Arm, which makes the basic blueprint for chip design, had sales of $2.7 billion last year, up 35% year over year.
Arm, which makes the basic blueprint for chip design, had sales of $2.7 billion last year, up 35% year over year.
SoftBank Group Corp.’s chip technology company Arm Ltd. reported record earnings for 2021 on Thursday, Chief Executive Rene Haas said Reuters the business with new chip designs shows strong prospects.
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SoftBank plans to take the British tech company public. Regulatory hurdles prevented a sale to US chipmaker Nvidia Corp.
Arm, which makes the basic blueprint for chip design, had sales of $2.7 billion last year, up 35% year over year. Licensing revenue rose 61% to $1.13 billion, and royalties, which track the number of chips sold using ARM technology, rose 20% to $1.54 billion.
Haas said the licensing deal is “all about companies spending money with Arm to build chips for the future.”
When asked about sales prospects, he said, “We’ve never made more than a billion dollars. So I’d say that’s a good leading indicator of demand for the product.”
According to Haas, 29.2 billion chips with Arm technology shipped last year, nearly 8 billion in the fourth quarter. He said Arm’s focus on the auto sector three to four years ago has paid off, and revenue from that segment has more than doubled over the past year thanks to electrification and increasing computing power for cars.
“It probably would have been better if there had been more supply,” Haas said of Arm’s automotive business.
Haas declined to discuss the potential value Arm could achieve in the stock market. In September 2020, Nvidia had proposed paying up to $40 billion for Arm. SoftBank bought it for $32 billion.
Haas also reiterated that Arm settled a public dispute at his Chinese joint venture, ousting former chief executive Allen Wu. He said the Arm China company accounts for about 20% of the company’s sales.
“One thing I can say, we had great results last year and it wouldn’t have happened if the Chinese JV didn’t go well,” he said.
