Nvidia last night reported quarterly sales and earning down on the previous three-month period but well up on the year-ago quarter.

Revenues for three three months to 29 April 2007 - the first quarter of the graphics company's 2008 fiscal year - came to $844.3m, down 3.9 per cent sequentially but up 23.8 per cent on Q1 FY2007. Net income totalled $132.5m, down 19 per cent on Q4 FY2007 but up 46.1 per cent on the year-ago quarter.

A decline with respect to the final three months of 2007 is typical for the graphics chip business, but the big year-on-year gains show widening demand for Nvidia's products. Nvidia itself pointed to the way more and more manufacturers are building graphics chips into a broader array of products than the PC.

And Nvidia hasn't had a bad calendar quarter, a period that saw it knock Intel off the top-spot in desktop graphics chips - no mean feat given that Intel only makes integrated GPUs, not standalone chips too, as Nvidia does.

Still, Intel is reaping rich rewards in the notebook market, according to figures from market watcher Jon Peddie Research, highting how important the mobile market is moving forward. Nvidia is hoping its new GeForce 8M series of notebook GPUs are going to win it more business in this arena, especially on the back of Intel's major Centrino upgrade.