What Nvidia keeps
Nvidia took in $216 billion in its 2026 financial year and kept $120 billion of it. Here is the trip between the two.
Straight from the 10-K for the year to 25 January 2026.
In: data center $193.7bn, gaming $16.0bn, professional visualisation $3.2bn, automotive $2.3bn and OEM $0.6bn.
Out:
Revenue $215.9bn less cost of revenue $62.5bn = gross profit $153.5bn less research $18.5bn less selling and admin $4.6bn = operating profit $130.4bn less tax of $21.4bn, plus $11.1bn of interest and other income = net profit $120.1bn
Three things worth sitting with.
Making the things costs less than a third of the money. $62.5bn of that $215.9bn, against Apple's 53 cents in the dollar on the same line. That single difference is most of why one company keeps 27 cents of a dollar and the other keeps 56.
Selling costs almost nothing. $4.6bn of selling and admin on $215.9bn of revenue - about two cents in the dollar. Research is four times bigger than the entire sales, marketing, legal and head office bill. When the customers are a dozen cloud companies who have already decided what they want, there is nobody left to sell to.
And the fourth bar is smaller than it looks. Tax was $21.4bn, but $11.1bn came back as interest and other income - a company sitting on that much cash earns real money doing nothing. The chart nets the two into one $10.3bn bar so the widths still add up.
Two notes on the split at the top. Data center is 90% of the whole thing, so the other three ribbons are hairlines on purpose, not a rendering fault - and inside that $193.7bn, compute is $162.4bn and networking $31.4bn. The fourth ribbon is two segments added together so the widths still sum to revenue: automotive, which is the DRIVE self-driving chips sold to carmakers, at $2.3bn, plus OEM and other at $0.6bn.
Next week: who Nvidia's money goes to.
