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ARM see half year 2011 revenues up 28% to $376 million

Generated $175 million in cash

ARM see half year 2011 revenues up 28% to $376 million
UK chip design company ARM (LON:ARM) has announced its unaudited Q2 2011 financial figures, for the three months ending June 30.

Total revenue was £117.8 million ($190 million), up 27 percent year-on-year.

Profit before tax was £54.2 million ($87 million), up 25 percent, and the company generated £45.7 million ($74 million) in cash.

For the six month half year period, ARM's total revenue was £233.9 million ($375.7 million), up 28 percent.

Total profit before tax was £104.9 million ($169 million), up 29 percent, with a net cash generation of £108.6 million ($175 million).

Boom times

ARM pointed to the widespread growth in licensing activity around its CPU and GPU designs, as well as other areas of its business.

In Q2, 1.1 billion chips based on ARM processors were shipped in mobile phones and tablets, as well as 0.8 billion in consumer and embedded devices.

In terms of licences, a total of 29 were signed, nine of which were with first time licensees. Of the 29, five were for ARM's Mali GPUs and two of these were for the next generation Mali T604 GPUs; Samsung and LG.

On the up

"In the first half of 2011, we have seen strong license revenues driven by an increase in design activity around ARM technology across a broad range of end applications," said CEO Warren East.

"Major semiconductor vendors and consumer electronics companies are making long-term commitments to using ARM technology in their future product developments, underpinning growth in ARM’s long-term royalty revenues.

"As the addressable market for ARM technology grows, we continue to invest in the development of innovative technology, whilst simultaneously increasing revenues, profits and cash."

Small fee, huge volumes

Drilling down into its business, ARM revealed that the average royalty fee it receives per chip decreased from 4.8c to 4.5c, due to the growth in cheaper chips such as those found in microcontrollers outweighted more expensive CPUs such as Cortex-A.

The company said each mobile handset contained an average of 2.5 chips, the same as in Q1 and up from an average of 2.4 a year ago.

ARM finished the quarter with $570 million in cash, up $15 million compared to the end of its first quarter.

[source: ARM]
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A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.