NVIDIA was founded in 1993 by Jensen Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem on the belief that the personal computer would become a leading consumer device for enjoying games and multimedia. Over the next two years, the company made successful forays, notably launching their first graphics card, having popular video game Virtua Fighter ported to run exclusively on NVIDIA products, and launching DirectX drivers for Microsoft.
- 1997 brought NVIDIA’s first major milestone. The company launched the world’s first 128-bit 3D processor, and shipped 1 million units within four months. Shortly after, in 1999, NVIDIA invents the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU), setting it on the path to reshape the industry. In the same year, the company went public, listing on the NASDAQ for USD$12 per share.
- In 2002, after shipping its 100 millionth processor, NVIDIA was named the fastest growing company in America by Fortune. That feat would be repeated in 2007 when the company achieved its first quarter with revenue exceeding USD$1 billion, earning the title “Company of the Year” by Forbes magazine.
- In 2011, the company shipped its 1 billionth graphics processor. By now NVIDIA had become an unstoppable juggernaut, with its innovative products winning accolades not just in gaming, but also in visual effects and entertainment, mobile and consumer computing, super-computing, and AI.
NVIDIA cemented its dominant market position in 2020, when it became the most valuable semiconductor company in the U.S. by market cap.
Business segments
NVIDIA’s main business is in graphics processing, led by its GeForce line of GPUs for gaming consoles and PCs. The company also caters to enterprise design via its Quadro/NVIDIA RTX GPUs, and offers GRID software for cloud-based visual and virtual computing, along with automotive platforms for infotainment systems. Besides graphics, NVIDIA’s other major business segment is in compute and networking. This is made up of the company’s Data Center platforms as well as systems for AI, high-performance computing, and accelerated computing.
Also under this segment, NVIDIA provides networking and interconnected solutions, automotive AI Cockpit, autonomous driving development agreements and vehicle solutions, cryptocurrency mining processors, and Jetson for robotics and other embedded platforms.
NVIDIA is headquartered in Santa Clara, California, United States. It has an estimated staff size of approximately 26,000.
About the stock NVDA
NVDA trading information
- Primary exchange: NASDAQ
- Ticker: NVDA
- Country: U.S.
- Currency: USD
When was NVDA listed?
NVDA was listed on the NASDAQ on 22 January 1999 at a price of USD$12 per stock. Adjusted for stock splits, the price of the stock was USD$0.25 at launch. At the time of writing, the share price of NVDA is USD$277.72, representing a return of 1,110x. The stock’s highest price was seen on 19 November 2021, when it closed the day at USD$329.85.
Stock splits
NVIDIA has announced a series of five stock splits since going public. The total number of NVDA shares outstanding is estimated to be 2.483 billion.
| July 2021 | 4 for 1 |
| September 2007 | 3 for 2 |
| April 2006 | 2 for 1 |
| September 2001 | 2 for 1 |
| June 2000 | 2 for 1 |
Dividends
NVDA is a dividend-paying stock, and dividends are paid out every quarter. In 2022, the company paid out USD$0.16 per share over four quarters.
Latest developments investors should note
NVIDIA reports USD$27 billion revenue for FY2022
NVIDIA reported fiscal year revenue of USD 27.0 billion for the year ended 29 January 2023, flat against last year. This was despite a 21% decrease year-on-year for Q4 2022 to USD 6.05 billion. However, Q4 signalled a turnaround from the previous quarter in earns-per-share. GAAP earnings per diluted share for the quarter were USD$0.57 – down 52% year-on-year, but up 111% from the previous quarter.
Non-GAAP earnings per diluted share were USD$0.88 – down 33% year-on-year, but up 52% from the previous quarter.
For FY 2022, share repurchases, and cash dividends equated to USD$10.44 billion returned to shareholders – of which USD$1.15 billion was returned in Q4. NVIDIA will pay its next quarterly cash dividend of USD$0.04 per share on 29 March 2023, to all shareholders of record on 8 March 2023.
NVIDIA to take centre stage in AI boom
A seemingly prescient bet on Artificial Intelligence (AI) made some 10 years ago is paying off for NVIDIA. The company, whose GPUs are at the core of AI applications like ChatGPT, is well positioned to take advantage of the current boom, a sentiment that seems widespread among NVIDIA’s investors. In March 2023, the stock saw an 84% jump, putting it on track for a record-breaking quarterly run since 2003.
This was no coincidence. In an interview in February, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang told CNBC, “We had the good wisdom to go put the whole company behind it. We saw early on, about a decade or so ago, that this way of doing software could change everything. And we changed the company from the bottom all the way to the top and sideways. Every chip that we made was focused on artificial intelligence.”
Moving forward, NVIDIA will capitalise on its center stage position to power the next generation of growth. In a March blog post, Huang announced partnerships with Google, Microsoft, Oracle and a range of leading businesses that bring new AI, simulation and collaboration capabilities to every industry.
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