Nvidia financial guidance lowered; RTX GPU sales weaker than expected

In a published shareholder letter, Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang has been describing how Q4 of fiscal year 2019 was a “real punch in the gut.” The executive was referring to the news that Nvidia has had to lower its revenue guidance for the quarter: Down from a forecast US$2.70 billion to US$2.20 billion. It seems the much-heralded line-up of RTX GPUs has not quite been flying off the shelves.

Nvidia believes that the initial high prices of RTX cards have contributed to the revised guidance figure. The company is not blind to the issue though, theorizing that potential purchasers could be waiting for further demonstrations of the GPUs’ capabilities and, unsurprisingly, a price reduction. Other issues mentioned included the large surplus inventory that was created when the cryptocurrency bubble burst, and global economic turbulence, especially in China.

It’s likely Nvidia was expecting high sales of products such as the GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card and the rest of the RTX 2000-series, but with still just a handful of games like Battlefield V and Shadow of the Tomb Raider utilizing the widely touted ray-tracing capabilities, it might be a while before the Turing-based chips really start selling as well as expected. But Huang, as usual, had a positive note to add, insisting that Nvidia “will shake this off and come back strong.”

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