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Nvidia (NVDA) Moat and Fair Value

Last Updated:

Oct 28, 2024

Moat Rating:

Wide

Fair Price:

$100

Overview

NVIDIA Corporation, founded in 1993, is a leading technology company known for its Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) and integrated circuit technologies. The company has expanded its reach into various sectors, including gaming, professional visualization, data centers, and automotive markets.

Recent Performance

As of August 9, 2024, Nvidia (NVDA) has a YTD total return of 117.50%. The stock is trading at $104.75, which is 159.76% above its 52-week low of $40.33 and -22.74% below its 52-week high of $135.58.

Moat Analysis

NVIDIA's moat can be categorized as Wide due to several key factors:

  • Technological Leadership: NVIDIA is the market leader in GPUs, which are essential for gaming, professional visualization, AI, and machine learning. Their CUDA architecture and software ecosystem create high switching costs for developers and enterprises.

  • Brand Strength: NVIDIA's GeForce brand is synonymous with high-performance gaming, commanding significant brand loyalty.

  • Scale and Network Effects: The extensive use of NVIDIA GPUs in data centers for AI workloads creates network effects. As more developers and companies use their technology, it becomes more entrenched in the ecosystem.

  • Research and Development (R&D): NVIDIA invests heavily in R&D, ensuring a continuous pipeline of innovative products. This investment strengthens their competitive position and keeps them ahead of rivals like AMD and Intel.

Financial Analysis

Here is a financial analysis of NVIDIA based on its recent performance:

  • Revenue Growth: NVIDIA has shown robust revenue growth, driven by strong demand in gaming, data centers, and professional visualization.

  • Profit Margins: The company enjoys high profit margins due to its premium product offerings and technological edge.

  • Cash Flow: Strong operating cash flow enables NVIDIA to invest in R&D and pursue strategic acquisitions.

  • Balance Sheet: NVIDIA has a healthy balance sheet with manageable debt levels and significant cash reserves, providing financial flexibility.

Risk To Consider

Outlook

Nvidia is seeing accelerating demand for generative AI training and inference on their Hopper platform, which is driving strong growth in their Data Center business. The Blackwell platform, now in full production, will form the foundation for trillion-parameter scale generative AI and is expected to start shipping in Q2 and ramp in Q3.

Nvidia anticipates a multiyear build-out of "AI factories" across various sectors, including cloud service providers, consumer internet companies, enterprises, sovereign AI, automotive, and healthcare.

Nvidia is committed to rapid innovation across their computing fabrics and new CPUs, GPUs, networking NICs, and switches, which is expected to drive up capabilities while reducing total cost of ownership (TCO) for customers.

For Q2 2025, Nvidia expects revenue to be $28.0 billion, with GAAP and non-GAAP gross margins of 74.8% and 75.5%, respectively. For the full year, gross margins are expected to be in the mid-70% range, with operating expenses growing in the low-40% range.

Finally, Nvidia expects continued growth driven by the transition from general-purpose to accelerated computing and the rise of generative AI, which requires accelerated computing. These trends are expected to drive a doubling of the world's data center infrastructure installed base in the next five years, representing a significant market opportunity

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