Nvidia sales hit $4bn mark as demand for Tegra-powered devices rockets

Semiconductor firm expecting Tegra 3 to continue momentum in mobile market

Nvidia reported total sales of $4bn for the year ending 2011, an increase of 12.8 per cent year-on-year, as the firm cemented its position as a major player in the mobile market.

The semiconductor firm experienced a dip in revenues compared the the previous quarter, but nonetheless were up 7.5 per cent to $953.2m when compared to the $886.4m achieved in the same period a year earlier.

Nvidia's GPU business, which is made up of desktop, notebook, memory and chipset (MCP) products together with licence revenue from a patent cross-licence agreement with Intel, generated revenues of $621.5m, down by 3.6 per cent on the previous quarter.

Nvidia attributed the decline in the GPU business over the prior quarter to shortages of hard disk drive (HDDs).

Meanwhile, the consumer products division saw sales skyrocket by 200 per cent. This was boosted by sales of Tegra-based smartphones and tablets, as well as Icera-baseband processors and RF transceivers.

Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive of Nvidia, was pleased with the performance and expects 2012 to be a big year.

"We expect continued growth ahead, as Tegra 3 powers a new wave of quad-core super phones and Kepler, our next-generation GPU architecture, sets new standards in visual and parallel computing," he said.

The chip maker was the first to release a quad-core processor for tablets with its Tegra 3 chipset and it expects strong demand for the Tegra 3 throughout 2012.

The Tegra 3 has shipped in the Asus Transformer Prime Android tablet and will also feature in the forthcoming Acer Iconia Tab A700, Lenovo IdeaPad K2, and an as yet unnamed Fujitsu Android handset.

The Tegra 3 processor will also be used to power the Multi-Media Interface (MMI) system in forthcoming Audi vehicles.