SoftBank's chip tech firm Arm posts record 2021 revenue

By Jane Lanhee Lee

SANFRANCISCO – SoftBank Group Corp’s chip know-how agency Arm Ltd on Thursday reported report income for 2021, and Chief Govt Rene Haas advised Reuters its enterprise for brand spanking new chip designs signifies a powerful outlook.

SoftBank plans to take the British tech firm public. Regulatory hurdles stopped a deal to promote it to U.S. chip maker Nvidia Corp.

Arm, which makes the fundamental blueprint used to design chips, had income of $2.7 billion final 12 months, up 35% from the earlier 12 months. Licensing enterprise income rose 61% to $1.13 billion and royalties, monitoring the numbers of chips offered utilizing Arm know-how, rose 20% to $1.54 billion.

Haas stated the licensing enterprise is “all about firms spending cash with Arm about designing chips for the longer term”.

Requested concerning the income outlook, he stated: “We’ve by no means finished over a billion dollars. So I might say that’s a very good main indicator of the demand for the product.”

Haas stated 29.2 billion chips utilizing Arm know-how had been shipped final 12 months, almost 8 billion within the fourth quarter. He stated Arm’s deal with the automotive sector three to 4 years in the past was paying off and income from that phase greater than doubled final 12 months because of electrification and rising computing energy for automobiles.

“It most likely would have been higher if there was extra provide,” stated Haas about Arm’s automotive enterprise.

Haas declined to speak concerning the potential worth Arm may fetch on the inventory market. In September, 2020 Nvidia had proposed to pay as much as $40 billion for Arm. SoftBank purchased it for $32 billion.

Haas additionally reiterated that Arm has resolved a public dispute at its Chinese language three way partnership, ousting former Chief Govt Allen Wu. He stated the enterprise, Arm China, makes up about 20% of the corporate’s income.

“One factor I can say is we had nice outcomes on this final 12 months and it wouldn’t have occurred with out the China JV doing effectively,” he stated.