No surprise here, but NVIDIA’s earnings were quite generous in third quarter of 2012, to say the least. Its revenue reached an all-time quarterly high as it brought in $1.2 billion. That’s up 15.3 percent from last quarter and 12.9 percent from the year-ago quarter. Profits rose to $209.1 million during the quarter and the gross margin was another record set for NVIDIA at 52.9 percent.
While that’s all good news for NVIDIA, there’s some pretty good news for its shareholders as well. The company has announced it will be paying some money back to them in the form of a cash dividend. The $2.7 billion share-repurchase program is set for extension to December 2014, too.
“We are pleased to start paying our shareholders a quarterly cash dividend. We have confidence in our businesses and our continued ability to grow,” Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA, commented. “Given our strong financial position and ongoing ability to generate cash, we are well positioned to continue investing in our future.”
Huang attributes the strong quarterly growth to NVIDIA’s Kepler GPU, which are “winning across the special-purpose PC markets” such as gaming, and its Tegra chip found in many popular tablets like the Nexus 7 and new Microsoft Surface plus other devices.
NVIDIA gave off the impression in the press release that it is very confident in its future and the high numbers back up that confidence pretty well. It also has an arguably loyal fan base — many of its customers swear by the Tegra 3 for fast performance and reliability.