Nvidia forecasts year-ahead revenue, aims to surpass Apple and Alphabet

Nvidia just did something it has never done before: tell Wall Street what the next full year looks like. And the number is staggering.

The company’s fiscal second-quarter earnings, reported on August 26, revealed $96.2 billion in revenue, a 106% jump from the same period last year. But the real headline came from CFO Colette Kress, who issued Nvidia’s first-ever year-ahead revenue forecast, projecting approximately 70% growth for fiscal 2028. That translates to roughly $673 billion in annual revenue, a figure that would leapfrog both Apple and Alphabet, leaving Nvidia trailing only Amazon in the corporate revenue rankings.

The numbers behind the AI juggernaut

Wall Street had been modeling around 44% revenue growth for Nvidia’s next fiscal year. The company’s own guidance nearly doubles that estimate.

Data-center revenue, the engine powering this entire run, hit a record $89 billion in Q2 alone. That segment now accounts for 89% of Nvidia’s total revenue, up 117% year over year.

For the current quarter, Nvidia guided Q3 revenue to $108 billion, give or take 2%. Gross margins are expected to hold around 74% in Q3 before drifting down to 71-72% in subsequent quarters.

The strategic decision to provide a full-year outlook, rather than the typical quarter-ahead guidance, signals something beyond confidence. CEO Jensen Huang framed it as a necessity: Nvidia’s supply chain partners need longer planning horizons because the components required for next-generation AI chips, particularly high-bandwidth memory, are already constrained.

Supply constraints: the ceiling on a rocket ship

For all the bullish projections, Huang was candid about the limits. Supply constraints, especially around high-bandwidth memory, will cap how much Nvidia can actually ship. The implication is that real customer demand exceeds even the 70% growth forecast.

What $673 billion in revenue actually means

To put that figure in perspective, $673 billion would make Nvidia’s annual revenue roughly equivalent to the GDP of Switzerland. Five years ago, the company was generating around $27 billion annually.

Surpassing Apple in revenue would be particularly symbolic. Apple has long been the benchmark for corporate scale and profitability in tech. But Apple’s growth has been measured in single digits recently, while Nvidia is posting triple-digit percentage gains.

For the semiconductor industry, Nvidia’s guidance reinforces a structural shift. Data centers have overtaken smartphones, PCs, and gaming consoles as the primary demand driver for advanced chips. TSMC, Samsung, and SK Hynix, Nvidia’s key manufacturing and memory suppliers, all stand to benefit from this sustained buildout, though they face their own capacity constraints.

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