UK chip design company ARM (LON:ARM) has announced its unaudited Q1 2011 financial figures, for the three months ending March 31.

Total revenue was £116 million ($185.5 million), up 26 percent compared to Q1 2010.

Profit before tax was £50.8 million ($81 million), up 35 percent year-on-year.

During the three months, ARM said it generated £62.9 million ($100 million) in cashflow, compared to £43.8 million ($68 million) in the previous quarter.

Like hot cakes

During the quarter, ARM pointed to 39 new processor licences, as well as Broadcom and LG signing subscription licences for multiple markets. ARM has also seen its first wins for set top box and digital TV applications, and ten of the deals were with new clients. There were also seven licenses sold for its Mali GPU family.

During the quarter, 1.15 billion chips based on ARM processors were shipped in mobile devices, and 0.7 billion as embedded products.

"This licensing drives ARM's long-term royalty opportunity," said CEO Warren East.

"Shipments of ARM-processor based chips increased 33 percent on the same period last year driven by growth in smartphones, tablets, digital TVs and microcontrollers. ARM's revenue growth enables us to continue to invest in innovative technology development at the same time as delivering strong increases in profits and cash flow."

Cash pile

The average royalty per chip increased from 4.6c three months ago to 4.8c, with ARM claiming an average of 2.5 chips per mobile handset, the same as the previous quarter, and up from 2.1 a year ago.

The company ended the quarter with £334.3 million ($535 million) in cash, compared to £290 million ($450 million) at the end of its previous quarter.

[source: ARM]