the market for ARM based chips is getting crowded with lots of players that are all using basically the same 28nm process and now Intel starting to get a competitive x86 based SoC with the 14nm Atom. I see Nvidia getting really squeezed going forward.

 

[wastedkill]

Intel and Apple tactics = business competition. What do you expect your competition to do? come over at night and tuck you in- maybe read you a bedtime story?

Yea because going to court trying to force your competition to go out of business is just "business competition" isn't it... god I hate noobs you are what your tag suggests a noob lol.

Killing innovation like apple is doing isn't going to help anyone at all just make matters a whole lot worse.

 

[dividebyzero]

Yea because going to court trying to force your competition to go out of business is just "business competition" isn't it... god I hate noobs you are what your tag suggests a noob lol.

Until patent law changes, that is the law. You expect some code of chivalry to be in place?...god I hate idealistic fantasy dwelling noobs!

Killing innovation like apple is doing isn't going to help anyone at all just make matters a whole lot worse.

And? You're preaching to the choir. Acknowledging the situation isn't condoning its implementation. Feel free to ride your rainbow coloured unicorn to Cupertino and smite that nasty Tim Cook with faerie dust until he sees sense! Remember to tweet your progress! #armchairactivist

BTW: This is an Nvidia thread. At least one comment on topic might be apropos.

 

[wastedkill]

Until patent law changes, that is the law. You expect some code of chivalry to be in place?...god I hate idealistic fantasy dwelling noobs!

Killing innovation like apple is doing isn't going to help anyone at all just make matters a whole lot worse.

And? You're preaching to the choir. Acknowledging the situation isn't condoning its implementation. Feel free to ride your rainbow coloured unicorn to Cupertino and smite that nasty Tim Cook with faerie dust until he sees sense! Remember to tweet your progress! #armchairactivist

BTW: This is an Nvidia thread. At least one comment on topic might be apropos.

Nice troll fest glad we have some unneeded trolls here on techspot.
Nvidia sure know how to make graphics cards just a shame there is no real competition in that area cant really say AMD is as they have already said they aren't going for the high-end graphics cards would like to see a new comer take on Nvidia!

 

[PC nerd]

Shameless advertisement here. Go away Jen-Hsun Huang.

I can't use Tablets to do anything more than web browsing. I love having a powerful desktop, with a proper mouse/keyboard and lots of hard drive space. Tablets don't have any of these features.

 

[Blue Falcon]

Wastekill,

"Nvidia sure know how to make graphics cards just a shame there is no real competition in that area cant really say AMD is as they have already said they aren't going for the high-end graphics cards would like to see a new comer take on Nvidia!"

Maybe GTX780, if based on GK110, will crush HD8000 series but this round AMD provided ample competition to NV. The main difference between AMD and NV is that JHH is one of the best tech CEOs of all time and he has a vision forward. He understands brand value, he understands customer feedback (redesign Kepler to address Fermi's poor performance/watt), he understands diversification of NV's business lines.

NV did much better with winning notebook GPU design wins this generation as well, completely dominating AMD in this area. However, I don't ever recall AMD stating they won't make high-end graphics cards anymore. HD7970 Ghz is after-all the fastest single-GPU this generation and HD7970 X2/7990, while less elegant than the 690 and less efficient, is not any slower either.

The most standout aspect was NV downgrading revenue and earnings forecast for Q4 2012. Looks like NV is expecting some softness in what is an otherwise a stellar tech quarter during the holiday shopping season.

With Wayne and Project Denver in the pipeline, possible GK110 product in 2013, NV seems undervalued to me at the moment.

 

[dividebyzero]

I don't ever recall AMD stating they won't make high-end graphics cards anymore

Me either. Last I heard, Tahiti's Sea Islands successor is due around March next year. 15% performance improvement at around the same TDP. The same timeframe and performance increase is also mooted for GK114

The most standout aspect was NV downgrading revenue and earnings forecast for Q4 2012. Looks like NV is expecting some softness in what is an otherwise a stellar tech quarter during the holiday shopping season

Nvidia downgrade their prospects for every quarter. Analysts follow suit and are then ecstatic when Nvidia beat the prediction. I'd doubt that Nvidia would be too optimistic since they are in the middle of a stock buy back program

Nvidia, which is based in Santa Clara, Calif., also extended a commitment to spend $2.7 billion buying back its own stock. The company has spent nearly $1.5 billion so far to buy back nearly 91 million shares. At the end of the third quarter, Nvidia had $3.4 billion in cash. Paying the new dividend will cost the company about $190 million annually.

With Wayne and Project Denver in the pipeline, possible GK110 product in 2013, NV seems undervalued to me at the moment.

GK110 seems a done deal. Tesla product ( K20 and K20X) have already shipped for revenue. Those GPU's that can't be binned for the 225 watt board TDP (the max for servers), will almost certainly find their way as Quadro and GeForce. The Tegra 3 successor, Logan, based on the ARMv8-A should start shipping for revenue around mid 2013 (along with the other v8 designs based on Cortex-A50's), and should show up in the Project Boulder blade server shortly afterward. The market seems pretty strong for low power ARM servers, and it wouldn't be a reach to see Dell, HP, Boston etc offer the Nvidia product alongside their Calxeda, AppliedMicro and Marvell lines....tho' I doubt you'll see it in a SeaMicro rack!

 

[Guest]

@Lionvibez
You got that right. I'm sick of hearing all the brags about how tablets with their simple phone OS will replace real PCs & how tablets will be the future, PCs will die and etc, bla bla bla.

 

[Ravey]

When these guys can design a tablet that can properly do content creation and not just consumption only then will I take it seriously.

Current tablets are just couch browser surfers and video watching devices and maybe some basic games.

Only the uninformed would buy a tablet now thinking it can replace a computer.

Its already happen saw a story about a school board that picked up a whole bunch of tablets to replace laptops only to find out you can't do real work on an IPad. Can't even plug a usb stick into it.

They may be able to push this crap to novice users in best buy but anyone with a brain can clearly see the limitations of current tablets.

The thing is, the vast majority of "novices" do not want a fully functioning laptop with a complictaed Operating System and office tools. All they want is something the can spend an hour on emailing friends, using facebook and watching re-runs of soaps they have missed.

This is why the tablet market is so successful. Why spend £400 on a basic laptop when you can spend £169 on a tablet that will do everything you need as a "Novice"

 

[dennis777]

Cheap PC today are the top of the line yesterday...
if tablets/phone today can play DoTa... nows that a different story

 

[Guest]

I can do a lot more with a cheap PC than some over priced tablet.

 

[Guest]

Nvidia only one thing forget, nobody want buy cheap PC but everybody want sell weeker tablets than cheap PC

 

[Pan Wah]

I can do a lot more with a cheap PC than some over priced tablet.

Yes, me too.

 

[Lionvibez]

That's OK. You can keep your cheap PC knowledge base for someone who cares about such things.
What you fail to realize is that JHH's comments are media PR for financial analysts. CxO's are prone to bombast. Don't believe me, I think I can find some classic Rory Read quotes which pretty much prove he doesn't know the first thing about the semiconductor industry. The take home message from JHH is basically what the financial outlets are already fapping over:

All in all, the comment is just a convenient sound bite. JHH spent more time talking about ARMv8, and what got reported depended on the whims of the individual site. In the end it's a small aside that people with nothing better to do can have a squeal about- especially when they can't find fault with the main substance of the article, which is of course that Nvidia are doing OK. 28nm process seems to be ramping well, and that they are for the first time matching their principle competitor in revenue ( $1.204bn for Nvidia, $1.27bn for AMD).

I know the comments are media PR that much is obvious.

Guess I'm just sick of hearing that crap.

 

[axiomatic13]

Nvidia see's little future for the PC market for themselves. With Intel refusing to allow them to make chipsets for Intel chips, and AMD has their own Radeon graphics and chipsets, Nvidia is being left out.

With tablets you have ARM, and with ARM you have Tegra. The truth is you're better off with a cheap PC then any tablet. The fastest tablet is not as fast as the slowest $200 laptop. Far less capable then a $200 laptop. They can't even print, or run Crysis.

I agree with you completely, however nvidia also didn't do so great a job with their chipset. I owned 4 different motherboard with nforce chipsets and they all had some problem I had to work around or suffer through.

Neither company was without fault in this capacity.