ARM are reporting fourth quarter pre-tax profits of £10.1 million, that's a hefty 53% increase compared with the same period last year. Turnover rose 58% to £29.8 million. Over the year that's a 62% growth in revenues to almost £101 million and pre-tax profit growth of 97%

Robin Saxby, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, said:

"The year finished strongly and the momentum behind our business remains encouraging. Industry sources show our market share of the embedded RISC processor market was estimated to increase by 19 points from 58% to 77%, clearly establishing the ARM architecture as the leading RISC microprocessor last year. Shipments to the non-wireless markets continued to grow, with approximately 50 million units of ARM microprocessors shipped by our partners into the networking market and many new products launched across a broad range of sectors."

The increase has been put down to the boom in mobile 'phone sales pushing up chip sales and royalty payments. However, as 'phone sales slow down ARM are said to be keen to push into the games console market, which may be why we're seeing a flurry of activity in this area recently.

Full details are on ARM's website.

Source: The Register