On Nvidia’s own filings, China (including Hong Kong) was 19.2% of revenue in fiscal 2025 and 9.1% in fiscal 2026, counted by where customers are headquartered. In the quarter to July 2026 it was $7,880 million of $96,221 million, or 8.2%, by our arithmetic from the 10-Q.
By our arithmetic, most of the fiscal 2026 fall was dilution: had China revenue stayed at its fiscal 2025 level of $25,048 million, its share would have been 11.6%, so 7.6 of the 10.1 points came from revenue growing elsewhere and 2.5 points from the China line falling by $5,371 million.
A vertical news Short narrated from the published headlines and opening lines of this analysis and two related FourWeekMBA pieces on Nvidia’s revenue recount.
Business Pill · Concentration
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on concentration. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss Nvidia, any company or any person in this analysis.
The key insight: By our arithmetic from Nvidia’s 10-K, China’s share of revenue fell from 19.2% in fiscal 2025 to 9.1% in fiscal 2026 on the headquarters count, and 7.6 of the 10.1 points came from revenue growing elsewhere rather than from the China line itself.
Nvidia’s fiscal 2025 10-K reported revenue “based upon the billing location of the customer” and put China (including Hong Kong) at $17,108 million, or 13.1% of $130,497 million by our arithmetic. Its fiscal 2026 10-K says that in the third quarter of fiscal 2026 Nvidia “changed to revenue based upon the location of our customers’ headquarters” and that “Prior period information has been recast to reflect this change”.
On that recast, China was $25,048 million of fiscal 2025 revenue, or 19.2%. By our arithmetic, 68.3% of that figure was already in the China line on the billing count and 31.7%, or $7,940 million, came from the recount. Our first piece on the recount covered the China share; our second followed the $23,684 million Singapore billing line that the recount removed.
China (including Hong Kong) as a share of Nvidia revenue by customer headquarters: fiscal 2025 actual, fiscal 2026 if China revenue had stayed at its fiscal 2025 level, and fiscal 2026 actual. Shares and the split are our arithmetic from reported figures. Source: NVIDIA Form 10-K for fiscal 2026.
China’s Share, Quarter by Quarter
On the headquarters count, the 10-Qs and 10-Ks give China at $8,142 million of $35,082 million in the quarter to October 2024 (23.2%), and $9,659 million of $44,062 million in the quarter to April 2025 (21.9%), by our arithmetic.
The share was 8.5% in the quarter to July 2025 ($3,985 million of $46,743 million), 5.2% in the quarter to October 2025 ($2,973 million of $57,006 million) and 5.6% in the quarter to April 2026 ($4,550 million of $81,615 million). The quarters to January are derived as full year minus nine months: 19.9% for fiscal 2025 and 4.5% for fiscal 2026, by our arithmetic.
For the first half of fiscal 2027, the 10-Q gives China at $12,430 million of $177,837 million, or 7.0%. For fiscal 2024 the recast 10-K gives $12,330 million of $60,922 million, or 20.2%.
What the Filings Say About Export Licences
The fiscal 2026 10-K says that in April 2025 the US government “informed us that it requires a license for export to China (including Hong Kong and Macau) and D:5 countries” of its H20 chips, and that “we incurred a $4.5 billion charge in the first quarter of fiscal year 2026 associated with H20 for excess inventory and purchase obligations, as the demand for H20 products diminished”.
It adds that licences granted in August 2025 allowed certain H20 shipments to China-based customers and that “We generated approximately $60 million in H20 revenue under those licenses”. It says US officials expressed an expectation of receiving “15% or more of the revenue generated from licensed sales of our products”, without a published regulation.
The 10-Q for the quarter to July 2026 says H200 sales to specific China-based customers were licensed “but such sales were restricted by the PRC government”, that Nvidia “incurred a $0.4 billion charge associated with H200 for excess inventory and purchase obligations” in the first half of fiscal 2027, and that the shipments made “account for less than 1% of Data Center revenue in our most recent quarter”. It says licensed H200s are “subject to a 25% tariff upon importation into the United States”.
Why the Share Halved in Fiscal 2026
Total revenue rose by $85,441 million in fiscal 2026, or 65.5%, while China revenue fell by $5,371 million, or 21.4%, by our arithmetic from the fiscal 2026 10-K. The share bridge in the opening splits the 10.1-point fall between those two moves.
The filings do not attribute the change in China revenue to a single cause; the export-licence passages above are what Nvidia itself discloses about that market.
Nvidia total revenue and China (including Hong Kong) revenue by customer headquarters, fiscal 2025 = 100. Total rose 65.5%; China fell 21.4%. Index and changes are our arithmetic. Source: NVIDIA Form 10-K for fiscal 2026.
Headquarters Is Not Where the Chips End Up
The fiscal 2026 10-K says “The end customer and shipping location may be different from our customers’ headquarters location”, and the 10-Qs since the recount carry similar wording. The same 10-K estimates that 76% of Data Center revenue from Taiwan-headquartered customers was “attributed to end customers based in the United States and Europe”; it gives no such estimate for China.
As we read the filings, the China share depends first on the count: on the billing count Nvidia reported 13.1% for fiscal 2025, and 31.7% of the recast fiscal 2025 China figure came from the recount, by our arithmetic.
By our arithmetic, the share was above 20% in the quarters to October 2024 and April 2025 and below 9% in every quarter from July 2025 to July 2026 on the headquarters count.
As we read the 10-K and the latest 10-Q, Nvidia’s own disclosures about China centre on export licences: a $4.5 billion H20 charge, about $60 million of licensed H20 revenue and a $0.4 billion H200 charge.
NVIDIA Form 10-K for fiscal 2026, geographic revenue note
“The end customer and shipping location may be different from our customers’ headquarters location”
Three Implications
FOR INVESTORS By our arithmetic, the China line was $7,880 million, or 8.2% of revenue, in the quarter to July 2026, against 19.2% of revenue for fiscal 2025 on the same count.
FOR EXPORT POLICY The 10-Q for the quarter to July 2026 says licensed H200 shipments account for less than 1% of Data Center revenue in the most recent quarter.
FOR READERS COMPARING PERIODS The fiscal 2025 10-K and the fiscal 2026 10-K give different China figures for the same year, $17,108 million and $25,048 million, because they count by billing location and by headquarters.
The framework lists export controls between nation-states in its governance layer and says of that layer: “No longer a passive layer; an active priced variable.”
As we read it, Nvidia’s China line is where that layer shows up in a chipmaker’s accounts, through licence requirements and charges. The framework does not discuss Nvidia’s geographic reporting.
What Is Not Established
Shares, the quarterly figures for the quarters to January and the share bridge are our arithmetic from the reported dollar figures. The bridge splits a share change into two parts and does not show why China revenue fell. The filings report direct customers by headquarters, not end users, so the China line is not a measure of where chips are used.
Nvidia has not yet filed results for the quarter to October 2026.
This Week In The AI Supercycle
Execution Fault Lines, Concentrated Demand, and Geopolitical Firewalls
This week’s issue: the AI build is not short of demand for its parts. It is short of cheap money, and its end revenue rests on a narrow base of large, often venture-funded buyers.
By our arithmetic from Nvidia’s 10-Ks and 10-Qs, China was 19.2% of revenue in fiscal 2025 on the headquarters count, 9.1% in fiscal 2026 and 8.2% in the quarter to July 2026; 7.6 of the 10.1-point fall in fiscal 2026 came from growth elsewhere. The filings also record a $4.5 billion H20 charge, about $60 million of licensed H20 revenue and a $0.4 billion H200 charge.
A note on sourcing. All figures come from NVIDIA’s Forms 10-K for fiscal 2024, 2025 and 2026 and its Forms 10-Q for the quarters to October 2025, April 2026 and July 2026, read on SEC EDGAR on 29 October 2026. Shares, the derived quarters to January and the share bridge are our arithmetic; the filings report revenue by direct customers’ headquarters, not by end user. The New York Times report is covered in our linked earlier piece; these filings do not refer to it.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
