Arm Ltd, a chip designer that is preparing for what would be the biggest initial public offering (IPO) this year, saw its revenue decline about 1 percent in the most recent fiscal year, according to a draft filing for its IPO reviewed by Bloomberg.
Companies often look to post rising revenue in the periods leading up to stock sales, but Arm’s sales fell to US$2.68 billion in the 12 months ended on March 31, according to the filing, which is still subject to change. Japan’s Softbank Group Corp, which owns Arm, plans an IPO of the company as soon as next month that could value the chip designer at as much as US$70 billion.
Arm’s draft F-1 filing is based on US accounting rules as the company prepares to list on NASDAQ. In May, Softbank said sales at the unit had grown 5.7 percent in the latest fiscal year under international standards.
Photo: Reuters
US accounting rules and International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) have separate thresholds for when revenue can be recognized.
The overall chip industry is still emerging from a sales slump triggered by a buildup of excess inventory, especially in the smartphone market — a central focus for Arm. Qualcomm Inc, one of Arm’s biggest partners, gave a disappointing forecast for the latest quarter earlier this month, sending its shares tumbling. And even Apple Inc’s prized iPhone has seen demand slow.
Arm’s draft filing shows sales for the quarter ended June 30 fell 2.5 percent to US$675 million under US standards. That is a smaller drop than Softbank reported earlier this month, when it said sales for the unit fell about 11 percent to US$641 million under IFRS.
Arm designs technology including microprocessors, and its intellectual property is used in just about every smartphone in the world. It was publicly traded until 2016, when Softbank bought it for around US$32 billion. The Japanese conglomerate said in 2020 that it was selling the company to Nvidia Corp for US$40 billion, but regulatory pressure forced Nvidia to abandon its bid last year. Arm said in April it had made a confidential filing for a US IPO.
The filing could be made public as early today, people familiar with the matter said. Arm is expected to sell about 10 percent of the company’s shares in the listing.
A representative for Arm declined to comment.
Taiwan’s foreign exchange reserves fell below the US$600 billion mark at the end of last month, with the central bank reporting a total of US$596.89 billion — a decline of US$8.6 billion from February — ending a three-month streak of increases. The central bank attributed the drop to a combination of factors such as outflows by foreign institutional investors, currency fluctuations and its own market interventions. “The large-scale outflows disrupted the balance of supply and demand in the foreign exchange market, prompting the central bank to intervene repeatedly by selling US dollars to stabilize the local currency,” Department of Foreign
ENERGY ISSUES: The TSIA urged the government to increase natural gas and helium reserves to reduce the impact of the Middle East war on semiconductor supply stability Chip testing and packaging service provider ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控) yesterday said it planned to invest more than NT$100 billion (US$3.15 billion) in building a new advanced chip testing facility in Kaohsiung to keep up with customer demand driven by the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. That would be included in the company’s capital expenditure budget next year, ASE said. There is also room to raise this year’s capital spending budget from a record-high US$7 billion estimated three months ago, it added. ASE would have six factories under construction this year, another record-breaking number, ASE chief operating officer Tien Wu
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
RSS