ARM Holdings PLC Reports Results For The First Quarter 2013

CAMBRIDGE, UK, 23 April 2013 — ARM Holdings plc announces its unaudited financial results for the first quarter ended 31 March 2013

Progress on key growth drivers in Q1

• Growth in adoption of ARM^® technology
  • 22 processor licenses signed across multiple end markets from smartphones and mobile computing to digital TVs and wearable technology
• Advanced technology enables higher royalty percentage per chip
  • 9 Cortex™-A processor licenses and another ARMv8 architecture license signed3 further partners enabled with ARM’s v8 big.LITTLE technology
  • 3 Mali graphics processor licenses signed, including a license for Skrymir, ARM’s most advanced graphics processor
  • POP™ IP helps optimise ARM processor implementations. ARM signed 2 further POP IP licenses in Q1
• Growth in shipments of chips based on ARM processor technology
  • 2.6 billion ARM-based chips shipped, up 35% year-on-year
  • Strong year-on-year shipment growth across all segments; mobile chips up 25%, embedded up 50% year-on-year
  • Continued penetration of Mali graphics processors with shipments up more than 5 times year-on-year

Warren East, Chief Executive Officer, said:

“ARM has delivered another quarter of strong revenue and earnings growth, driven by robust licensing and record royalty revenue.

Everyday devices are becoming smarter, more connected and more energy efficient, which is increasing the applicability of and demand for ARM’s technology. In particular, this quarter ARM saw strong uptake of its next generation, higher royalty bearing ARMv8, Mali and big.LITTLE technology for smartphones and mobile computers.

ARM’s royalty revenues again outpaced the wider semiconductor industry. This outperformance has been driven by market share gains in key end markets including digital TVs and microcontrollers. In addition, the growth in smartphones and tablets continues to benefit ARM. Even low cost smart devices can contain multiple ARM-based chips and be based on ARM’s advanced Cortex-A series technology and Mali graphics processors.”

Outlook

ARM has made an encouraging start to 2013 with more leading companies choosing to deploy ARM technology in their products and we therefore expect group revenues for the full-year 2013 to be at least in line with current market expectations.

Relevant industry data for Q1 2013, being the shipment period for ARM’s Q2 royalties, points to a sequential decrease in industry-wide revenues of around 10%. In this context we expect group revenues for the second quarter to be in line with current market expectations.

¹ Includes catch-up PIPD royalties of nil in Q1 2013 and $2.1m (£1.3m) in Q1 2012.

* Normalised figures are based on IFRS, adjusted for acquisition-related charges, share-based payment costs, profit or loss on disposal of available-for-sale financial assets and share of results in joint ventures. For reconciliation of IFRS measures to normalised non-IFRS measures detailed in this document, see notes 6.11 to 6.12.

** Net cash generation is defined as movement on cash, cash equivalents, short-term and long-term deposits, adding back dividend payments, investment and acquisition consideration, other acquisition-related payments, share-based payroll taxes, payments related to joint ventures and Linaro, and deducting inflows from share option exercises and investment disposal proceeds – see notes 6.7 to 6.10

*** Dollar revenues are based on the group’s actual dollar invoicing, where applicable, and using the rate of exchange applicable on the date of the transaction for invoicing in currencies other than dollars. Over 95% of invoicing is in dollars.

Financial review

(IFRS unless otherwise stated)

Total revenues

Total dollar revenues in Q1 2013 were $263.9 million, up 26% versus Q1 2012. Q1 sterling revenues of £170.3 million were up 28% year-on-year.

License revenues

Total dollar license revenues in Q1 2013 increased by 24% year-on-year to $94.9 million, representing 36% of group revenues. License revenues comprised $80.8 million from PD and $14.1 million from PIPD.

Group order backlog at the end of Q1 2013 was up 5% sequentially.

Royalty revenues

Royalties are recognised one quarter in arrears with royalties in Q1 2013 generated from semiconductor unit shipments in Q4 2012. Total dollar royalty revenues in Q1 2013 increased year-on-year by 32% to $140.0 million, representing 53% of group revenues. Royalty revenues comprised $123.4 million from PD and $16.6 million from PIPD. PD dollar royalty revenues in Q1 2013 increased 33% year-on-year. ARM’s royalty revenues in Q1 2012 were impacted by an inventory correction in mobile devices in Q4 2011. Year-on-year growth of 33% compares with industry revenues which were up 2% over the relevant shipment period (i.e. Q4 2012 compared to Q4 2011).

Development Systems and Service revenues

Sales of development systems in Q1 2013 were $16.6 million, an increase of 7% year-on-year and represent 6% of group revenues.

Service revenues were $12.4 million in Q1 2013, up 11% year-on-year.

Gross margins

Gross margins in Q1 2013, excluding share-based payments charges of £0.5 million (see below), were 94.3% compared to 95.1% in Q4 2012 and 94.4% in Q1 2012.

Operating expenses and operating margin

Total IFRS operating expenses in Q1 2013 were £95.2 million (Q1 2012: £76.2 million) including share-based payment costs and related payroll taxes of £17.9 million (Q1 2012: £9.3 million), and amortisation of intangible assets, other acquisition-related charges and profits on disposal of investments of £2.7 million (Q1 2012: £0.8 million).

Total share-based payment costs and related payroll tax charges of £18.4 million in Q1 2013 were included within cost of revenues (£0.5 million), research and development (£10.5 million), sales and marketing (£3.3 million) and general and administrative (£4.1 million).

Normalised income statements for Q1 2013 and Q1 2012 are included in notes 6.11 to 6.12 below which reconcile IFRS to the normalised non-IFRS measures referred to in this earnings release.

Normalised operating expenses were £74.6 million in Q1 2013 compared to £79.7 million in Q4 2012 and £66.1 million in Q1 2012. After taking account of a foreign exchange mark-to-market credit of £4 million and other one-off items, normalised operating expenses in Q1 2013 were approximately £76 million. Given the ongoing investment in our research and development teams, normalised operating expenses in Q2 2013 (assuming effective exchange rates similar to current levels) are expected to be in the range £77-79 million.

Normalised operating margin was 50.5% in Q1 2013, compared to 46.6%in Q4 2012 and 44.5% in Q1 2012.

Normalised research and development expenses were £36.6 million in Q1 2013, representing 21% of revenues, compared to £36.7 million in Q4 2012 and £32.3 million in Q1 2012. Normalised sales and marketing expenses were £18.3 million in Q1 2013, being 11% of revenues, compared to £18.4 million in Q4 2012 and £15.3 million in Q1 2012. Normalised general and administrative expenses were £19.7 million in Q1 2013, representing 12% of revenues, compared to £24.6 million in Q4 2012 and £18.5 million in Q1 2012.

Earnings and taxation

Profit before tax was £67.1 million in Q1 2013 compared to £51.3 million in Q1 2012. After adjusting for acquisition-related and share-based payment costs, disposal and impairment of available-for-sale financial assets, intangible amortisation and share of results of joint ventures, normalised profit before tax in Q1 2013 was £89.4 millioncompared to £61.9 million in Q1 2012. The Group's effective normalised tax rate was 16.6% in Q1 2013 (IFRS: 22.7%). The Group’s effective tax rate in Q1 2013 includes the full benefit of the 2012 US Federal R&D tax credits and the partial benefit of the new Patent Box tax regime in the UK. ARM’s full-year normalised effective tax rate in 2013 is expected to be just under 20%.

In Q1 2013, fully diluted earnings per share were 3.69 pence (16.8 cents per ADS[1]) compared to earnings per share of 2.71 pence (13.0 cents per ADS) in Q1 2012. Normalised fully diluted earnings per share in Q1 2013 were 5.31 pence (24.2 cents per ADS) compared to 3.36 pence (16.1 cents per ADS) in Q1 2012.

Balance sheet

Intangible assets at 31 March 2013 were £624.5 million, comprising goodwill of £554.9 million and other intangible assets of £69.6 million, compared to £519.4 million and £11.2 million respectively at 31 December 2012. The increase in other intangible assets primarily relates to the capitalisation of the Group’s contribution to a consortium to acquire rights to MIPS Technologies, Inc’s portfolio of patents. See note 3 for further information.

Total accounts receivable were £128.8 million at 31 March 2013, compared to £124.5 million at 31 December 2012.

Days sales outstanding (DSOs) were 38 at 31 March 2013 compared to 48 at 31 December 2012.

Cash flow

Net cash generation in Q1 2013 was £58.7 million. Net cash at 31 March 2013 was £562.4 million compared to £520.2 million at 31 December 2012.

Technology Licensing

Processor licensing

22 processor licenses were signed in Q1 2013.

Nine of the licenses signed were for ARM’s Cortex-A series processors, mainly for use in applications such as smartphones and tablets. Seven of the licenses were for ARM’s latest Cortex-A50 series processors, which include the Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 processors. To date, ARM has signed a total of 16 Cortex-A50 series licenses.

In a similar manner to Cortex-A7 and Cortex-A15, Cortex-A53 and Cortex-A57 can be paired in a big.LITTLE arrangement. big.LITTLE technology enables higher performance and lower power system implementations than previous generations of designs. As a big.LITTLE implementation contains a cluster of two ARM processors, ARM typically receives a higher royalty percentage.

During the quarter ARM also signed another ARMv8 architecture license, taking the total to nine, and a further subscription license.

ARM also signed three licenses for its Mali graphics processors. These included a lead licensee for Skrymir, ARM’s most advanced graphics processor.

Six of the licenses signed in Q1 were for Cortex-M class processors for use in microcontrollers, the Internet-of-Things and wearable technology. Two of the Cortex-M class licenses were for Cortex-M0+, ARM’s smallest and most power efficient processor.

Q1 2013 and Cumulative Processor Licensing Analysis

* Includes ARM7, ARM9, ARM10 and ARM11

**Adjusted for licenses that are no longer expected to generate royalties

*** Includes 2 existing ARM customers taking their first ever Mali license

PIPD licensing

ARM’s physical IP is used by fabless semiconductor companies to implement their chip designs. Platform licenses are royalty bearing licenses that enable foundries to manufacture chips using ARM’s physical IP. Each foundry requires a platform license for each process node. ARM has signed a full range of platform licenses with leading foundries, from 250nm to 14nm. During the quarter ARM signed one new platform license at 40nm, taking the total platform licenses signed to 100.

ARM continues to see strong demand for physical IP optimised for use with processors (POP IP). POP IP enables a licensee to more readily achieve high-performance, low-power processor implementations through specially optimised physical IP technology. For every chip implemented using POP IP, ARM receives a royalty both for the processor in the chip and for the physical IP. This quarter ARM signed two further POP licenses, including the first POP for a Mali graphics processor. POP IP is being made available earlier than ever to support the first adopters of new ARM-based Cortex and Mali processors.

Number Physical IP Licenses

Customers Licensing Multiple ARM Technologies

In some end markets, such as application processors in mobile phones, mobile computers and digital TVs there can be synergies from using multiple ARM technologies in the same system-on-chip design. The system benefits that can be generated include faster time-to-market and reduced development risk, and lower cost and higher performance of the resultant chip. For example, this can include a Cortex-A processor coupled with Mali graphics, being implemented using ARM’s physical IP (possibly in the form of POP IP). To date ARM has signed 133 Cortex-A licenses, 75 Mali licenses and 43 POPs. ARM typically receives a royalty percentage of the chip price for each ARM technology included within the chip, so chips that contain multiple ARM technologies can enhance ARM’s overall royalty opportunity.

Technology Design Wins and Ecosystem Development

Many leading technology companies have announced details of their ARM processor-based product developments in recent months. These included:

• Marvell announcing the deployment of some of the first commercially available ARM-based servers with Baidu, the Chinese Internet search company
• LSI introducing its Axxia 5500 communication processors for high-performance, power-efficient networks. The Axxia 5500 series of chips are based around the ARM Cortex-A15 processor technology
• Infineon releasing its new line of Cortex-M0 microcontrollers. The XMC1000 family of products is aimed at motor control, LED lighting, touch control and smart sensor applications
• Atmel introducing a new family of Cortex-A5 low power microprocessors, designed for smart and low power embedded applications, such as smart grids, healthcare, smart watches and GPS
• Freescale introducing Kinetis KL02, the world's smallest ARM powered microcontroller which is based around ARM’s Cortex-M0+ processor technology

Many more partner announcements can be found on the ARM website atwww.arm.com/news.

Technology Royalties

Processor royalties

Q1 royalty revenue was generated from the shipment of some 2.6 billion ARM processor-based chips, up 35% year-on-year. This was ahead of the industry, which increased 7% year-on-year. Such strong shipment growth resulted from market share gains across all of ARM’s target markets. ARM-based microcontrollers, and digital TVs and set-top-boxes saw particularly strong growth.

ARM continued to benefit from the high growth of smartphones and tablets. These devices are more likely to contain ARM’s more advanced Cortex-A series processors, and can include ARM’s Mali graphics technology. In Q1 2013, shipments of Cortex-A series processors were up three-fold and Mali graphics processors up five-fold.

ARM’s average royalty per chip in Q1 was flat year-on-year at 4.8 cents as the growth in higher value, lower volume application processors was balanced by the strong growth in shipments of higher volume, lower cost chips, such as microcontrollers, smartcards, touchscreen controllers and wireless connectivity chips.

Q1 2013 Processor Unit Shipment Analysis

PIPD royalties

Royalties are recognised one quarter in arrears with royalties in Q1 2013 generated from semiconductor unit shipments in Q4 2012. PIPD royalties in Q1 2013 were $16.6million, up 27% year-on-year. There were no catch-up royalties in Q1 2013. Excluding catch-up royalties of $2.1m in Q1 2012, underlying PIPD royalties were up 50% year-on-year. This compares with foundry revenues that increased by about 20% over the relevant shipment period (i.e. Q4 2012 compared to Q4 2011).

People

At 31 March 2013, ARM had 2,461 full-time employees, a net increase of 69 since the start of the year, being mainly engineers joining ARM’s processor R&D teams. At the end of Q1, the group had 1,028 employees based in the UK, 604 in the US, 296 in Continental Europe, 351 in India and 182 in the Asia Pacific region.

Principal risks and uncertainties

The principal risks and opportunities faced by the Group are included within the “Risks and risk management” section of the 2012 Annual Report and Accounts filed with Companies House in the UK. Details of other risks and uncertainties faced by the Group are noted within the Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended 31 December 2012 which is on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) and is available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. There have been no changes to these risks that would materially impact the group in the foreseeable future. These include but are not limited to: ARM's quarterly results may fluctuate significantly and be unpredictable which could adversely affect the market price of ARM ordinary shares; general economic conditions may reduce ARM's revenues and harm its business; we depend largely on a small number of customers and products; failure by ARM to achieve the performance under a license or failure of a customer to make an obligated milestone payment could materially impact our revenues; we operate in an intensely competitive industry and our customers may choose to use their own or competing technology; ARM has grown its operations significantly over recent years and ARM’s business could be adversely impacted if these changes are not managed successfully; ARM may have to protect its intellectual property or defend the technology against claims that we have infringed others’ proprietary rights; and an infringement claim against ARM’s technology may result in a significant damages award which would adversely impact ARM’s operating results.

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