Nvidia shares tumbled nearly $2 a share Fri. after the chipmaker ...

options. Nvidia held off reporting more Q2 results until its audit committee completes its review. CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said Nvidia’s Q2 sales growth “was driven by strong performance from numerous product groups,” including desktop GPU, notebook GPU, professional solutions and handheld GPU. “As the industry continues to shift its focus to the multimedia experience for consumers, the GPU is becoming increasingly important in a broad range of computing and consumer devices [and] we are excited about our growth opportunities ahead,” he said. The company said the audit committee’s review runs from Nvidia’s 1999 IPO through this fiscal year, with help from outside legal counsel. Nvidia “voluntarily contacted the Securities and Exchange Commission staff to inform them about the ongoing review,” it said. The review is ongoing, but the audit committee “reached a preliminary conclusion that incorrect measurement dates were used for financial accounting purposes for stock option grants in certain prior periods,” Nvidia said. Therefore, it said, the company “may record additional non-cash stock-based compensation expense related to stock option grants.” Nvidia, however, said “any additional non-cash stock-based compensation expense recorded will not affect [its] cash position or reported revenue for the recently completed quarter or any previous periods.” Nvidia added it “does not expect to be in a position to file” its Q2 10-Q with the SEC by the original Sept. 8 deadline or an extended deadline of Sept. 13. In the past quarter, the company shipped PuerVideo HD, which it called “the industry’s only solution for enjoying high-definition Blu-ray and HD movie experiences on PCs.” Huang also told analysts in a conference call: “We are starting to see the benefits from several key design wins at Motorola in their highly successful Razr and SLVR” cellphone lines. CFO Marv Burkett said the company’s core product revenue - excluding PS3 and Xbox - grew 34% in Q2. Huang also said his company expects to start seeing royalty revenue from Sony’s PS3 “this quarter” but “we just don’t know how much yet.” He said “Sony is in volume production” on the console “and they're gearing up for [the] anticipated launch towards the later part of this year.” Sony said it expected to ship the PS3 in Nov. In late afternoon trading Fri., Nvidia shares were down 2.94% at $23.45 after dropping as low as $22.32. Its shares closed at $24.16 Thurs., before the results were announced. - JB