Nvidia's upbeat forecast powered by data center, cryptocurrency demand

(Reuters) - Nvidia Corp’s (NVDA.O) upbeat current-quarter revenue forecast on Thursday underscored surging demand for its graphics chips used in data centers, gaming devices and cryptocurrency mining, sending its shares up as much as 12 percent in extended trading.

The company, which also reported better-than-expected quarterly results, is reaping the benefits from the launch of its Volta chip architecture last year. Volta help build processors that power a range of technologies such as artificial intelligence and driverless cars.

"Virtually every internet and cloud service provider has embraced our Volta GPUs," Nvidia's Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang said in a statement. (bit.ly/2iJPeNN)

Revenue from Nvidia’s widely watched data center business, which counts Amazon.com Inc’s (AMZN.O) Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Corp’s (MSFT.O) Azure cloud business among its customers, more than doubled to $606 million.

That trounced analysts’ average estimate of $541.1 million.

Data center should continue to grow pretty nicely into calendar 2018 and beyond, Morningstar analyst Abhinav Davuluri said.

The boom in cryptocurrencies is also powering demand for chips from Nvidia and rival AMD (AMD.O) as they provide the high computing ability required for cryptocurrency “mining.”

“Strong demand in the cryptocurrency market exceeded our expectations,” Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress said on a conference call.

“While the overall contribution of cryptocurrency to our business remains difficult to quantify, we believe it was a higher percentage of revenue than the prior quarter.”

The company said inventory levels of its gaming GPUs throughout the quarter was lower than historical channel inventory levels due to surging demand from cryptocurrency miners.

The price of Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, rose more than 1,300 percent in 2017. Prices have, however, dropped about 40 percent this year.

Nvidia’s revenue from gaming, for which it is best known, rose 29 percent to $1.74 billion, accounting for a more than half of its total revenue in the fourth quarter, and also beating analysts’ estimate of $1.59 billion.

The company forecast current-quarter revenue of $2.90 billion, plus or minus 2 percent, well above the analysts’ average estimate of $2.47 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Net income rose to $1.12 billion, or $1.78 per share, in the fourth quarter ended Jan. 28 from $655 million, or 99 cents per share, a year earlier.

Results include a $133 million gain related to the new U.S. tax law.

Total revenue rose 34 percent to $2.91 billion, topping estimate of $2.69 billion.

Excluding items, the company said it earned $1.72 per share.

Nvidia earned $1.57 per share, excluding the tax benefit, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, beating estimate of $1.17.

The company’s shares were trading at $233 in extended trading. They have surged about 83 percent in the past 12 months.