With its RISC designs currently in 70% of digital mobile phones, ARM Holdings Plc’s solid growth continues. Net profits for the year more than doubled to 6m pounds after revenues rose 59.2% to 42.2m pounds. Despite competition from the likes of MIPS and Hitachi, UK-based ARM totally dominates the market with shipments of ARM microprocessors rising from less than 10 million units in 1997 to around 50 million last year. Keeping ahead is an expensive business and R&D expenses accounted for 28% of revenues. While ARM acknowledges that this figure is high, it expects it to average out at 26%. While mobile phones and set-top boxes are currently driving growth, chairman, president and CEO Robin Saxby is looking for PC peripherals, such as hard disk drives and printers to be the next market to conquer. After that, the automobile market beckons with volume production of ‘smart’ cars expected to begin in 2000.
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