San Francisco, May 11 (IANS): US-based technology giant Nvidia Corporation has reported a major rise in its revenues of 66 per cent from a year earlier to hit a record of $3.21 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2019 ending on April 29, 2018.

The Silicon Valley-based American graphics processing units (GPUs) manufacturer's first quarter revenue rose 10 per cent from $2.91 billion over the previous quarter, Xinhua quoted the company as saying late on Thursday.

Its Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) earnings per diluted share for the quarter stood at a record $1.98, up 151 per cent from $0.79 a year ago and up 11 per cent from $1.78 dollars in the previous quarter.

During the first quarter of fiscal 2019, Nvidia returned $746 million to shareholders through a combination of $655 million in share repurchases and $91 million in quarterly cash dividends.

Nvidia said it intends to return $1.25 billion to shareholders through ongoing quarterly cash dividends and share repurchases for fiscal 2019.

The top GPU manufacturer saw it gaming revenue grow 68 per cent from a year earlier to $1.72 billion for the first quarter.

It recently unveiled NVIDIA RTX, a computer graphics technology that produces movie-quality images in real time, to consolidate its lead in the gaming-related sector.

Nvidia has also achieved good results in its data centre service, with revenue growing 71 per cent from a year earlier to a record $701 million for the first few months in 2018.