Strong unit shipments resulting in 49% growth in royalty revenue; organisation strengthened for next stage of growth
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, “Imagination”, “the Group”), a leading multimedia, communications and processor technology company, today announces results for the year to 30 April 2013.
The Group’s partners shipped 700m units consisting of 535m (2012: 325m) from Imagination excluding MIPS Technologies, Inc. (MIPS) and 165m from MIPS in the 12 weeks since the business was acquired on 7 February 2013.
Financial Highlights
The Group’s partners shipped 700m units consisting of 535m (2012: 325m) from Imagination excluding MIPS Technologies, Inc. (MIPS) and 165m from MIPS in the 12 weeks since the business was acquired on 7 February 2013.
Financial Highlights
- Group revenue up 19% to £151.5m (2012: £127.5m) including £8.2m from MIPS*
- Technology revenue increased 28% to £125.7m (2012: £98.2m)
- Royalty revenue up 49% to £95.1m (2012: £63.8m) including £5.6m from MIPS*
- Licensing revenue of £29.1m (2012: £34.4m) including £2.6m from MIPS*
- Pure revenues of £25.8m (2012: £29.3m)
- Technology revenue increased 28% to £125.7m (2012: £98.2m)
- Adjusted pre-tax profit** of £34.3m (2012: £36.8m)
- Reported pre-tax profit of £12.2m (2012: £28.5m)
- Adjusted earnings per share** 9.4p (2012: 10.1p restated***)
- Reported earnings per share 2.4p (2012: 8.0p restated***)
- Net cash balance of £45.6m (2012: £60.7m)
- Net cash included £56.3m held to settle MIPS patent sale tax liability – paid on 14 June 2013
* Reflects revenues from 7 February 2013 to 30 April 2013
** The reconciliation from reported results to adjusted results is set out in Note 3.
*** See note 6.
** The reconciliation from reported results to adjusted results is set out in Note 3.
*** See note 6.
Business Highlights
Technology business
Royalties and design wins
- Partner chips shipped 535m units, excluding MIPS (2012: 325m), up 65% - saw substantial growth in H2 to 298m units (H2 2012: 202m)
- Mobile phone and tablet markets grew very significantly, TV/STB rapidly accelerating with other segments showing steady growth
- Momentum maintained in chip design win growth with 158 active partner chips (2012: 136); 84 in production (2012: 60)
- Average royalty rate (excluding MIPS) maintained in H2 despite significant volume ramp-up and strong lower-end handset demand, as high end devices market continues to show good growth
- Next generation graphics products - Series6 (‘Rogue’) - now shipping
Licensing
- As announced in our trading update on 2 May 2013 licensing was influenced by transitory market changes and regional consolidations impacting on customer base and timing of deal closure
- Many new and extended agreements with existing partners including Allwinner, Greenplug, Intel, LG, MediaTek, Realtek, Renesas, Samsung, ST, ST-Ericsson, TI and Toumaz
- Several new partners added including Entropic, Ineda, Metaio and Socle
- Over 20 important customer engagements involving around 35 silicon IP (intellectual property) core licenses
- Including graphics, video, vision, broadcast/connectivity and processor silicon IP cores, as well as V.VoIP (video and voice over IP) technologies
- Continued active pipeline of prospects across all IP families – multimedia, processor, communications and cloud technologies
Acquisition of MIPS
- Acquisition for $100m in cash - completed on 7 February 2013
- Accelerates Group’s presence in the substantial and growing CPU/processor IP market
- Expands IMG’s broad range of SoC IP
- 165m units shipped since deal completed
- Revenue of £8.2m since 7 February 2013, generating a profit of £1m - synergies exceeding prior expectations
Pure business
- As previously announced the UK and some export markets continue to be tough in the short-term
- On-going DAB adoption worldwide and growing demand for connected audio
- Continued strategic development and pathfinding role
- Focus on development of technologies for digital broadcast, cloud connected devices for home audio streaming and automation
- New Pure wireless streaming products including Jongo family launched
Hossein Yassaie, Imagination’s Chief Executive said:
“Last year marked a number of key strategic developments by Imagination. We saw a notable jump in unit shipments and we also implemented a programme of significant investment in technologies, people and infrastructure to support our five year growth programme.
“In particular, the MIPS integration is progressing very well and customer reaction to the acquisition and the technology roadmap has been very positive.
“We have established leading positions in two of the fastest growing global markets – smartphones and tablets. In smartphones we are on course to maintain strong market share, whilst we provide the technology for many of the leading tablets.
“We are also well positioned to address the growing requirement for the existing and emerging categories of devices for home entertainment, digital health, automotive, security and utilities markets whilst meeting their ever-expanding range of communication needs.
“We have started the year well and are on course to see over 650m units (excluding MIPS) shipped in the current financial year - another significant step towards our 1bn unit shipment target in 2016."
“In particular, the MIPS integration is progressing very well and customer reaction to the acquisition and the technology roadmap has been very positive.
“We have established leading positions in two of the fastest growing global markets – smartphones and tablets. In smartphones we are on course to maintain strong market share, whilst we provide the technology for many of the leading tablets.
“We are also well positioned to address the growing requirement for the existing and emerging categories of devices for home entertainment, digital health, automotive, security and utilities markets whilst meeting their ever-expanding range of communication needs.
“We have started the year well and are on course to see over 650m units (excluding MIPS) shipped in the current financial year - another significant step towards our 1bn unit shipment target in 2016."
Full, more detailed statement is here:
Presentation Slides :
The financials were no surprise given the IMS last month, so the focus was on the outlook mainly. I'll post CC notes later, but here are some of the more interesting parts of the rns:
'Among the key agreements, there were significant new licenses or extensions with existing partners,including Allwinner, Greenplug, Intel, LG, MediaTek, Realtek, Renesas, Samsung, ST, ST-Ericsson, TI,Toumaz and continuation of a number of long-term subscription license arrangements with certain key partners'
Comparing this list to the H1 list, it appears LG, Samsung, Intel and STM signed new agreements in H2 - either extensions (most likely) or new licenses. Would be interesting to have more detail on the Samsung/LG licenses for obvious reasons.
'It is appropriate to clarify two areas of partnerships. Firstly we continue to have a strong and on-going partnership with Intel Corp, who are also a significant shareholder. As is normal we cannot provide specific details on various projects but we can confirm that we have many existing and future projects on-going with Intel and expect this partnership to result in growing and significant volume shipment across many markets now and in the future. Also Intel’s recent success at Samsung with devices incorporating our technologies is a significant development indicating that the mobile market is opening up to other processor architectures. With respect to TI we expect their transition out of the mobile segment to both take some time and for the partnership to strongly continue in the new areas of focus for TI which we believe will be of significant value to Imagination. Additionally our other partners active in the mobile segment are indeed extending their business to support some of the opportunities TI leaves open as it transitions its business.'
Important given that Intel Baytrail will use in-house graphics and analysts writing off future volume from TI.
'There have been many significant product announcements in mobile phone and tablet segments during the period and we are aware of several other important products from key OEMs that we expect to be launched in the very near future in these and other segments. The Group has continued to see momentum in design wins for its PowerVR graphics technology across Series5/5XT and Series6. The Group’s new generation technology, Series6, has once again been acknowledged by many key partners as the market leader and has already secured over 20 committed SoCs. Several of our partners and our own prototype chips reached silicon and have demonstrated very strong characteristics in performance and power. Independent industry reports have confirmed that our technology has significant competitive advantages in these key metrics. We saw the first Series6 based product in the form of the latest LG smart TV and we expect to see several other end-user products using this technology to begin shipping in volume during the current calendar year.'
Important to say these things given the perception that Rogue products are late 'out of the gate' and clearly Qualcomm doing great things with Snapdragon 800/Adreno 330 - Rogue'd products need to firmly re-affirm IMG as the leading edge GPU provider
'In TV and STB market areas we are now seeing accelerated progress with smart TV’s from LG and Sony starting shipment recently, with others to follow.'
Market share should increase with new Mediatek cores and also ramp up of MStar using IMG. Toshiba etc. down the line.
'SoC design wins are the driver for future partner chip shipments and royalty revenue growth. Strong continuing momentum saw new partner SoC design wins (excluding MIPS) increase to 158 (net of obsolescence) (2011: 136). Clearly the design win momentum was maintained despite the fluctuation in licensing revenue. Of these, 84 are shipping or beginning to ship, with the balance still in design. The latter will be the driver for significant further royalty revenue growth.These committed devices are continuing to diversify across Imagination’s partners and key market segments.
With respect to end-user products there have been important launches from several key players in the last few months, particularly in phone, tablet and TV/STB segments. We expect to see further major product launches from other key OEMs, including high profile devices from leading OEMs and for these to span across mobile, tablet and TV/STB segments. There are other notable design wins in China that will further drive our strong position in the tablet market overall.'
'As previously explained the revenue from licensing deal closure was behind plan during the second half due to regional issues and certain customers changing course in the short-term.'
Much better (and logical/credible) explanation of the licensing shortfall. IMG learning.
Best of all, not a hint of 'lumpiness' in the entire RNS !
IMG ended the day up 19p (reversing initial drop) on volume of >3m shares, hopefully a sign of sentiment change.
'As previously explained the revenue from licensing deal closure was behind plan during the second half due to regional issues and certain customers changing course in the short-term.'
Much better (and logical/credible) explanation of the licensing shortfall. IMG learning.
Best of all, not a hint of 'lumpiness' in the entire RNS !
IMG ended the day up 19p (reversing initial drop) on volume of >3m shares, hopefully a sign of sentiment change.
END
No comments:
Post a Comment