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ARM sees FY2010 revenue up 33% to $631 million

Profits surge 73% to $260 million

ARM sees FY2010 revenue up 33% to $631 million
UK chip design company ARM (LON:ARM) has announced its unaudited financials for its fourth quarter, and full year ending December 31.

Revenue for the 12 months was £406.6 million ($631.3 million), up 33 percent year-on-year.

Profit before tax was £167.4 million ($260 million), up 73 percent.

The company generated £179.9 million ($280 million) in cashflow during the period, up 110 percent year-on-year.

Big in Redmond

Highlights of ARM's Q4 activity including Microsoft announcing that future generations of Windows would support ARM chips, while Nvidia licensed the Cortex-A15 CPU, as well ARM's next generation architecture.

The company gained eight licences for its Mali GPU family, while Freescale became the first subscription licencee for physical IP at an advanced technology node, and a foundry licensed a royalty-bearing platform of physical IP.

In total, the company signed 35 processor licences during the three months. It said 1.1 billion ARM-based chips shipped in mobile devices and 0.7 billion in the embedded space.

Looking good

During its Q4 period, revenue was £113.9 million ($179.6 million), up 34 percent year-on-year.

Profit before tax was £47.6 million ($75.2 million), up 47 percent. The company generated £40.7 million ($64.3 million) in positive cashflow, up 33 percent year-on-year.

"ARM continues to sign licenses with influential market leaders in an increasingly digital world, and as the industry chooses ARM technology in a broadening range of electronic products, it further drives our long-term royalty opportunity," said CEO Warren East,

"The growth in licensing and royalty revenues, throughout 2010, has combined to deliver our highest ever annual revenues, profits and cash generation.

More or less

ARM said the average royalty rate it receives per chip dropped from 4.9c a year ago, and 4.7 cent three months ago, to 4.6c, due to the strong growth in low-cost microcontrollers.

It estimated that on average each mobile handset included 2.5 ARM chips, compared to 2.0 in 2010.

The company ended the year with cash of £290.1 million ($458 million), compared to £251.9 million ($413 million) a year ago.

[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.