Arm reported fourth-quarter adjusted earnings of 60 cents a share and revenue up 20% to $1.49 billion. Licensing revenue rose 29% from a year ago, to $819 million, also beating forecasts. It was already getting a boost from AMD, which has doubled its estimate for the size of the server CPU market by 2030.That’s a market that Arm is rapidly entering. Arm also provided good guidance, seeing $2 billion of demand for a new homemade chip in fiscal years 2027 and 2028 combined, twice its previous estimate. The data center business, becoming its largest, is on track for $15 billion.One soft spot for the quarter was royalty payments, indicating that shipments of Arm-based chips may have been lower than expected during the period. Royalty revenue rose 11% to $671 million, driven by growth in smartphones and AI.Arm’s instruction set architecture is the major alternative to the x86 architecture used by Intel and AMD. It makes designs for different parts of chips, and makes money from licensing and royalties paid by customers Apple, Nvidia, Samsung, Qualcomm, and others.
About The Author
