Finance

Nvidia’s auto segment revenue surges to record high on demand for driver-assist tech

Published

4 months ago

February 27, 2025

Signage at the Nvidia Corp. offices in Taipei, Taiwan, on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. Photographer: An Rong Xu/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

U.S. chipmaker Nvidia‘s auto segment revenue more than doubled in the latest quarter to a record high on strong demand for driver-assist software.

While the company’s biggest revenue stream by far is chip systems that power artificial intelligence, Nvidia has predicted its products that power driver-assist technology could become its next “billion-dollar” business.

Revenue of Nvidia’s automotive and robotics segment rose 103% year on year to $570 million in the fourth quarter of the 2025 fiscal year. That brought the segment’s revenue for the fiscal year to $1.69 billion, above $1 billion for a second-straight year.

The latest increase in revenue was due to to sales of Nvidia’s “self-driving platforms,” according to the company’s CFO.

“This growth highlights Nvidia’s increasing exposure to powering ADAS, autonomous vehicles, and robotics through its DRIVE platform and related technologies,” Brady Wang, semiconductor analyst at Counterpoint Research, said in an email.

CEO Jensen Huang said in Nvidia’s earnings call the company expects that “every single one” of the 1 billion cars on the roads today “will be robotic cars” that collect data which Nvidia-supported AI systems can help refine, according to a FactSet transcript.

Will likely see a 'buoyant tone' from Nvidia sell-side, says Ritholtz' Josh Brown

Automotive and robotics is “getting ready to take off,” likely due to investments in autonomous vehicles such as Waymo and Tesla, Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said in an email. Munster also estimated that around 15 companies are building humanoid robots, potentially increasing demand for Nvidia chips.

“The performance of that segment is an important story below the fold that’s not getting much attention because it’s small,” he added, “but they can be a much bigger part of revenue going forward.”

Autos and robotics unit currently accounts for 1.45% of Nvidia’s total revenue.

Counterpoint’s Wang expects this growth to continue with Nvidia’s “increasing adoption of L2+ and more advanced systems”.

Several Chinese electric car companies, including BYD, Nio and Zeekr, use Nvidia’s driver-assist chip systems.

“In addition to autonomous driving, I also anticipate that robotics and physical AI will experience a hype,” Wang added, “followed by real-world applications in the coming years, sustaining the long-term growth of this sector.”

Finance

New ETF gives investor chance to act like a private equity giant

Published

7 hours ago

June 15, 2025

Business Finance News

VanEck moves first to target alternative asset managers themselves

The S&P 500 is less than 3% from an all-time high. Six of its 11 sectors are within 5% of an all-time high. But even as the U.S. stock market index proves its resilience during a volatile stretch for investors, more money from within portfolios is expected to shift in to privately traded companies.

Jan Van Eck, CEO of ETF and mutual fund manager VanEck, says the trend of companies staying private for longer rather than seeking an initial public offering is here to stay and it offers new opportunities.

High-profile examples include Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Sam Altman’s OpenAI and fintech Stripe.

According to Van Eck, allocations to private assets will jump from a current average portfolio holding level of approximately 2% to 10% in the years ahead.

Some ETFs have begun to invest small portions of their assets in privately held company shares, including SpaceX, such as the ERShares Private-Public Crossover ETF (XOVR). VanEck has launched an ETF tackling the private opportunity in a different way: taking big positions in the publicly traded shares of the investment giants, including private equity firms and other alternative asset managers, that own many private companies.

The VanEck Alternative Asset Manager ETF (GPZ), which launched this month, has a portfolio holdings list that includes Brookfield, Blackstone, KKR, Brookfield Asset Management and Apollo, which combined make up almost 50% of the fund. TPG, Ares and Carlyle are also big positions, in the 5% range each.

The new ETF extends an existing focus on private markets for VanEck. For over a decade, it has offered investors access to private credit, through the VanEck BDC Income ETF (BIZD), which invests in the business development companies that lend to small- and mid-sized private companies. That ETF has a high level of exposure to Ares, Blue Owl, Blackstone, Main Street and Golub Capital, which make up about half of the fund. It pays a hefty dividend of 11%.

Investing private through a publicly traded ETF

“You have to believe this is a secular trend and growth will be higher than that for normal money managers, including ETF and mutual fund managers,” said Van Eck.

He cautions, however, there is more volatility in these funds compared to the public equity market overall. “You have to size it appropriately,” he added.