AMD and the Associated Press Team Up for Experimental 360° Video & VR News Channel

This week AMD and Associated Press have announced a new collaborative project designed to fuel virtual reality journalism. Under the agreement, AP has created a special channel with 360° video and VR content, whereas AMD will provide the news agen…

NVIDIA Announces Q4 FY 2016 Results: Record Quarter And Record Year

This afternoon, NVIDIA released their financial results for the fourth quarter of their 2016 fiscal year, and the company had not only a record quarter, but also a record year. Revenue for quarter was $1.401 billion, up 7% from last quarter and 12% from the same point last year. Margins were strong, with a 60 basis point gain to 56.5%. Operating income for Q4 was $252 million and net income was $207 million, up 9% and 7% respectively. This resulted in earnings per share of $0.35, which despite all the good news in the previous numbers, was actually flat year-over-year.

NVIDIA also released Non-GAAP results which exclude “stock-based compensation, product warranty charge, acquisition-related costs, restructuring and other charges, gains and losses from non-affiliated investments, interest expense related to amortization of debt discount, and the associated tax impact of these items, where applicable”. On a Non-GAAP basis compared to Q4 2015, gross margin was up 100 basis points to 57.2%, operating income was up 26% to $356 million, net income was up 23% to $297 million, and earnings per share were up 21% to $0.52.

For the full fiscal year 2016, NVIDIA had revenues of $5.010 billion, up 7% from FY 2015, with a gross margin up 60 basis points to 56.1%. Operating income was down 2% to $747 million, with net income down 3% to $614 million. Earnings per share for FY 2016 were down 4% to $1.08. On a Non-GAAP basis, gross margin was up 100 basis points to $56.8%, operating income was up 18% to $1.125 billion, net income was up 16% to $929 million, and earnings per share were up 18% to $1.67.

Much of the growth of NVIDIA was due to their recent successes with GPUs for gaming, professional visualization, and data center, but they’ve also seen some tremendous growth in Tegra in the automotive space, but at the same time they’ve seen very poor results in Tegra in the mobile arena.

GPU sales is still by far the largest part of NVIDIA, and they had GPU revenues of $1.18 billion, which is up 10% from a year ago. GeForce branded GPUs grew 21% in the same time frame. Quadro branded cards were up 7% year-over-year to $203 million. Datacenter GPUs, which include but Tesla and GRID, had revenues up $97 million, up 10% from Q4 2015.

Tegra processor revenue was $157 million for the quarter, which is up 40% from Q4 2015. The bulk of that is a massive 68% increase in revenue of Tegra for automotive, which is now $93 million for the quarter.

NVIDIA’s “Other” category is where they stick their $66 million that they get from Intel which is licensing for NVIDIA technology based on a settlement agreement the two parties made in January 2011. Intel would have made its final payment for this settlement in January 2016 though, so we’ll see how that changes NVIDIA’s results going forward.

For the quarter, NVIDIA paid $62 million in cash dividends and repurchased 4.3 million shares, and for the full fiscal year 2016, NVIDIA returned $800 million to investors through these two mechanisms. For FY 2017, NVIDIA intends to return $1.0 billion. The next dividend payout will be $0.115 per share on March 23, to all shareholders of record as of March 2.

Looking ahead to Q1 FY 2017, NVIDIA is expecting revenue of $1.26 billion, plus or minus 2%, with margins of 57.2% for GAAP and 57.5% for Non-GAAP, plus or minus 50 basis points.

NVIDIA’s Fiscal Year 2016 was certainly very strong, although large warranty claims of the SHIELD tablets, along with restructuring fees, have hurt their GAAP numbers somewhat. I’m very curious to see how they do now that the Intel payout is complete, although it may be averaged out on the books for FY 2017 still.

Source: NVIDIA Investor Relations

NVIDIA Announces Tom Clancy’s The Division Game Bundle for GeForce Video Cards

NVIDIA has announced that its partners will bundle a free copy of Tom Clancy’s The Division game with select high-end GeForce GTX graphics cards starting this week and for about a month. The campaign will run in the U.S., Canada, in most of European and a number of Asian countries.

To grab a free copy of Tom Clancy’s The Division, you will need to buy a GeForce GTX 970/980/980 Ti graphics card or a laptop featuring a GeForce GTX 970M/980M/980 graphics adapter made by an authorized producer and bought from a participating retailer. The campaign starts on February 17, 2016 and ends on March 21, 2016. The promotional code expires on April 30, 2016, or while supplies last. The offer is valid worldwide, excluding China, but since not all retailers participate, you may choose to buy a GeForce GTX graphics card in a different country (which in some cases causes troubles with activation). Early buyers will get a chance to try open beta of The Division on February 19 – 21, 2016.

Tom Clancy’s The Division is an online open-world third-person shooter game with survival elements, which is set to be released on March 8, 2016. Gamers will have to fight their way through post-pandemic New York as part of The Division team of tactical operatives in a bid to find the source of the virus and restore order. The game features rather detailed destructive environments as well as dynamic time-based whether system. The official screenshots and videos released by Ubisoft look rather impressive and the game itself requires a powerful PC to play. Ubisoft itself recommends using an AMD Radeon R9 290 or an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970 graphics card, hence, you will need something better if you want to play with all the effects enabled in 4K resolution.

The Division relies on NVIDIA’s proprietary GameWorks libraries to produce effects like HBAO+ (improved horizon-based ambient occlusion) and PCSS (percentage closer soft shadows) for additional eye candy. Hence, if you do not have a Maxwell-based graphics card, but want to experience the game in its full glory, NVIDIA’s offer to upgrade and get a free copy may make a lot of sense for you.

The list of participating retailers, board partners and PC makers in the U.S. is located here. Users in Asia and Europe should check this web-site for details about participating retailers. Terms and conditions are located here.