AI Bubble or Real Growth? All Eyes on NVIDIA's Q1 Earnings

First Quarter Revenue Expected to Reach $78.7 Billion
Intensifying Competition from AMD, Google, and Others
"Investors Across All Asset Classes Are Closely Watching"

Global investors are closely watching NVIDIA’s first-quarter earnings trend, which will be announced on the 20th (local time). This earnings report is expected to serve as a key indicator for assessing the investment flow into artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, especially as U.S. long-term treasury yields continue to surge.

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, is waving his hand after the welcoming ceremony for U.S. President Donald Trump ended on the 14th (local time) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Photo by AFP Yonhap News

NVIDIA will release its first-quarter earnings and hold a conference call after the market closes on this day (in Korea, early morning of the 21st). According to the Bloomberg analyst consensus (average estimates), NVIDIA is expected to post an earnings per share (EPS) of $1.76 and revenue of $78.75 billion for the first quarter. This represents increases of 83% and 79%, respectively, compared to the previous year’s first-quarter EPS of $0.96 and revenue of $44.06 billion.

The market is paying keen attention to what guidance Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA (pictured), will provide. Yahoo Finance reported that the current options market expects NVIDIA’s stock to move by about 6% following the earnings announcement. This is significantly higher than the company’s usual daily volatility range.

Recently, concerns have arisen about NVIDIA in the increasingly competitive AI processor market. Cerebras Systems, an AI semiconductor company that went public last week, has been cited as a strong competitor capable of challenging NVIDIA’s dominance. Rival AMD is also aggressively pursuing NVIDIA as a latecomer. Meanwhile, companies like Amazon and Google are building their own ecosystems with proprietary semiconductor chips such as Tensor Processing Units (TPUs).

When NVIDIA will resume sales in China is also a key focus for investors. Expectations have risen after Jensen Huang joined the entourage of U.S. President Donald Trump during his visit to China on May 14–15. Due to the aftermath of the U.S.–China trade war last year, NVIDIA’s market share in China has dropped to nearly 0%. Although the U.S. Department of Commerce recently approved about 10 major Chinese IT companies—including Alibaba, Tencent, and ByteDance—to purchase NVIDIA’s latest AI semiconductor, the ‘H200’ chip, no actual transactions have taken place.

Ben Snyder, U.S. equity strategist at Goldman Sachs, said on CNBC that “NVIDIA has contributed about 20% of this year’s S&P 500 gains,” adding that “investors across virtually all asset classes are watching NVIDIA’s earnings as a signal for the trend in AI infrastructure investment.”

Meanwhile, ahead of the earnings announcement, NVIDIA closed down 0.77% on the day. The stock has maintained strong upward momentum this year, rising 16.82% since the beginning of the year and 62.73% over the past 12 months.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.