Thomas Alsop
Research expert covering the global hardware industry
Arm Holdings - statistics & facts
Arm Holdings, the brains behind the chips in many of the devices we use daily, went public in September 2023. Upon the listening by its parent company SoftBank Group, shares rose by nearly 25 percent, fueling excitement around the British chip designer. Interest in Arm grew once more following the release of the company’s quarterly earnings report in early 2024, with positive revenue results contributing to the company’s market capitalization doubling in just one month. Much of this rise can be attributed to Arm positioning itself as the market leader in the design of chips for artificial intelligence (AI), capitalizing on the AI market hype that many semiconductor companies are looking to chip in to.
Arm is best known for its computer processor architecture
Arm makes money by licensing its designs to other companies. These companies then pay Arm a fee when they sell chips that use those designs. Licensees use the designs to create a range of processor types, including central processing units (CPUs) and system-on-chip (SoC) components. An SoC is an integrated circuit that combines all the functions of a computer on one chip. These typically incorporate the CPU, graphics processing unit (GPU), and memory, and are commonly found in smartphones, tablets, wearables, and other IoT devices. Arm is recognized as a market leader in this field, accounting for a large proportion of the chips found in mobile devices.Arm’s licensees include the leading tech firms
Examples of products using Arm-based processors include Qualcomm Snapdragon chips found in devices from the major Android device manufacturers, as well as the Apple A17 Pro chip found in the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max. Apple has also switched to using Arm-based CPUs across its entire line of Mac PCs, a move away from their previous partnership with Intel. The decision was made to standardize on one chip architecture for all iPhone, iPad, and Mac products, enabling Apple to have deeper integration and flexibility on its innovations.Despite a failed takeover, Arm can expect a bright future
The darling of the AI revolution has undoubtedly been Nvidia. However, before its meteoric rise, the company was involved in a failed takeover of Arm, a 40 billion U.S. dollar deal that collapsed in February 2022 due to significant regulatory hurdles. While this may have been viewed as a missed opportunity for both companies, the strengths of each of these chip leaders are now coming to fruition. In the case of Arm, being at the forefront of chip design for various markets, including smartphones and data centers, means the company is ideally positioned to benefit from the AI revolution that is taking hold across these applications and more. And Nvidia still wants in on this, announcing a 147.3 million U.S. dollar stake in Arm in early 2024, a move that signals Arm will prove pivotal in the tech landscape over the coming years.
