Sunplus Technology Extends Relationship with Imagination

Since much earlier license agreements for PowerVR MBX (old days) we haven't heard much from Sunplus. So it was a nice surprise for IMGers to see this PR today:

Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP"), has signed a license agreement with Sunplus Technology Co., Ltd. ("Sunplus") (TAIEX: 2401, LSE: SUPD) for IP from Imagination's PowerVR SGX graphics family.
Sunplus will deploy Imagination's PowerVR SGX graphics technology in SoCs targeting the Home Entertainment market.
Says Dr. Archie Yeh, President of Sunplus:
"Advanced graphics performance is becoming increasingly important for future Home Multimedia System. We are pleased to extend our partnership with Imagination Technologies, the leader in embedded graphics, for Sunplus' SoC products."
Says Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination:
"We are pleased that, having assessed the available technologies, Sunplus has again selected PowerVR. This latest expansion of our partnership will help both companies to further drive and exploit the latest graphics trends."
Under the terms of its licensing arrangements, Imagination receives licence fees and royalty revenues on SoCs incorporating Imagination's IP.
END

TKS is of course referring to cheaper (but inferior in terms of both graphics ,ecosystem and support) alternatives such as Mali and Vivante.
Sunplus are another Taiwanese player focused on SoCs for BD players, HDTVs and STBs.
ARM continue to make a lot of noise regarding Mali's supposed 70% (?) market share of 3D HW graphics enabled HDTVs, but IMG have the following significant partners in this area:

MStar (2013) - no.1
Mediatek - no.2
LG
Sigma Designs/Trident
Intel
NEC/Renesas
NXP
Sunplus
Fujitsu
SiS
Qualcomm (Display and UCC cores)

IMG will soon be making significant in-roads to that 70% figure imo. Then there's always the prospect of a future real Apple TV...


In other news, Amazon's blowout Q1 revealed the Kindle Fire remains the no.1 item on Amazon.com since launch.  Research firm comScore revealed Kindle Fire has taken 54.4% of US market share of Android tablets in February.
Lastly, Mediatek just came out with Q2 figures and raised their target of smartphone chipsets to 75m for the year (up from 50m) - pretty much all of these are IMG'd (see SoC list). Great stuff !

Apple Q2 numbers

Another stunning set of numbers from Apple last night.
For iOS (IMG'd) devices we have:

iPhone = 35.1m (well above forecasts)
iPad = 11.8m ( just above forecasts and only includes 2 weeks of new iPad sales)
iPod = 7.7m (above forecast, over 50% again iPod Touch)
no numbers given for Apple TV this time
The total iOS devices for the quarter was over 50m

This gives the following running totals from 1/4/2011 - 31/3/2012 (Apple's last 4 quarters):

iPhone = 109.2m
iPad = 47.5m
iPod Touch = 19-20m
Plus 3-4m Apple TV

Giving a total of approx. 179m iOS devices in that time period .
IMG's year runs from 1/5/2011-30/4/2012, so this translates to massive royalty volume for IMG in FY 2011/12. The IMG guidance of 300-320m royalty volume for this FY looks comfortable certainly.

Full transcript with Q&A here:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/524451-apple-s-ceo-discusses-q2-2012-results-earnings-call-transcript

Imagination signs up Qualcomm for Ensigma UCC

Qualcomm, the undisputed leader of the mobile chips world, has signed up for Ensigma UCC IP, which is used in  broadcast, communications and connectivity chips. This is a major endorsement of Ensigma UCC, and Qualcomm becomes the 2nd Tier One licensee of this technology (other one suspected ,but not confirmed, to be Broadcom).

It is also a broadening/deepening of the IMG/Qualcomm relationship, which will hopefully extend into PowerVR Graphics/Video in the near future.

Until now, analysts (even the bulls), have not modeled revenue for the Ensigma division, but with this announcement things may be about to change imo.

PR:

Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP"), has signed a license agreement with Qualcomm Incorporated (Nasdaq: QCOM), a world leader in 3G and next-generation mobile technologies, for certain IP from Imagination’s Ensigma UCC broadcast, communications and connectivity IP family.
Under the terms of its licensing arrangements, Imagination receives license fees and royalty revenues

END


Well done all at IMG.