NVIDIA continued to have strong momentum last quarter in the gaming segment. The RTX upgrade season is in full swing, but most of NVIDIA’s GeForce GPU users have not upgraded yet. Despite strong competition from rival AMD, NVIDIA expects to have a strong second half for the year.
CFO Colette Kress stated during NVIDIA’s conference call “Gaming’s growth amid the pandemic highlights the emergence of a leading form of entertainment worldwide.”
NVIDIA’s gaming segment was responsible for 43% of its total revenue this second quarter. While NVIDIA is experiencing massive growth in its data center business, which became the companies largest source of income for the first time, growth in gaming was also hitting it off, up 26% year over year.
While the sales of NVIDIA’s gaming products were disrupted by the pandemic at the beginning, the demand quickly went online as internet cafes in China opened their doors again and more people needed to purchase laptops to work and play games at home.
NVIDIA partnering with manufacturers to make 100 new notebook models powered by GeForce GPU’s at various price points also boosted demand. The RTX series from NVIDIA is noteworthy for its ray-tracing technology, which will be available in the laptop form factor for the first time.
Photos by NVIDIA
The fourth quarter is always a busy season jam-packed with new releases from the video game industry. Developers prefer to release games in the fourth quarter to have higher holiday sales, and with the new gaming consoles coming this fall, the fourth quarter will be even bigger, which will be great for NVIDIA as well.
With two highly anticipated big-name AAA titles Cyberpunk 2077 and Watch Dogs Legion which will support ray tracing being released on the 19 November and 29 October, plus the new game consoles from Sony and Microsoft which will also support ray tracing coming out this holiday season. Even though AMD is powering both new consoles, NVIDIA will still benefit.