When the phrase “semiconductor” is talked about, it is practically unimaginable not to consider Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) — and for good motive. During the last 5 years, the corporate has grown its income and free money stream by practically 900% and 800%, respectively. With that degree of development, it is no marvel business analysts estimate that Nvidia holds at the least 80% market share within the synthetic intelligence (AI) chip realm.
By all accounts, Nvidia appears unstoppable. Nonetheless, what goes up should finally come down, proper?
Whereas analyzing Nvidia’s second-quarter earnings report, I stumbled throughout a metric that required a re-assessment as a result of I could not imagine what I noticed. Particularly, I am starting to comprehend that Nvidia’s buyer focus traits may recommend the corporate’s development may come to a screeching halt — and I believe many buyers might be caught off guard.
Let’s check out Nvidia’s buyer focus profile and discover why that is vital to grasp.
What’s buyer focus, and why is it vital?
Buyer focus measures a enterprise’s income throughout its shopper roster. It helps reply questions searching for to hone in on how a lot gross sales are associated to a selected buyer or group of consumers. For instance, as an example you might have a enterprise with 10 clients, and so they collectively generate $1 million in annual gross sales. Nonetheless, one buyer is answerable for $500K. As an investor, would you be snug shopping for a enterprise that depends on only one shopper for 50% of its annual income? Most likely not.
What does Nvidia’s buyer focus appear like?
In late August, Nvidia reported earnings for its second quarter of fiscal 12 months 2025. Per the corporate’s 10Q submitting, 46% of whole income got here from simply 4 clients. That is proper — virtually half of Nvidia’s $30 billion in quarterly income got here from solely 4 clients. Though quarterly enterprise traits can fluctuate dramatically, a have a look at Nvidia’s historic buyer focus metrics may recommend the corporate’s development is more and more hinging on a very small cohort.
Throughout Nvidia’s first quarter (ended April 28), the corporate famous that 24% of whole income was attributed to 2 direct clients and that two oblique clients every accounted for at the least 10% of income. One in every of these oblique clients really bought their merchandise via certainly one of Nvidia’s largest direct shoppers.
In its annual report for fiscal 12 months 2024 (ended Jan. 28), Nvidia disclosed that 13% of whole income for the 12 months hailed from one buyer (famous as Buyer A). The corporate additional knowledgeable buyers that “one oblique buyer which primarily purchases our merchandise via system integrators and distributors, together with via Buyer A, is estimated to have represented roughly 19% of whole income.”
To place all this into perspective, Nvidia disclosed that no buyer accounted for 10% or extra of whole income throughout fiscal years 2023 or 2022. Clearly, over simply the final 12 months or so, Nvidia has skilled hovering demand for its chips — however a lot of this development appears to constantly come from a restricted variety of clients.
Why is that this notably worrisome for Nvidia?
It is one factor to be involved about rising buyer focus traits. Nonetheless, who this development could also be coming from brings an extra layer of alarm when assessing Nvidia’s development prospects. Whereas I can not say for sure which corporations are particularly in Nvidia’s high 4, there are some good causes to imagine that a lot of the corporate’s development might be traced again to the “Magnificent Seven” members.
During the last 12 months, executives akin to Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have cited that Meta and Tesla are aggressively shopping for Nvidia’s extremely standard H100 graphic processing unit (GPU). That is nice information at face worth. Being the AI chip of alternative for 2 of the world’s largest know-how enterprises is greater than only a nod of approval. Nonetheless, buyers should not be leaping for pleasure.
Throughout Tesla’s second-quarter earnings name earlier in the summertime, Musk gave some heavy indicators that the corporate could search to compete with Nvidia down the street. Furthermore, Meta has been rising its investments in capital expenditures (capex) — and never all of that’s excellent news for Nvidia. Meta has developed its personal chip, dubbed Meta Coaching and Inference Accelerator (MTIA), in an effort to maneuver away from such a heavy dependence on Nvidia. On high of this, e-commerce and cloud computing juggernaut Amazon has additionally doubled down by itself AI roadmap — a part of which incorporates growing its personal coaching and inferencing chips.
To be clear, I do not see the rising competitors as an Achilles’ heel for Nvidia. Even when large tech begins to scale down their orders from Nvidia, I surmise the corporate may have little bother discovering new enterprise. The actual concern is that I believe Nvidia will lose pricing energy as extra gamers enter the chip realm. So, though Nvidia will seemingly nonetheless generate strong development, I believe the times of triple-digit income and revenue acceleration might be nearing an in depth.
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Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market improvement and spokeswoman for Fb and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Idiot’s board of administrators. John Mackey, former CEO of Complete Meals Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Idiot’s board of administrators. Adam Spatacco has positions in Amazon, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Idiot has positions in and recommends Amazon, Meta Platforms, Nvidia, and Tesla. The Motley Idiot has a disclosure coverage.
Is Nvidia Actually as Widespread as You Assume? 1 Quantity That Has Me Involved In regards to the Firm’s Lengthy-Time period Prospects. was initially revealed by The Motley Idiot