Nvidia supply shortage won’t stop $50M Q1 crypto miner sales, says CFO

Nvidia’s ongoing supply problems won’t stop the company from selling $50 million worth of its new CMP chip range in the first quarter of 2021, the company’s chief financial officer Colette Kress forecasted on Feb. 24.

Nvidia failed to meet demand from its core gaming customer base in 2020, and the trend looks set to continue into 2021. Added demand from a horde of cryptocurrency enthusiasts keen to direct Nvidia’s new RTX 30 series GPU to Ether (ETH) mining initially appeared to pile pressure on the company.

But the firm’s CFO expects the recently announced Cryptocurrency Mining Processor product line to hit $50 million in sales in the first quarter of the year. The CMP range is designed specifically for Ether mining, and its introduction was part of an attempt to allocate more units of its RTX 30 range to gamers.

Despite supply problems, Nvidia hit record revenues of $5 billion in the last quarter of 2020, while its stock price soared to all-time highs. This is a near-exact repeat of the market conditions present in 2018, when increased demand amid supply shortages pushed the stock price to the highest level in its history up to that time.

On Wednesday, United States President Joe Biden signed an executive order to address the shortage of semiconductors and microchips. A critical review will investigate the country’s failing supply lines, which have been shown to rely too much on Chinese manufacturing, highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The chip shortage boosted the value of the PHLX Semiconductor Index, which tracks the value of chip-related stocks, with the index gaining 70% in the past 12 months.

JPMorgan analyst Harlan Sur expects the pump to continue, even though the supply shortage won’t be corrected for some time. 

Sur recently told MarketWatch, “We believe semi companies are shipping 10% to 30% BELOW current demand levels and it will take at least 3-4 quarters for supply to catch up with demand and then another 1-2 quarters for inventories at customers/distribution channels to be replenished back to normal levels.” 

Sur said the previous quarter was the first in which every chip maker JPMorgan tracked actually exceeded forecasted earnings.