Imagination market share update

Recently, JPR put out a release stating Qualcomm were the dominant player in mobile graphics with 33% market share.

Closer analysis showed IMG's share was at least 50% if you added up the various suppliers (Apple, TI etc) in his table ,but he made no comment about IMG at the time.

A few weeks later and we have this 'update' , demonstrating PowerVR are the clear leaders in terms of graphics IP, whichever way you wanna slice it. IMG's PR chief Dave Harold puts the suppliers market share at over 60% currently (rather than the 50% in the chart). Even more impressive is the near 80% share when GPU IP companies only are considered (takes out Qualcomm).

Vivante has also put in a respectable performance, beating both Nvidia and ARM Mali (!) - courtesy of Marvell pretty much (family connection).

The IMG bear analysts have been crowing for some time about how Mali and Nvidia are 'catching up' to PowerVR, no doubt they will ignore this report and make up some fantasy numbers instead.

A/V market shares (DTV,STB etc) are not included but would also make interesting reading given the strength of IMG's partners - Intel, Sigma Design,Renesas,LG, Mediatek, MStar. STM...

http://www.powermanagementdesignline.com/electronics-news/4304118/Imagination-outstrips-all-other-GPU-IP-suppliers

According to the latest research of the embedded graphics market by Jon Peddie Research (JPR), Imagination Technologies supplies more GPU IP then all other suppliers combined.

The research provides estimated mobile devices graphics chip shipments for 2011. Increasingly mobile devices have a graphics processor and those processors are integrated in the device’s system on a chip (SoC) application processor.

Application processors are made by a dozen plus semiconductor manufacturers including Broadcom, Intel, Marvell, MediaTek, Nvidia, ST-Ericson, Renesas, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, Samsung, and others. All these companies fall into one of two categories, vertically integrated, and IP buyers.

Nvidia, Qualcomm and ZiiLabs are the vertically integrated companies with their own GPU designs; all the others buy GPU IP from one of five IP suppliers, ARM, DMP, Imagination Technologies, Takumi, and Vivante.

The exceptions to this tidy categorization, says JPR are Broadcom and Samsung which buy IP and also have an internal GPU design. Apple makes an SoC, but does not sell it commercially.

GPU IP only suppliers market share

The leading high volume suppliers of application processors are Apple, Texas Instruments, Qualcomm, and Samsung. Three of the four use Imagination Technologies’ GPU IP as well as several other smaller competitors.

Market share of mobile devices GPU IP

Other SoC suppliers buying GPU IP include Actions Semiconductor, Freescale, Huawei, Ingenic, Rockchip, and Wonder Media/VIA. These companies have products in the feature phone market; some are just entering the smartphone and tablet segment.

JPR says it expects the market share to be shift dramatically through 2012 as the existing players get more aggressive, customers lose share, and two new IP companies to enter the market.

Imagination says it has eight licensees for its Series 6 cores including: ST-Ericsson, Texas Instruments, Renesas and MediaTek (plus JPR believes  Apple, Intel, and Samsung). This is along with MStar, Ricoh and Rockchip, joining existing partners like Sony, Sigma and Realtek for the company’s PowerVR Series5 family.

Vivante is the surprising number two in IP GPU suppliers. Products incorporating Vivante technologies are based on the Marvell Armada and PXA communications processor. The PXA920 ships in mass market China Mobile OMS and Android TD smartphones from ASUS, Huawei, Lenovo, Samsung, ZTE and many others.

Vivante’s other licensees include Texas Instruments, Freescale, HiSilicon, Ingenic, Rockchip, and many more. Included in JPR's definition of 'mobile' are Smartphones, high-end feature phones, tablets, portable game consoles, cameras, and vehicles. JPR believes that plenoptic cameras with interactive performance using GPUs and embedded cameras with GPUs like Lytro and Ximea will show up this year.

JPR did not include navigational units as it couldn't find many that used a GPU and specifically excluded TVs, STBs, DVD players, watches, MP3 players, and digital picture frames.

JPR believes that as GPU IP prices drop and the quest for differentiation continues, combined with everything being on-line all the time, and the internet of things, GPUs will find their way into these other devices. But, it didn’t happen in 2011.

END

Confident IMS from Imagination Technologies

Imagination today gave its IMS, a very confident statement all round.
Licensing - remains robust after an excellent H1
Royalty volume - 300-320m indicated for full year, (H1 123m) , so the 'substantial acceleration' in volume IMG predicted at H1 results is materialising during H2 (177-197m for H2).
Royalty rate - expecting at least 31c/chip (blended)
Ensigma UCCP3 - sounds like more licensing has taken place
Even PURE does not sound too bad.

No doubt HY will be on top form during the CC this morning.

Imagination Technologies Group plc ('Imagination', LSE: IMG), a leading multimedia, communications and embedded processor technology company, is today issuing its Interim Management Statement for the period from 1 November 2011 to 7 March 2012.
Trading update
Following the strong performance in the first half of the financial year, the momentum in the business continued. The Group’s revenue showed good growth against last year as expected.
A combination of new product launches, the traditional holiday period uplift and continuing momentum across the customer base, all contributed to the expected ramp in royalty volumes (quarter ended December 2011). Royalty rates remain firm as the proportion of royalty volume incorporating newer IP was maintained.
Steady progress in licensing continued, following high levels of activity in the first half. The Group signed new licences with both existing and new customers across all key IP product families.
Despite the tough UK retail environment and weak global consumer demand, PURE revenues remained marginally ahead of last year. The strong growth in overseas markets continued.
Technology update
PowerVR graphics & video - the first two Series6 ‘Rogue architecture’ cores were launched in January (PowerVR G6200, G6400). PowerVR Series6 graphics delivers up to 20x performance improvement over the previous generation comparable GPU cores, targeting the same markets. Production versions of the IP cores have been shipped to lead customers.
The optimised combination of GPUs (graphics processors) and VPUs (video processors) continued to gain traction, stimulating growing interest in the Group’s PowerVR VXD video decoders and VXE encoders alongside GPUs.
Ensigma communications - the Group saw continued growth in interest and licensing for the Group’s multi-standard Ensigma Series3 UCCP DTV solutions, as customers appreciate the value of the technology able to target global multi-standard TVs and STBs.
The on-chip connectivity support in the form of Wi-Fi and other standards continue to interest more customers, looking to integrate such functions for connected consumer audio and multimedia products for home, mobile and automotive use.
Hellosoft V.VoIP and VoLTE - Imagination saw good progress and momentum, including strong engagement in key initial LTE network deployment. It had a positive reception to the new Social Communicator V.VoIP products shown at MWC 2012. These integrate voice and video over IP (V.VoIP) into Facebook and other social media services.
Caustic Professional - good progress was made in the initial engagement in the professional market segment. Technology development and initial delivery are making good progress with the first ray-tracing test chip now manufactured and in use by the development team.
Outlook
The licensing pipeline remains robust. This is expected to result in another good year of growth in licensing revenue, although as ever the timing of deal closures is not always certain.
The royalty volume trend for the full year is in line with the expected range (300m – 320m units) with royalty rates likely to remain at least at the level shown in the first half of the financial year.
Revenue for the financial year from PURE is expected to show a modest improvement on last year, although the environment remains challenging.
The Board remains confident that the Group is on track for continued progress, with the full year results expected to show another good year of growth.
Hossein Yassaie, Imagination’s Chief Executive said:
"The demand for our technologies continues to grow strongly. They are powering the transition in several markets to "smart" devices - in particular phones, tablets, TVs and in cars, where our state-of-the-art multimedia and connectivity offering are key drivers.
"Our strategy to identify and create disruptive technologies is paying off - it is set to continue to fuel further strong progress over the next few years."

New iPad gets PowerVR SGX 543MP4 graphics

Apple announced the new iPad today , with 'quad-core graphics' , in other words, SGX 543MP4.

http://www.apple.com/ipad/features/

presentation:  http://events.apple.com.edgesuite.net/123pibhargjknawdconwecown/event/index.html

In the presentation Tim Cook and others repeatedly mentioned the amazing graphics capability (and improved video output:1080p , courtesy of PowerVR also). It seems like the main point of this iteration is:

1. Killer graphics/video , better than anything competitors can manage for 2012 and much of 2013
2. LTE/4G ready, so competitors like Android and Windows 8 do not have an advantage with connectivity either.

Sadly for Nvidia, Tim Cook was keen to point out the graphics performance of A5X chip was 4X that of Tegra 3 !