Nvidia earnings preview: Blackwell commentary to overshadow guidance numbers

AI darling Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) will report its second-quarter results of fiscal 2025 on Aug. 28, with significant attention expected on management's comments regarding potential delays in the release of its next-generation Blackwell (BW) chip, and the company's ability to meet demand.

Stifel analysts said Monday their discussions with industry participants revealed that any delays are likely to be measured in months rather than quarters. In the interim, feedback on the demand for H-Series chips remains positive.

As a result, the investment bank again expects a beat-and-raise scenario for Nvidia’s upcoming results and guidance.

“We are not expecting any meaningful change in tone or messaging relative to what NVDA has focused on since the company reported its F1Q results, i.e. the company’s longer-term road map and continued investment in organic and collaborative software offerings,” Stifel analysts said in a note.

Moreover, they believe that recent commentary from optical transceiver module supply chain companies indicates rapidly increasing cluster sizes, which could benefit the chipmaker ahead of the calendar year 2025.

Separately, UBS analysts said they see upside to Nvidi’a July print, anticipating continued strength from the data center segment, which could reach as high as $26 billion, above the Street’s estimate of $25 billion.

Key bullish indicators include strong results from SMCI driven by Hopper demand, significant quarter-over-quarter growth in high-performance computing for TSMC, robust results in KYEC's data processing segment, and strong AI server sales from Quanta Computer.

However, Taiwan's data processing export data suggests a lower figure, though analysts note this data's historical variability and its exclusion of critical Nvidia revenue streams like H20 ramping in China and networking.

For guidance, UBS expects strong demand for Hopper and H200 to drive Nvidia to guide toward $31-32 billion, with an implied data center revenue close to $28 billion.

“We believe investor bogeys are already in this range (Street revenue is ~$31.5B) which optically doesn't create a great setup, but we believe Blackwell commentary will overshadow wherever guidance comes out as investors are already looking to the BW ramp in 2025, and we believe NVDA will generally communicate that BW is "on track",” said UBS analysts.

The main concern is how Nvidia will address its previous statement about expecting "significant" Blackwell revenue this year, which analysts believe was unrealistic given that customer volume shipments were initially set for mid-December and have now been delayed by 4-6 weeks.