Nvidia will report fiscal third-quarter results on Tuesday, Nov. 17, five days after Jensen Huang's resignation as chief executive was announced, and the numbers it has to beat are its own: revenue of $108 billion, plus or minus 2%, the guidance the company gave in August. That would be about 12% more than the $96.2 billion it booked in the quarter to July.

For investors in Asia, the report is the first hard read on AI chip demand since the leadership shock. Nvidia's orders flow straight through to Taiwan's foundries and packaging houses and to Korea's memory makers, and the call will be the first time the company takes analysts' questions without Huang.

The numbers Nvidia has to hit

Nvidia said in its Aug. 26 results release that it expects third-quarter revenue of $108 billion, give or take 2%, a range of roughly $105.8 billion to $110.2 billion. It guided gross margin to 74%, plus or minus 50 basis points, on both a GAAP and non-GAAP basis, down from 75% in the second quarter. It expected operating expenses of about $9.2 billion on a GAAP basis and $9 billion excluding items, up from $8.4 billion and $8.2 billion.

The second quarter set a high bar. Revenue rose 106% from a year earlier, data center revenue reached $89 billion, up 117%, and non-GAAP diluted earnings came to $2.22 a share. The company returned about $26 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends in that quarter and had about $99 billion left under its repurchase authorization.

None of the sources Capital Times reviewed gave a current Wall Street consensus figure for the quarter, so the company's guidance range is the clearest yardstick. Nvidia has a record of beating its own forecasts, and Morningstar senior equity analyst Brian Colello wrote on Thursday that he is looking for "another beat-and-raise quarter." He said he would be stunned by a miss or a weak forecast, given strong capital spending by cloud providers and enterprises.

Who leads the call

Nvidia confirmed on Thursday that the report and call will go ahead "as previously scheduled," with results due at about 1:20 p.m. Pacific time and the call at 2 p.m. Pacific (6 a.m. Wednesday in Hong Kong). The company's CEO transition release names Colette Kress as interim chief executive while she remains chief financial officer, but it does not say who will present the results or lead the call.

Nvidia's earlier call announcement said Kress will post written CFO commentary on its investor website when results are released. Prepared remarks will be followed by questions from financial analysts and institutional investors.

Huang's exit followed the board's decision earlier this month to open an independent investigation involving its chief executive, and the permanent CEO post remains open.

Colello wrote that leadership will be the single most important issue on the call. Citing prediction markets, he listed Kress and Ian Buck, who heads Nvidia's AI efforts, as internal candidates and Rene Haas, a former Nvidia vice president who now runs Arm, as an external one, and called Haas a compelling choice. Analysts will listen for any sign of how long the search will take and whether customers have reacted to the change at the top.

Data center orders and China

The second issue on Morningstar's list is U.S. data center construction. Colello said he wants to know whether the U.S. election has led to any immediate pauses in orders or worries about future demand, and what Nvidia thinks about the pace of buildouts over the longer term. He wrote that the company's last forecast effectively called for $700 billion of AI revenue in calendar 2027.

Morningstar estimates Nvidia's data center revenue will reach $385 billion in fiscal 2027, roughly double the $194 billion of fiscal 2026, and models $672 billion the following year. Colello also flagged less obvious revenue lines: sales to AI cloud, industrial and enterprise customers, where he sees design wins as stickier, spending by governments on sovereign AI, and new products such as Vera CPUs. Nvidia said in August that its Vera Rubin platform was in full production.

China is the third watch point. The August guidance assumed no data center compute revenue from China, so any shipments there would be upside to the forecast, and any comment on sales or non-sales in the country will be read closely given the investigation into Huang, Colello wrote.

Morningstar rates Nvidia four stars with a wide moat and a fair value estimate of $310 a share on the preview, and published a separate note on Thursday headlined as cutting that estimate by 19% because of the CEO transition. Colello wrote that the investigation and uncertainty make the company's prospects murkier, while adding that he sees no risk to Nvidia's competitive moat.

The quarter being reported ended Oct. 25. Kress's written commentary is due on Nvidia's investor site about 40 minutes before the call begins.