Nvidia (NVDA) reported yesterday rather lukewarm quarterly results, becoming the latest fallout of the current high-tech sector’s doldrums. Notwithstanding, the IT hardware company’s shares remained virtually unchanged on Thursday’s, November 17’s premarket trading as the semiconductor giant gave a sales forecast that outweighed negativity from what was a mixed third-quarter earnings report.

NVDA’s adjusted EPS of $0.58 came in on a significantly softer side than anticipated $0.69. Revenue, however, was still upbeat at $5.93 billion, versus $5.77 billion expected. During the same period a year ago, Nvidia (NVDA) earned $1.17 a share, excluding one-time items, on sales of $7.1B. Nvidia (NVDA) said one of the highlights of its Q3 was its data-center business, which saw sales rise 31% from a year ago, to $3.83 billion. Revenue stood at USD 5.9 billion, posting a decline of 17% YoY and 12% QoQ, which still was higher than the consensus estimate of 5.8 billion dollars. In the past quarter, the company again reported a decline in revenue on a quarterly basis.

Segmentwise, the data center segment posted 31% YoY growth to a record $3.83 billion. Gross load margin of 53.6% (-11.6 p.p. QoQ, +10.1 p.p. QoQ). Operating profit of 601 million rubles. USD (-77% y/y, +20% QoQ. Net profit: 680 million USD (-72% YoY, +4% QoQ). Adjusted EPS (Non-GAAP) of $0.58, below Wall Street's estimate of $0.71. On positive note, Nvidia announced the most powerful to date AI computer development jointly with Microsoft Corp (MSFT).

Q3 Gross margin plunged 11.6 percentage points to 53.6%, which the company attributed to taking an inventory charge because of low demand for data center chips in China. Revenue was down 17% annually.

Nvidia said it expected about $6 billion in sales in Q4, which represents a downgrade from the consensus estimate of $6.09 billion. We think, that NVDA’s margin and income drop are connected with overall cooling of crypto market, which resulted in a significant erosion of crypto mining revenues and profits, discouraging miners from buying more equipment for their mining farms.

In terms of its guidance, Nvidia said that for its Q4, it expects to report revenue of $6 billion ”plus or minus 2%”. That estimate would put Nvidia's revenue in a range of $5.88 billion to $6.12 billiion. The company's outlook came along with Nvidia reporting a Q3 profit, excluding one-time items, as it was outlined above, of 58 cents a share, on $5.93 billion in revenue. Wall Street analysts had forecast Nvidia to earn 70 cents a share on $5.82 billion in sales for the quarter that ended October 30.