Chip Designers, Q3 2026

NVIDIA, AMD, Marvell and Arm are the chip designers in the Q3 2026 earnings roundup, and all four sold more than they did a year earlier. NVIDIA, AMD and Marvell sell the chips they design, and Arm is paid license fees and royalties for designs that go into its partners’ chips. Against a year earlier their revenue rose between 27% and 106%, and NVIDIA kept 66.2% of its sales as operating profit. This page sets the four side by side. The Earnings Desk holds the other quarters, and the memory makers and chip producers have pages of their own.

Findings

The four quarters do not line up. NVIDIA’s quarter ended July 26 and Marvell’s at the start of August, while AMD’s and Arm’s ran July to September. The desk files each one under the calendar quarter it ends in, so NVIDIA’s next quarter goes on the fourth-quarter desk.

NVIDIA reports revenue of $96,221 million, up 18% from the previous quarter. AMD’s revenue was $13,377 million, up 16%. Marvell’s net revenue came to $2,739.3 million, up 13.3% by my arithmetic from $2,417.8 million in the quarter before. Arm’s total revenue was $1,443 million, up 11.9% by my arithmetic from the $1,289 million in its first-quarter letter. That is above the top of the range Arm had guided, $1.38 billion give or take $50 million.

Against a year earlier the order holds and the gaps widen. Each company prints the change. NVIDIA’s revenue grew 106%, AMD’s 45%, Marvell’s 37% and Arm’s 27%.

Findings

In a year NVIDIA grew 106%, AMD 45%, Marvell 37%, Arm 27%

Revenue growth from a year earlier, each company’s own quarter

All four report a GAAP operating margin. NVIDIA’s was 66.2%, up from 65.6% in the quarter before and 60.8% a year earlier. AMD’s rose to 21.2% from 17.3% in the second quarter and 13.7% a year earlier, and Marvell’s rose to 16.8% from 14.0% in the quarter before and 14.5% a year earlier. Arm’s margin climbed to 13.9% from 7.1% in its previous quarter, yet it is the one margin in the group still below its year-earlier level of 14.4%.

Arm’s letter splits its growth in two. License and other revenue rose 50% to $773 million, and royalty revenue rose 8% to $670 million. Arm says the impact of memory pricing on the smartphone market partly offset its royalty growth. My reading is that this is where memory prices reach this group’s numbers, since Arm’s is the only one of the four releases that ties a change in its revenue to what memory costs. For its next quarter Arm guides revenue to $1.54 billion, give or take $50 million, and the fourth-quarter desk will show whether all four keep growing on the quarter.