NVIDIA today reported record revenue of $1.20 billion for the third quarter of fiscal 2013 ended Oct. 28, 2012, up 15.3 percent from the previous quarter and up 12.9 percent from a year earlier.
The company also announced that it is initiating the payment of a quarterly cash dividend, and extending its existing $2.7 billion share-repurchase program, initiated in August 2004, through December 2014.
"Investments in our new growth strategies paid off this quarter in record revenues and margins," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer of NVIDIA. "Kepler GPUs are winning across the special-purpose PC markets we serve, from gaming to design to supercomputing. And Tegra is powering some of the most innovative tablets, phones and cars in the market."
"These days, tablets are so versatile, transformable," Jen-Hsun Huang said. "Now with Microsoft Surface and Windows RT, the distinction between a tablet and a cheap notebook has all but disappeared.... The future of cheap PCs is tablets."
He noted that Nvidia's tablet business doubled from the previous year, while its overall mobile-chip business grew 50 percent in the period. Huang said Nvidia will probably ship 30 million Tegra chips this year, and he expects mobile processors, like Tegra, to take overall computing share from low-end PCs.
He continued: "We are pleased to start paying our shareholders a quarterly cash dividend. We have confidence in our businesses and our continued ability to grow. Given our strong financial position and ongoing ability to generate cash, we are well positioned to continue investing in our future."
Mr. Huang also talked about the
project Denver central processing unit, which will be compatible with 64-bit ARMv8 architecture although some "secret sauce" is expected to make it better than the rivals.
"Well, Project Denver is a 64-bit processor. And it's a full-custom v8 64-bit processor with some exciting secret sauce. And we haven't revealed much about it. There are no 64 bits processors shipping today, as you know. And v8 was just announced. The next 64-bit was just announced. And so, I guess, the only thing I could tell you is Denver is going great."
Mr. Huang added that Denver will be also positioned for servers.