ARM Holdings Posts Higher Profit In Q1

(RTTNews) - ARM Holdings Plc (ARMH, ARM.L) Wednesday reported higher first-quarter profit, as revenues grew 10 percent on demand for its technology licensing.

Looking ahead, the company said its pipeline of licensing opportunities remains healthy for the second quarter and the rest of the year. The firm expects Group dollar revenues for the full year 2014 to be in line with market expectations.

During the quarter, the chip maker experienced growth in shipments of chips based on ARM processor technology, and shipped 2.9 billion ARM-based chips, up 11 percent from last year.

Total dollar licence revenues in the quarter climbed 37 percent year-over-year to $129.9 million, representing 43 percent of Group revenues. Licence revenues comprised $111.6 million from processor licences and $18.3 million from physical IP licences.

Simon Segars, chief executive officer of the company said, "Q1 was a good start to the year for ARM, with more customers choosing to license ARM technology for their future products, which helped drive ARM's revenues."

For the first quarter, the company's profit before tax increased to 78.0 million pounds from 67.1 million pounds in the previous year.

Excluding acquisition-related and share-based payment costs, intangible amortization and share of results of joint ventures, normalized profit before tax was 97.1 million pounds, compared with 89.4 million pounds in the prior year.

On a per share basis, earnings were 4.4 pence, up from 3.7 pence per share last year. Normalized earnings were 5.60 pence per share, versus 5.31 pence per share last year.

Diluted earnings per American Depository Share, or ADS rose to 22.0 cents from 16.8 cents last year.

Quarterly revenues grew 10 percent to 186.7 million pounds from 170.3 million pounds a year ago. In US Dollar terms, Group revenues rose 16 percent year-on-year to $305.2 million.

Total Technology Licensing revenues climbed 33 percent to 80.9 million pounds. Meanwhile, total Technology Royalty revenues saw a decline of 5 percent to 86.8 million pounds.

ARM.L is currently trading at 964 pence, down 19 pence or 1.93 percent on the LSE.