back to article ARM pumps fist as profits soar, warns of weaker hand in 2016

Chip designer ARM once again posted bumper annual results, with profits up 31 per cent to £414.8m on revenue of £968m, up 22 per cent. During the year the company shifted 14.8 billion ARM-based chips, up 16 per cent on 2014. But the company warned that increased economic uncertainty during 2016 "may influence consumer and …

  1. ToddR

    22% and 31% growth figures and Wall Street writes down the stock, because the iPhone sales are slowing. Do these people understand anything about technology?

    1. Nick Kew

      ARM was trading in a range of about 80p-120p when the iphone first came out. Even for a while after, as Apple wasn't telling the City what technology they had inside (even if it was perfectly obvious to readers of El Reg that ARM must be in there). It only started shooting up when Apple let on.

      So yes, the City has form on linking Apple and ARM, and we shouldn't be surprised if they keep doing it. I'm happy to hold stock bought at under 90p, and might top up if it wasn't already my biggest single holding.

    2. MyffyW Silver badge

      Full marks to El Reg for a subtle punning on arm related words.

      Two Thumbs up!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Kat

    "During the year the company shifted four billion ARM-based chips, up 16 per cent on 2014"

    ARM doesn't make chips, it designs them.

    1. Graham Cunningham

      Re: Kat

      More importantly, that's -

      "During the QUARTER the company('s licensees) shifted four billion ARM-based chips"

  3. Charlie Clark Silver badge
    Thumb Down

    "It had a bumper year, but expect losses for this one"

    Where's the suggestion that losses in 2016 are expected? Lower profits due to saturation of the market maybe but, although Wall St types tend to think this, lower profits are not the same as losses.

    1. Salts

      Re: "It had a bumper year, but expect losses for this one"

      I think el reg got a bit confused, last paragraph is about imagination posting losses, including this year, nothing to do with ARM. As you say just because ARM has announced, It may not have as good a year as last year, it does not mean it is going to post a loss.

  4. Alistair
    Windows

    OHMYGOD not growing as fast as last quarter!!!

    BAIL NOW! ITS GUNNA DUMPSTER!

    Current "stock market" practices, including valuing Uber, Facebook, Twitter, etc at ridiculous levels has nothing to do with economy or with best business practices. I think its time we started ignoring wall street. Past time actually.

  5. Mikel

    Heady multiples

    Are not for the weak kneed.

  6. werdsmith Silver badge

    Considering its global domination, revenue is paltry compared to the US tech giants. Profit as a percentage of revenue is good, but the number of units that the fabs have to shift for ARM to make any money is a stupendous number.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    High end sales = higher profit

    Yes, I guess Apple pays high too on the license.

    But surely it is the new, both faster and lower power, Coretex A72 where profit surge will be.

    I really cannot see the Apple license being a high pecentage of profit.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: High end sales = higher profit

      Apple has an architectural license, which is rumored to be a flat fee of $25 million a year, plus there is probably some per SoC fee. The details have never been made public except that it has been reported the fee isn't based on the value of the device or an assigned value for the SoC. That would mean what Apple pays would be smaller than what companies who are licensing cores like the A72 would be paying (especially if it is licensed per core instead of per SoC since Apple has only two cores per phone while Mediatek has TEN in some of their SoCs they sell to Android OEMs)

      So not only is Apple not responsible for a high percentage of ARM's profit (they are responsible for less than 2% of all ARM SoCs based on ARM's figures from the article) they probably are responsible for less revenue for ARM than say Xiaomi is since despite their lower sales are using SoCs that include ARM designed and licensed cores.

  8. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    It's nice to see that ARM is doing well.

  9. TJ1

    ARM 'sells' more in 1 year than every Intel x86 ever?

    So, on these figures, more ARM-based chips were licensed and manufactured in 2015 than all the Intel x86 chips ever?

    I base this observation on Intel's announcement in October 2014 that they'd sold 100 million microprocessors in their Q3 2014 for the first time ever.

    Even if Intel had sold that many microprocessors every year for 34 years that's still only equivalent to the 2015 ARM-based production.

    I knew that ARM based designs are everywhere but the sheer scale of those numbers is genuinely awesome!

    Amazing what the BBC/Acorn Archimedes triggered :)

  10. Richard Cranium

    Linking ARM share price to Apple sales is a red herring. Apple has about 15% of the mobile market and mobile is less than half ARMs business so Apple might represent 3% of ARM revenue. So if Apple dropped by 20% ARM might lose 20% of that 3% (unless there is, as suggested above, a fixed price deal between Apple and ARM not linked to sales).

    This is like the scare story I heard when Apple released their watch. I was told by someone I'd previously believed to have a functioning brain that the price of gold was about to take off because of the demand for Apple Gold edition watches (costing £8k - £13k and each containing about 1/2 oz of gold - current price about £850/oz, annual global gold production about 80million ounces).

  11. All names Taken
    Alien

    Stock goes up ...

    ... on a whim

    Stock goes down on a whim.

    Stock rallies or bleeds on profit margin declarations.

    Stock doodz just having some fun no?

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    arm, hand, finger?

    ARM have a finger in the server pie as well:

    https://www.avantek.co.uk/avantek-arm-servers/

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon

Other stories you might like