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Nvidia Still In The Android Game; Tegra Sales On The Rise

Despite being the less popular choice for Android manufactures, Nvidia reported Nov. 7 that revenue from its Tegra processor’s more than doubled during its FY2014 third quarter. Notwithstanding, the Tegra line has not quite lived up to what it was a year ago, when sales were up by 54 percent. According to the company’s financial results, a large reason for the quarterly increase is due to the launch of Tegra 4 devices into the market. Newly appointed chief financial officer Colette Kress said in a commentary however, that the new generation SOC processor has a long way to go to catch up with the high volume of sales associated with the earlier version, Tegra 3 processor.

Although Tegra chips were shipped in more than 15 different mobile devices, including several Android tablets, Qualcomm’s snapdragon processor continues to dominate the market. With a 2.26 GHz processor, Qualcomm’s latest Snapdragon 800 highly outranks the Tegra 4 which only runs 1.9 GHz. Hardly what I would call “the world’s fastest mobile processor,” as Nvidia puts it.

Good news always lies over the rainbow however; sales are expected to continue increasing over the next quarter as Tegra 4 devices continue to hit the market. “We expect strong sequential growth in Tegra,” said Kress. Looking further into the future, president and chief executive officer Jen-Hsun Huang said the company expects to announce its latest 2.3 GHz processor, the Tegra 4i, in the first quarter of next year. The chip, which has already been certified by AT&T for voice and data, should begin shipping the following quarter. This could mark a comeback into the Android world for Nvidia technology.

Huang said he expects that “more devices (will be) ramped with Tegra 4,” which should contribute to recovering from the year-over-year decrease. “You should see that Tegra is adopted in more than just phones; there will be phones, tablets, automotive and other devices. We believe that Android is going to be a very important platform for gaming in the future and to do so we have to create devices that enable great gaming to happen on Android.”