Nvidia Corp on Thursday forecast first-quarter revenue above expectations spurred by increasing demand for data-center and gaming chips, despite a hit of $100 million from the coronavirus outbreak.

The Santa Clara, California-based company said it expects current-quarter revenue of $3 billion, plus or minus 2%. Gross margin, or the percentage of sales remaining after deducting the cost of production, will be 65%, plus or minus 50 basis points.

“Adoption of NVIDIA accelerated computing drove excellent results, with record data center revenue,” said Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of NVIDIA. “Our initiatives are achieving great success.

“NVIDIA RTX ray tracing is reinventing computer graphics, driving powerful adoption across gaming, VR and design markets, while opening new opportunities in rendering and cloud gaming. NVIDIA AI is enabling breakthroughs in language understanding, conversational AI and recommendation engines ― the core algorithms that power the internet today. And new NVIDIA computing applications in 5G, genomics, robotics and autonomous vehicles enable us to continue important work that has great impact.

“We are well positioned for the greatest technology trends of our time,” he said.

Nvidia's revenue for the fourth quarter was $3.11 billion, up 41 percent from a year earlier and up 3 percent sequentially. Full-year revenue was $10.92 billion, down 7 percent.

Although the majority of the company’s sales still comes from PC gaming, GPUs are also used for calculations in parallel makes them useful for AI workloads and, potentially, self-driving vehicles.

The company's GPU business revenue for the fourth quarter was $2.77 billion, up 40 percent from a year earlier and up 8 percent sequentially. Full-year revenue was $9.47 billion, down 7 percent.

Tegra Processor business revenue for the fourth quarter - which includes Automotive, SoCs for gaming platforms, and embedded edge AI platforms - was $331 million, up 47 percent from a year ago and down 26 percent sequentially. Full-year revenue was $1.45 billion, down 6 percent.

From a market-platform perspective, Gaming revenue for the fourth quarter was $1.49 billion, up 56 percent from a year ago and down 10 percent sequentially. The year-on-year increase reflects higher sales of GeForce GPUs and SoCs for gaming platforms. The sequential decrease reflects seasonally lower sales of GeForce notebook GPUs and SoCs for gaming platforms, partially offset by growth in GeForce desktop GPUs.

Full-year revenue was $5.52 billion, down 12 percent, reflecting lower sales of GeForce desktop GPUs and SoCs for gaming platforms, partially offset by growth in GeForce notebook GPUs.

Professional Visualization revenue for the fourth quarter was a record $331 million, up 13 percent from a year earlier and up 2 percent sequentially. The year-on-year growth reflects strength in desktop and notebook workstations, while the sequential growth was driven by desktop workstations partially offset by notebook workstations. Full-year revenue was $1.21 billion, up 7 percent, reflecting strength in desktop and notebook workstations.

Data Center revenue for the fourth quarter was a record $968 million, up 43 percent from a year ago and up 33 percent sequentially. The year-on-year increase was driven by hyperscale and vertical industry end customers. Sequential growth reflects stronger vertical industry and hyperscale sales. Full-year revenue was $2.98 billion, up 2 percent, driven by vertical industry growth partially offset by lower hyperscale sales.

Automotive revenue was $163 million, flat from a year earlier and up 1 percent sequentially. Full-year revenue was $700 million, up 9 percent, reflecting growth in AI cockpit solutions and development services agreements. OEM and Other revenue for the fourth quarter was $152 million, up 31 percent from a year ago and up 6 percent sequentially. The year-on-year and sequential increases were primarily due to growth in entry level GPUs for PC OEMs. Full-year revenue was $505 million, down 34 percent, primarily due to the absence of cryptocurrency-specific product sales

Nvidia’s net income rose to $950 million, or $1.53 per share, in the fourth-quarter ended Dec. 31, from $567 million, or 92 cents per share, a year earlier.

The company said it is likely to close the acquisition of Mellanox Technologies Ltd. in the “early part of calendar 2020.” Discussions with Chinese regulators about the transaction are progressing, it added.