ARM Holdings plc Reports Results For The Second Quarter and Half Year Ended 30 June 2013

CAMBRIDGE, UK, 24 July 2013 - ARM Holdings plc announces its unaudited financial results for the second quarter and half year ended 30 June 2013.

Q2 Financial Highlights

• Group revenues in US$ up 24% year-on-year (£ revenues up 26% year-on-year)
• Order backlog up more than 10% sequentially
• Normalised profit before tax and earnings per share up 30% and 37% year-on-year respectively (IFRS PBT and EPS down 73% and 73% year-on-year respectively)
• £41.8m costs incurred in Q2, being ARM's contribution to a full and final settlement of certain patent related litigation, charged in the IFRS reported results
• Record net cash generation of £96m
• Interim dividend increased by 26%

• Growth in adoption of ARM® technology
•  25 processor licenses signed for a wide range of applications from smartphones and mobile computers, to storage and embedded microcontrollers
•  Advanced technology enables a higher royalty percentage per chip
•  5 Cortex™-A processor licenses signed, including another Partner licensing v8 processors that support ARM's big.LITTLE technology
•  7 Mali graphics processor licenses signed
•  POP™ IP helps optimise ARM processor implementations. ARM signed 5 further POP IP licenses in Q2
• Growth in shipments of chips based on ARM processor technology
• 2.4 billion ARM-based chips shipped, up 20% year-on-year
•  Continued penetration of processors containing both Cortex-A and Mali graphics processors

ARM enters the second half of 2013 with a record order backlog and a robust opportunity pipeline. Relevant data for the second quarter, being the shipment period for ARM's Q3 royalties, points to a small sequential increase in industry revenues. Building on our strong performance in the first half, we expect overall Group dollar revenues for full year 2013 to be at least in line with market expectations.

"ARM has delivered another quarter of strong revenue and normalised earnings growth.  We continue to see demand for ARM's next generation technology, and in Q2 we signed five licenses for Cortex-A series processors, and seven licenses for ARM's Mali graphics processor, demonstrating our leadership in both low-power processor and 3D graphics technology.  During the quarter, our Partners announced exciting new design wins as ARM-based chips were selected for high-volume OEM products.  These included many new smartphones and tablets, ARM-based 64-bit servers and mobile base stations.

In Q2, ARM's processor royalty revenue again outperformed the semiconductor industry, growing at 24% year-on-year. In part this outperformance was driven by the growth in smartphones and mobile computing. These smart devices increasingly contain both ARM's higher-royalty yielding Cortex-A processor technology and also ARM's Mali graphics."

¹ Includes catch-up PIPD royalties of $1.4m (£0.9m) in Q2 2013 and $1.5m (£1.0m) in Q2 2012.

¹ Includes catch-up PIPD royalties of $1.4m (£0.9m) in H1 2013 and $3.6m (£2.3m) in H1 2012.

* Normalised figures are based on IFRS, adjusted for share-based payment costs, amortisation of intangibles, acquisition-related charges, impairments of investments, IP indemnity and similar charges, Linaro-related charges and share of results of joint venture, and profit or loss on disposal of available-for-sale financial assets. For reconciliation of IFRS measures to normalised non-IFRS measures detailed in this document, see notes 12.13 to 12.16.

** 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 12.8 to 12.12

*** US 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 US dollars.

Total dollar revenues in Q2 2013 were $264.3 million, up 24% on Q2 2012.  Q2 sterling revenues were £171.2 million, up 26% year-on-year.

Half-year dollar revenues in 2013 amounted to $528.2 million, up 25% on H1 2012.

Total dollar license revenues in Q2 2013 increased by 31% year-on-year to $102.6 million, representing 39% of Group revenues.  License revenues comprised $88.3 million from PD and $14.3 million from PIPD.

During Q2, additional partners entered into long-term commitments to use ARM technology where the revenue associated with these agreements goes into backlog and will be recognised in future quarters as engineering and delivery milestones are achieved. As a result, group order backlog at the end of Q2 2013 was up more than 10% sequentially to record levels.

Royalty revenues are recognised one quarter in arrears with royalty revenues in Q2 2013 generated from semiconductor unit shipments in Q1 2013.  Total dollar royalty revenues in Q2 2013 increased by 23% year-on-year to $135.3 million, representing 51% of Group revenues. This compares with industry revenues increasing by about 2% in the shipment period (i.e. Q1 2013 compared to Q1 2012).  

Royalty revenues in Q2 2013 comprised $119.3 million from PD and $16.0 million from PIPD.

Sales of Development Systems in Q2 were up 1% year-on-year to $13.4 million, representing 5% of Group revenues. Through 2013 ARM is continuing to transition the Development Systems business to focus on microcontroller tools and premium toolkits for multi-core systems.  Due to this transition, we expect that full year revenues for Development Systems will be broadly flat year-on-year.

Service revenues in Q2 2013 were up 17% to $13.0 million, representing 5% of Group revenues.

Gross margins

Gross margins in Q2 2013, excluding share-based payment costs of £0.5 million (see below), were 94.3% compared to 95.1% in Q2 2012.

Operating expenses and operating margin

Total IFRS operating expenses in Q2 2013 were £148.2 million (Q2 2012: £77.3 million) including share-based payment costs and related payroll taxes of £15.7 million (Q2 2012: £7.9 million), IP indemnity and similar charges of £41.8 million (Q2 2012:nil), Linaro-related charges of £7.1m (Q2 2012:nil) and amortisation of intangible assets, other acquisition-related charges and impairment of investments of £5.4 million (Q2 2012: £3.4 million).

As noted in prior financial statements, the Group has been in discussions with a licensee to re-negotiate the terms upon which the Group would indemnify that licensee. The revised terms were executed in the second quarter of 2013 giving rise to indemnity costs of $18.0 million in respect of legal proceedings against that licensee. Further, in relation to legal proceedings regarding the same patent portfolio, early in Q3 2013, for consideration of $45.4 million, ARM entered into a settlement and license agreement with a third party covering patents being asserted against ARM technology. The settlement and license agreement is in full and final settlement of any indemnity claims with respect to the asserted patents and will prevent any future assertion of the related patents against ARM technology. Following developments in the litigation towards the end of the second quarter, it was considered probable, as at 30 June, that ARM would enter into this license agreement in settlement of indemnity claims and, therefore, the total indemnification, settlement and license costs of $63.4 million (£41.8 million) were expensed in Q2 2013 (see note 10).

Total share-based payment costs and related payroll tax charges of £16.2 million in Q2 2013 were included within cost of revenues (£0.5 million), research and development (£10.3 million), sales and marketing (£2.6 million) and general and administrative (£2.8 million).

Normalised income statements for Q2 2013 and Q2 2012 are included in notes 12.13 and 12.14 respectively below which reconcile IFRS to the normalised non-IFRS measures referred to in this earnings release.

Normalised operating expenses were £78.2 million in Q2 2013 compared to £74.6 million in Q1 2013 and £66.0 million in Q2 2012. Normalised operating expenses in Q3 2013 (assuming effective exchange rates similar to current levels) are expected to be in the range £79-81 million as ARM continues to increase investment in research and development programs.

Normalised operating margin was 48.6% in Q2 2013, compared to 50.5% in Q1 2013 and 46.4% in Q2 2012.

Normalised research and development expenses were £37.2 million in Q2 2013, representing 22% of revenues, compared to £36.6 million in Q1 2013 and £32.8 million in Q2 2012.  Normalised sales and marketing expenses were £17.8 million in Q2 2013, being 10% of revenues, compared to £18.3 million in Q1 2013 and £15.0 million in Q2 2012.  Normalised general and administrative expenses were £23.2 million in Q2 2013, representing 14% of revenues, compared to £19.7 million in Q1 2013 and £18.2 million in Q2 2012.

Profit before tax was £15.0 million in Q2 2013 compared to £54.8 million in Q2 2012. After adjusting for acquisition-related and share-based payment costs, IP indemnity and similar charges, Linaro-related charges and share of results in joint ventureand disposal and impairment of investments, normalised profit before tax was £86.6 million in Q2 2013 compared to £66.5 million in Q2 2012.  The Group's effective normalised tax rate was 20% (IFRS 30%) in Q2 2013 compared to 25% (IFRS 28%) in Q2 2012. The Group's effective normalised tax rate for the full year 2013 is expected to be just under 20%.

In Q2 2013, fully diluted earnings per share were 0.75 pence (3.41 cents per ADS) compared to earnings per share of 2.83 pence (13.32 cents per ADS) in Q2 2012. Normalised fully diluted earnings per share in Q2 2013 were 4.89 pence per share (22.23 cents per ADS) compared to 3.58 pence (16.86 cents per ADS) in Q2 2012.

Intangible assets at 30 June 2013 were £625.1 million, comprising goodwill of £555.6 million and other intangible assets of £69.5 million, compared to £519.4 million and £11.2 million respectively at 31 December 2012.

Total accounts receivable were £136.5 million at 30 June 2013, compared to £124.5 million at 31 December 2012.

Days sales outstanding (DSOs) were 44 at 30 June 2013 compared to 48 at 31 December 2012.

Net cash generation in Q2 2013 was £96.3 million. Net cash at 30 June 2013 was £613.1 million, compared to £562.4 million at 31 March 2013.

In respect of the year to 31 December 2013, the directors are declaring an interim dividend of 2.1 pence per share, an increase of 26% over the 2012 interim dividend of 1.67 pence per share. This interim dividend will be paid, out of the UK GAAP distributable reserves of ARM Holdings plc, on 4 October 2013 to shareholders on the register on 6 September 2013.

Technology Licensing

Processor licensing

25 processor licenses were signed in Q2 2013 for a broad range of end applications, including smartphones, set-top-boxes, storage controllers and embedded microcontrollers.

Half of the licenses signed were with Asian semiconductor companies. ARM is seeing increasing licensing activity in this region, especially in China, and this quarter ARM signed its first Chinese subscription license. Under the terms of their subscription, the company will gain access to a broad range of processor technology including Mali graphics processors.

Five of the licenses signed were for ARM's Cortex-A series processors, mainly for use in applications such as smartphones and tablets. This included two further licenses for ARM's Cortex-A53 processor, enabling another Partner with ARM's big.LITTLE technologyand taking the total number of ARMv8 processor licenses signed to twenty-one.

ARM's Cortex-A series technology addresses a broad range of end-markets, from premium mobile devices and enterprise equipment to entry-level smartphones and tablets. Targeted products from ARM enable our partners to deliver the best features and product specifications at every price point. During the quarter, ARM announced Cortex-A12 processors to address the growing mid-range smartphone and tablet opportunity. The Cortex-A12 delivers about 40% performance uplift versus Cortex-A9 (the technology which is in the majority of smartphones today) but in a smaller, and therefore cheaper, silicon area enabling feature-rich smart devices at affordable price points. In Q2 ARM signed two further licenses for Cortex-A12, taking the total signed to four.

This quarter ARM signed seven Mali licenses. Four of the licenses were for the Mali-T600 range of graphics processors. The Mali-T600 series enables the combination of ARM and Mali processors into a unified computing sub-system, delivering the most efficient use of all the resources in the system-on-chip. With the introduction in Q2 of the Mali-T622, this technology is now available for mid-range devices. As internet-connected screens become smarter and more sophisticated so we continue to see strong demand for Mali graphics processors.

* 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 Mali license

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 an additional 28nm process derivative.  With this new derivative, ARM Physical IP is now available for every 28nm standard foundry process in the industry.

Building on the foundry platform licenses signed in prior quarters, in Q2 the first leading chip designer was enabled to build a 14nm FinFET chip using ARM's physical IP.

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 another five POP licenses for both our Cortex-A and Mali series technology.

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

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 143 Cortex-A licenses, 80 Mali licenses and 48 POP IP licenses. ARM typically receives a 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:

• Samsung announcing their new Exynos 5 Octa series big.LITTLE applications processor, which also includes ARM's Mali T628 graphics technology
• Fujitsu Semiconductor licensing ARM's big.LITTLE and Mali-T624 technologies to support a wide range of consumer and industrial devices
• LG Electronics announcing their lead partner status for ARM Cortex-A50 series processors and next-generation Mali GPUs, including support for ARM's big.LITTLE technology and general purpose graphics processing on the  Mali GPU
• Entropic announcing that they have switched to using ARM's Mali graphics processors for use in set-top-boxes and multimedia applications
• AMD revealing details of their ARM-based Seattle server chips. The CPUs will feature 8 or 16 ARM Cortex-A57 cores, each running at more than 2GHz
• Calxeda announcing multiple design wins for its ARM-based server chips, including for storage servers with Foxconn and Gigabyte
• Atmel announcing a new family of ARM-based Cortex-M0+ microcontrollers. The SAM D20 family of microcontrollers are aimed at low power, cost sensitive industrial and consumer applications
• RedHat presenting a live demo of its 64-bit Fedora 19 running on Applied Micro's ARM-based 64-bit X-Gene server chip
• Oracle announcing the optimisation of Java on ARM for enterprise and embedded markets, including for ARMv8 64-bit platforms

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

ARM's royalty revenues continue to significantly outperform the semiconductor industry, growing at 24% year-on-year, while the semiconductor industry was up just 2% for the corresponding period. The outperformance was driven by the volume growth in markets such as smartphones and mobile computers, market share expansion in microcontrollers, digital TVs and networking equipment, and ARM receiving a higher royalty percentage per chip, for chips containing multiple and more advanced ARM technology.

ARM benefits from the rapidly growing smartphone and tablet markets, particularly the incremental growth of mid-range and entry-level devices. Over the past few years ARM has been licensing technology to enable the development of low-cost, low-power and high-performance application processors.  ARM processors such as Cortex-A5 and Cortex-A7, and Mali-400 are now shipping in high-volume in entry-level devices at affordable price points.  Another billion more consumers are now expected to be able to afford smartphones and tablets that were previously too expensive.  In Q2, ARM introduced Cortex-A12, Mali-T622 and Mali-V500 to further enable the mid-range smart device market.

Not only are these devices more likely to contain ARM's higher royalty-bearing Cortex-A series technology but they are also more likely to contain ARM's Mali graphics technology.  Cortex-A series processors can now be found in more than 95% of all smartphones, and the majority of tablets and smart TVs.  They now represent 17% of all unit shipments, up from 8% one year ago.

The strong growth in both Cortex-A and Mali graphics has helped increase ARM's average royalty per chip, which increased to 5.0 cents this quarter, up from 4.8 cents one year ago.

ARM's Q2 royalty revenue came from the sales of about 2.4 billion ARM-based chips, up 18% year-on-year.

Q2 2013 Processor Unit Shipment Analysis

PIPD royalties

Royalties are recognised one quarter in arrears with royalties in Q2 2013 generated from semiconductor unit shipments in Q1 2013. PIPD royalties in Q2 2013, excluding catch-up royalties, were $14.6million, up 20% year-on-year.

At 30 June 2013, ARM had 2,546 full-time employees, a net increase of 154 since the start of the year, being mainly engineers joining ARM's processor R&D teams. At the end of Q2, the group had 1,055 employees based in the UK, 630 in the US, 306 in Continental Europe, 353 in India and 202 in the Asia Pacific region.

To read financial tables, click here

ARM designs the technology that lies at the heart of advanced digital products, from wireless, networking and consumer entertainment solutions to imaging, automotive, security and storage devices. ARM's comprehensive product offering includes 32-bit RISC microprocessors, graphics processors, video engines, enabling software, cell libraries, embedded memories, high-speed connectivity products, peripherals and development tools. Combined with comprehensive design services, training, support and maintenance, and the company's broad Partner community, they provide a total system solution that offers a fast, reliable path to market for leading electronics companies. More information on ARM is available at http://www.arm.com.

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