Nvidia Shares Soar on Earnings Beat, Bullish Outlook

Shares of graphics and mobile chipmaker Nvidia are rising by nearly 10 percent in early trading this morning, after its outlook for the quarter ahead soundly beat the consensus of analysts.

Nvidia said it expects sales in the second quarter to come in between $990 million and $1.05 billion, well ahead of the the $976 million analysts had forecast.

And the cheerful forecast came on top of earnings that also beat expectations. Sales in the first quarter fell to $925 million from $962 million a year earlier, which, despite the drop, was better than the $916 million consensus.

Nvidia’s profits were $60 million, or 10 cents on a per-share basis, which was also a drop from 22 cents in the year-ago period. A rather hefty fall at that, but it was in line with expectations.

It looks like Nvidia is scoring some important wins in the desktop space, now that Windows 8 — which supports variants of ARM-based chips and not just x86-type chips from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices — is coming. Also, notebook graphics chips are growing. Nvidia also landed a version of its Tegra chip inside a phone from HTC that launched with 22 carriers in Europe and Asia.