Why Marvell (MRVL) Stock Had Its Best Month in Years

TLDR

• Marvell stock rose 21.3% in March, driven by strong earnings and a landmark Nvidia deal
• Q4 revenue jumped 22.1% to $2.2 billion, with adjusted EPS up 33.3% to $0.80
• Nvidia invested $2 billion in Marvell and announced a broad strategic partnership
• Management guided for 40% data center revenue growth in fiscal 2027, well above analyst estimates of 25%
• Erste Group initiated coverage with a Buy rating on April 2, citing strong financials and AI positioning

Marvell had one of its busiest months in recent memory in March. The chipmaker delivered a beat-and-raise quarter, then capped it off with a blockbuster deal from Nvidia.

Marvell Technology, Inc., MRVL

The fourth-quarter numbers were clean. Revenue climbed 22.1% year-over-year to $2.2 billion. Adjusted EPS came in at $0.80, up 33.3%. Both figures topped what analysts had penciled in.

Guidance was equally strong. Management called for a 9% sequential revenue increase in Q1, with adjusted EPS of $0.79. That also beat the Street.

The bigger headline, though, came later in the month. On March 31, Nvidia announced a $2 billion equity investment in Marvell, along with a broad strategic partnership.

The deal covers custom silicon, networking, and optical technologies. It’s built around NVLink Fusion, Nvidia’s platform for integrating third-party chips into its AI infrastructure stack.

What makes this interesting is the architecture it enables. Until now, AI infrastructure was largely either Nvidia-based or built around custom XPU chips with Ethernet. This partnership opens the door to hybrid setups — mixing XPUs with Nvidia’s GPUs, CPUs, and interconnects.

Marvell’s Data Center Outlook Gets a Lift

Management set a high bar for fiscal 2027. The company expects data center revenue to grow 40% — well above the analyst consensus of 25%.

That confidence appears tied to its XPU business, which provides custom AI chip IP to hyperscalers. There had been concerns about potential share loss at Amazon following the rollout of Amazon’s Trainium chips, but the forward guidance suggests the XPU pipeline remains healthy.

Marvell has also been expanding its customer base. Microsoft unveiled its updated Maia2 XPU chip in January, with Marvell’s IP embedded in the design.

The Nvidia collaboration also touches silicon photonics — a technology that could eventually replace copper-based networking inside AI data centers. Nvidia’s current NVLink uses copper, so the tie-up with Marvell signals a longer-term push toward optical interconnects.

Analyst Attention Picks Up

On April 2, Erste Group initiated coverage of Marvell with a Buy rating. The firm pointed to net profit doubling over the past five quarters and return on equity reaching 19%.

Erste also highlighted Marvell’s leadership in high-performance analog and optical DSP technologies as a key reason for its positive outlook.

The Nvidia investment itself brought Marvell to 52-week highs. The stock had spent much of the past six months range-bound, but the combination of strong earnings and the Nvidia vote of confidence broke it out.

Marvell currently trades at roughly 27 times forward earnings estimates — a premium to where it sat last year, but one that many analysts see as reasonable given the data center growth trajectory.

The company’s XPUs now integrate with Nvidia’s NVLink Fusion platform, which could open new revenue streams across Nvidia’s growing ecosystem of hyperscale customers.

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