British chip developer Arm, which falls under the Japanese firm Softbank and whose technology is found in virtually all smartphones, has officially applied to list in the United States. The company published a stock exchange prospectus to that effect on Monday. However, the company did not give further details about the volume and price of the shares that will be traded on the Nasdaq market. It is expected to be the largest initial public offering (IPO) of shares this year.
Arm’s listing could bring the currently moribund market for primary share issues back to life. Several major start-ups have shelved plans to sell shares on the exchange over the past year due to excessive price fluctuations, Reuters reported.
A stock exchange prospectus shows the company saw sales fall one per cent to $2.68 billion (CZK59 billion) in the year to March 31. A slump in global smartphone shipments is mainly to blame. Revenue for the quarter to June 30 fell 2.5 percent to $675 million. But the company is making a steady profit, at $524 million in the last financial year, up from $549 million a year earlier.
Arm estimates the market values it at $60 billion to $70 billion (up to CZK 1.5 trillion). The firm was bought for £23.4 billion (about CZK 659 billion) in 2016 by Japanese conglomerate Softbank, before which its shares traded for 18 years in London and New York.
Competition for Intel
Arm’s designs are used in chips made by most of the world’s major semiconductor companies, including Intel, AMD, Nvidia and Qualcomm. Arm’s designs are making inroads in smartphones at the expense of Intel’s chips – in part because they consume less power. Now Arm-designed chips are also being used in data centres, and Apple is using them in its Mac computers.
Source: ČTK
