Nvidia Corp. on Thursday reported its financial results for the second quarter of its fiscal 2012. The main growth driver of the company's revenue was its consumer products business which includes Tegra system-on-chips (SoCs) for smartphones/tablets as well as Icera baseband chips. Apparently, the company's multi-year effort to enter the market of ultra-portables starts to bring in fruits.

The firm's consumer business unit that sells Tegra SoCs and Icera baseband chips posted substantial growth in Q2 FY2012, possibly not only due to the fact that Icera is now taken into account, but because of rising popularity of Tegra itself. Nvidia's revenue for consumer products increased by whopping 36.8% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ).

"Our consumer products business, which includes Tegra smartphone and tablet products, and now Icera baseband processors and RF transceivers, as well as our embedded products, was up 36.8% over the prior quarter, at $167.7 million.Much of the increase was driven by seasonally up game console royalties and refreshes in embedded entertainment products. Tegra was steady as the product ramps in the first quarter hit shelves. Icera’s contribution was not significant," explained Karen Burns, interim chief financial officer at Nvidia.

The company's main revenue sources - graphics processing units (GPUs) and professional products - grew modestly from late April to July. Meanwhile, GPU (GeForce, chipsets, memory) and professional (Tesla and Quadro) businesses posted 0.1% and 4.2% growth QoQ, respectively.

"Our GPU business, which includes desktop, notebook, memory, MCP products and licensing revenue from our patent cross license agreement with Intel, was relatively flat compared with the previous quarter. Desktop GPU revenue declined in the quarter in line with typical seasonality, while notebook GPU revenue increased as we continued to gain significant market share on the Intel Sandy Bridge platform. Channel inventory declined slightly in the quarter and remained comfortably within our target levels. This was the first full quarter for our patent cross license agreement with Intel, with $65.9 million of revenue recognized in the second quarter," explained the interim chief financial officer at Nvidia.

"Revenue for our professional solutions business, which includes workstation graphics and computing, was up 4.2% from the prior quarter. Our Quadro professional graphics business increased sequentially as we saw a pick‐up in enterprise IT spending and as we continued our transition to Fermi generation products. Revenue from our Tesla business was flat relative to the prior quarter," said Ms. Burns.

Nvidia reported revenue of $1.02 billion for the second quarter of fiscal 2012 ended July 31, 2011, up 5.7% from the prior quarter, and up 25.3% from $811.2 million in the same period a year earlier. On a GAAP basis, the company recorded net income of $151.6 million, or $0.25 per diluted share, for the second quarter of fiscal 2012. This includes a two-cent dilutive impact from the Icera acquisition. It compares with net income of $135.2 million, or $0.22 per diluted share, in the prior quarter. In the same period a year earlier, the company had a net loss of $141.0 million, or $0.25 per diluted share.

Tags: Nvidia, Geforce, Nforce, Tegra, Quadro, Tesla, Business