Citi is recommending investors build larger stakes in Nvidia ahead of what it expects will be a period of relative outperformance in the second half of 2026. The bank points to robust product momentum and improving demand visibility that it says extend into 2027 as the rationale for the call.
In a preview note, Citi analyst Atif Malik outlined his expectations for the company’s upcoming reporting cycle. Malik forecasts January-quarter revenue of $67 billion, which he notes is "above Street $65.6B," and says he expects Nvidia to guide to April-quarter sales of $73 billion versus consensus at $71.6 billion.
The analyst attributes part of the acceleration to product ramps, citing continued scaling of the B300 and the Rubin platform. He projects that these platforms will help deliver "a 34% H/H acceleration in CY2H26 sales vs 27% in CY1H26."
Malik also suggested that many investors are looking beyond the immediate earnings print to Nvidia’s annual GTC conference in mid-March. He expects the company to outline an inference roadmap at that event that leverages Groq’s low-latency SRAM IP, and to provide an "early outlook for 2026/27 AI sales."
On margins and spending, the analyst anticipates a fiscal 2027 gross-margin outlook of roughly 75% and assumes operating-expense growth in the high-30% range, similar to the pace seen in fiscal 2026.
Citi acknowledged concerns around rising hyperscaler capital expenditures, but argued those investments "will deliver long-term returns" as demand for AI-driven infrastructure supports cloud-revenue growth. The bank said increased competition in inference is to be expected, yet maintains that Nvidia should "continue to be the leader across both training and reasoning focused inference workloads."
Maintaining a Buy rating and a $270 price target on Nvidia, Citi concluded that the stock "looks attractive with the stock likely to outperform in 2H26 as demand visibility extends into 2027."
Context and implications
The call links product momentum and platform rollouts directly to near-term revenue beats and to a clearer demand outlook that reaches into the following year. Citi’s view ties expected improvements in Nvidia’s sales trajectory and margins to both its hardware platforms and to broader cloud infrastructure investment trends.