Riding a wave of increased demand for digital video and gaming, graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp. on Thursday announced record results for its full fiscal year ended Jan. 29.
The Santa Clara, Calif. company posted fourth quarter revenue of US$633.6 million, up 12 percent compared to the same time a year earlier, while its net profit leaped 104 percent to $98.05 million from $48.01 million.
Nvidia’s full year revenue, it was the company’s fiscal 2006, shot to a record $2.38 billion, up from $2.01 billion a year earlier. Its net profit more tripled to $302.6 million from $100.4 million.
The company benefitted from strong sales of its graphics processing units, which create cinema-like graphics on desktop and notebook PCs, as well as increased sales of computer chipsets. Chipset sales increased partly to meet a demand vacuum created by a lack of Intel Corp. chipsets.
Nvidia forecast even better times ahead with the launch of new game consoles, Microsoft Corp.’s Window’s Vista, 3G (third generation) mobile telephony and high definition video such as HD-DVD and Blu-ray, the company said in a statement. Nvidia is also providing graphics technology to what may be one of the year’s hottest products, Sony Computer Entertainment Inc.’s PlayStation 3 game console.