Nvidia posts record $81.6B Q1 revenue, announces $80B buyback as Huang flags China market loss to Huawei

Nvidia reported record revenue of $81.62 billion for its first fiscal quarter ended April 26, 2026, beating analyst estimates of $78.86 billion. The quarter also marked an 85% jump from a year ago and a 20% rise from the previous quarter. The chipmaker also announced a major capital return package, while CEO Jensen Huang made pointed remarks about the company's standing in China's AI chip market.

During the quarter, Nvidia announced data centre revenue hit a record $75.2 billion, up 92% year over year, cementing it as the dominant driver of Nvidia's growth. Within the segment, the data centre compute revenue reached $60.4 billion, up 77% from a year ago, while data centre networking revenue surged 199% year over year to $14.8 billion.

Edge computing revenue, a newly reported segment covering PCs, game consoles, workstations, robotics and automotive devices, was $6.4 billion, up 29% from a year ago and up 10% sequentially.

During the quarter, the company returned approximately $20 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and cash dividends. The company's board has approved an additional $80 billion share repurchase authorisation without expiration, and announced an increase in its quarterly cash dividend from $0.01 per share to $0.25 per share, payable June 26, 2026.

The GAAP gross margin for the quarter stood at 74.9%, up 14.4 percentage points from the same period last year. GAAP net income came in at $58.3 billion, compared to $18.8 billion a year earlier, with diluted earnings per share of $2.39.

For the second quarter of fiscal 2027, Nvidia projected revenue of $91 billion, plus or minus 2%, with GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins expected at 74.9% and 75.0% respectively. The company noted it is not factoring in any Data Center compute revenue from China in that guidance.

Nvidia also announced a shift to a new reporting structure, replacing its previous segment breakdown with two market platforms: data centre and edge computing. Within data centre, the company will report two sub-categories — Hyperscale, covering public clouds and large consumer internet companies, and ACIE (AI Clouds, Industrial and Enterprise), covering AI-specific data centers and factories across industries and countries.

The Q1 earnings came on the heels of Jensen Huang's trip to China with US President Donald Trump so the China question loomed large over the earnings call. Speaking to CNBC after the results, Huang said Nvidia has "largely conceded" China's AI chip market to Huawei, as US export restrictions continue to reshape the competitive landscape.

"The demand in China is quite large," Huang said. "Huawei is very, very strong. They had a record year, they'll likely have an extraordinary year coming up, and their local ecosystem of chip companies are doing quite well, because we've evacuated that market."

Earlier this month, the US government approved sales of Nvidia's H200 chips to ten major Chinese technology companies, including Alibaba and Tencent, but deliveries have reportedly stalled following intervention from Beijing.

Huang said Nvidia has advised investors to "expect nothing" regarding approvals to resume advanced chip sales into China, though he added the company would welcome the opportunity to return if conditions allow, noting it has operated in China for roughly three decades.