$NVIDIA (NVDA.US)$ announced Wednesday after the close with fourth-quarter results that beat expectations. The outperformance came as its Data Center business held up and Gaming revenue rebounded.

Nvidia's Key Q4 Metrics: Santa Clara, California-based Nvidia reported fourth-quarter non-GAAP earnings per share of 88 cents compared to the consensus estimate of 81 cents. This marked a decline from the year ago's $1.32 but better than the third quarter's 58 cents.

Revenue came in at $6.05 billion, slightly ahead of the Street estimate of $6.01 billion. The top line, however, fell 21% from the $7.64 billion Nvidia reported a year ago. Nvidia's third-quarter revenue was $5.93 billion.

The company guided to revenue of $6 billion plus or minus 2%.

Rosenblatt semiconductor analyst Hans Mosesmann expected Nvidia to deliver on fourth-quarter expectations on a "gradual return to sell-in match-up top sell-through in Gaming and early ramp/momentum of the new Hopper GPU/Compute cycle."

For the fiscal year, the company reported non-GAAP EPS of $3.34, down 25% year-over-year, and revenue of $26.97 billion. Analysts, on average, modeled EPS and revenue of $3.27 and $26.92 billion, respectively.

GAAP and Non-GAAP gross margins fell year-over-year, reflecting lower Gaming margins and a higher contribution from Automotive, partially offset by a higher contribution from Data Center. These improved sequentially due to lower inventory charges.

Nvidia's Sum-Of-The Parts: Segment-wise, Data Center revenue totaled $3.62 billion, down about 5.7% sequentially but up 10.8% year-over-year. It accounted for roughly 59.8% of the total revenue. The year-over-year growth reflected strength in U.S. cloud service providers. Reduced China sales led to the sequential decline.

Gaming revenue climbed 16% sequentially but was down a steep 46.5% year-over-year. It accounted for $1.8 billion or about 30% of the total revenue.

"Gaming is recovering from the post-pandemic downturn, with gamers enthusiastically embracing the new Ada architecture GPUs with AI neural rendering," said CEO Jensen Huang.

The rest of the segments, namely Professional Visualization, Autos and OEM & Other, contributed $226 million, $294 million and $84 million, respectively, to total revenue.

Automotive revenue came in at a record, reflecting growth in sales of self-driving solutions, computing solutions for electric vehicle makers and strength in sales of AI cockpit solutions.

Nvidia's Forward Outlook: Nvidia guided to first-quarter revenue of $6.5 billion, plus or minus 2%, and non-GAAP gross margins of 66.5%. Analysts, on average, target EPS of 86 cents, down from a year ago's $1.36, and revenue of $6.34 billion, a 23.5%. year-over-year decline.

"We are set to help customers take advantage of breakthroughs in generative AI and large language models. Our new AI supercomputer, with H100 and its Transformer Engine and Quantum-2 networking fabric, is in full production," Huang said.

In after-hours trading, Nvidia stock traded up 8.5% at $225.19, according to Benzinga Pro data. The average analysts' price target for Nvidia stock, compiled by TipRanks, is $234.14, suggesting about 13% upside potential.