Chipmaker Nvidia's quarterly results beats Street

REUTERS - Nvidia Corp's third-quarter results beat estimates as the chipmaker refocused on smartphones and tablets in a tepid personal computer market, although its revenue forecast was a bit lower than expected.

Shares of Nvidia, which unveiled its newest mobile processor this week, jumped over 5 percent following the report.

Anxious to move beyond its traditional business of designing graphics chips for personal computers, Nvidia has jumped into mobile devices with its Tegra chips.

Nvidia had some successes early in 2011 with its processors appearing in tablets made by Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics, although sales have grown less quickly than many investors had expected.

Its newest mobile processor, Tegra 3, also faces growing competition from chip heavyweights Qualcomm Inc and Texas Instruments Inc.

Growth in laptops has slowed over the past year due to a tough economy and a growing preference for smaller devices such as Apple Inc's iPad.

Nvidia said revenue in the current quarter would be up or down 2 percent from the past quarter. That implies revenue of $1.045 billion to $1.087 billion, compared with analysts' average forecast of $1.069 billion.

GAAP earnings were $178.3 million, or 29 cents per share, compared with $84.9 million, or 15 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected third-quarter EPS of 26 cents, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Nvidia's revenue for the quarter ending Oct. 30 was $1.066 billion, up 26 percent and a bit above analysts' average estimate of $1.062 billion.

Shares of Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia rose 5.5 percent in extended trade after closing up 1.05 percent at $14.47.

(Reporting by Noel Randewich; Editing by Richard Chang)