Nvidia’s (NVDA) upcoming earnings day may boil down to one key question: Will China be part of its outlook?
“If NVDA were to include China in its guidance, we believe it would contribute an incremental $2-3 billion in revenue,” KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst John Vinh wrote in a new note.
Vinh expects strong Q2 results, driven by demand for Nvidia’s Blackwell GPUs. But he warned that guidance for Q3 could be conservative, given uncertainty around US export licenses to China.
Still, KeyBanc reiterated its Overweight rating and lifted its price target to $215 from $190, pointing to Nvidia’s central role in the AI boom and supply-demand dynamics that remain firmly in its favor.
Nvidia’s near-term growth story looks solid without China. Supply of Nvidia’s Blackwell B200 GPU jumped 40% in Q2 and could rise another 20% in Q3, according to Vinh. Simultaneously, shipments of the more advanced Blackwell Ultra (B300) are ramping up, reinforcing Nvidia’s dominance in AI chips.
KeyBanc raised its full-year shipment forecast for Nvidia’s rack-sale AI systems, known as GB200. The firm now expects 30,000 units to ship this year, up from 25,000 previously, citing stronger yields and improved supply-chain execution.
For now, KeyBanc assumes Nvidia will exclude China revenue from its guidance. That mirrors the approach of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which earlier this month left China out of its outlook amid the same regulatory uncertainty.
The Chinese impact on Nvidia is significant. KeyBanc raised its Q2 revenue estimate to $47.1 billion from $45.1 billion, above Wall Street’s consensus of $45.7 billion. It raised earnings per share to $1.05 from $0.99, slightly above consensus of $1.00.
But with Nvidia agreeing to pay 15% of Chinese chip sales to the US government, plus China’s push for domestic AI chips, the company is likely to adopt a more conservative stance on its financial forecast.
For Q3, KeyBanc cut its revenue estimates to $50.4 billion from $53.5 billion, versus a consensus of $52.6 billion. EPS was clipped to $1.14 from $1.22, below the Street’s consensus of $1.19. Longer term, KeyBanc trimmed fiscal 2026 forecasts on China risks, but boosted 2027 expectations on stronger rack shipments due to accelerating spending by hyperscalers like Amazon (AMZN), Microsoft (MSFT), and Google (GOOG).
Wall Street remains bullish. Morgan Stanley recently called Nvidia the most undervalued megacap stock in the market. Its shares are up more than 30% year to date and over 35% in the past 12 months.
