Graphics chip maker Nvidia posts widened loss for second quarter, blames economy

Nvidia posts widened 2Q loss, blames economy

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Nvidia Corp. said Thursday that it posted widened loss for its latest quarter as economic weakness made consumers look for cheaper alternatives to the high-end graphics chips it makes.

For the fiscal second quarter months ended Aug. 1, Nvidia’s loss was $141 million, or 25 cents per share. In the same period last year, the company lost $105.3 million, or 19 cents per share.

Nvidia took a charge of $193.9 million for faulty packaging for laptops chip shipped before July 2008. That includes the cost of remediation and settling a class action lawsuit.

Excluding that charge, Nvidia would have earned 3 cents per share, it said. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had predicted net income of 11 cents per share, on average.

Revenue rose 4.5 percent to $811.2 million from $776.5 million in the year-ago quarter. Analysts had expected $832 million in revenue.

Nvidia took an inventory writedown because of weak demand for consumer graphics chips. High prices for memory chips, which are paired with Nvidia’s chips in graphics cards, and economic weakness in China and Europe led to a shift to cheaper graphics chips and PCs without separate graphics cards.

For the current quarter, Nvidia said it expects revenue to rise 3 percent to 5 percent from the second quarter. That would amount to roughly $836 million to $852 million in revenue, less than Wall Street’s forecast of $884 million.

Shares of the Santa Clara-based company fell 6 cents to $8.90 in extended trading after the release of the results. In regular trading, the shares hit a 52-week low of $8.65 before closing at $8.96.