Arm Holdings, the British tech success story whose chips power Apple’s iPads and iPhones, jumped to the top of the Footsie today after its £276.5 million annual pre-tax profit beat City expectations.
The Cambridge company, which started life in the 1970s making some of the earliest personal computers under the Acorn brand, saw pre-tax profit rise 16% in the fourth quarter to £80 million, thanks to the surging global demand for smartphones and tablets.
It shipped 2.5 billion chips in just the last three months of last year. Total profit for Arm, whose chip designs are used in Microsoft’s new Surface tablet as well as Apple’s iPad and iPhone, rose 20% in 2012.
The company is capitalising on global tech brands’ massive demand for chips that allow mobile computing, as well as energy-saving technology for mobile phones and tablets.
“Customers are developing products to meet the needs of the post-PC era, driving demand for ARM’s most advanced technology,” said chief executive Warren East. “In the fourth quarter we again saw influential market-leaders demonstrating their commitment to ARM technology by licensing our latest products.”
ARM shares were up 40p or 2.5% at 932p — meaning they have risen 62% in the past 12 months. The chip-maker said it had entered 2013 “with a robust opportunity pipeline for licensing and a record order backlog”.
