NVIDIA Surpasses Apple with Record $150 Billion Share Buyback

【Financial News, New York—Correspondent Lee Byung-chul】  NVIDIA, which dominates the artificial intelligence (AI) semiconductor market, has unveiled a $150 billion share buyback plan, the largest in U.S. corporate history. The move has drawn attention because NVIDIA, whose revenue is expected to rise by approximately 90% this year, is pursuing the largest shareholder return ever despite not being a company with slowing growth.
NVIDIA's board on the 28th local time approved a $150 billion increase to the limit of its existing share buyback program. The move surpasses the previous record of $110 billion set by Apple in 2024, making it the largest such program in U.S. corporate history. Following the approval, the total amount NVIDIA can use for share buybacks through January 2028 rose to as much as $235 billion.
NVIDIA's decision is particularly notable because the company remains in a phase of explosive growth. Large-scale share buybacks are generally viewed as a signal that management believes its stock is undervalued. At the same time, mature companies with fewer investment opportunities often use buybacks to return excess cash to shareholders.
When Apple announced its then-record $110 billion share buyback in 2024, growth in iPhone sales was also slowing.
NVIDIA's situation is different. The company's revenue is expected to increase by approximately 90% this year from the previous year. OpenAI, Anthropic, and SpaceX—all at the forefront of the AI race—are major NVIDIA customers. Google, which is developing its own AI semiconductors, is also purchasing NVIDIA products on a large scale through its cloud business.
Investment in AI infrastructure is also continuing to expand. Goldman Sachs projects that global AI investment will exceed $1 trillion this year. NVIDIA's graphics processing units (GPUs) have become core infrastructure for running major large language models (LLMs), including ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.
NVIDIA's ability to pursue a buyback of such astronomical proportions is underpinned by its enormous cash-generating capacity. NVIDIA generated approximately $100 billion in free cash flow (FCF) during the fiscal year that ended in January. According to market estimates compiled by S&P Global Visible Alpha, FCF is projected to more than triple to $329 billion in fiscal 2028.
Net income is growing even more rapidly. Visible Alpha expects NVIDIA's net income to more than double to $245 billion in the current fiscal year and expand to $387 billion in the next fiscal year, which ends in January 2028.
NVIDIA co-founder and CEO Jensen Huang said the decision reflects "confidence in the long-term opportunities that AI will bring."
Meanwhile, NVIDIA's stock has surged more than 1,200% since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in late 2022. However, gains have slowed to approximately 20% this year as investors have become increasingly cautious about the sustainability of the AI investment boom. After the announcement of the expanded buyback program, NVIDIA shares rose 1.4% in premarket trading in the United States.




[email protected] Correspondent Lee Byung-chul Reporter