Profit boost for ARM thanks to Apple’s iPad

Processor manufacturers, ARM are expected to post pre-tax profits of £160m for 2010 – a 70% increase from 2009.

This explosion in profits has been attributed to the success of Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices, which use the Cambridge based company’s processor chips.

The full year figures – due to be announced on Tuesday – are also expected to show that sales of ARM processors hit £400m in 2010; £100 million higher than in 2009.

ARM’s chief executive Warren East, was unsurprised by the phenomenal success of his company’s products, stating that he equated the importance of ARM’s processors within devices to the role of “the heart within the body, or the engine of a car.”

ARM currently gain between 5 and 60 cents in royalties for each device sold with an ARM chip. This figure is expected to rise to $1 for high-end tablet devices in the next few years.

These figures follow the news earlier this month that Microsoft have opted for an ARM processor for the next generation of its Windows OS devices; a move that ends 25 years of Intel dominance in Microsoft machines.

Goldman Sachs analyst, Simon Schafer predicted that this coup could land ARM a 45% share of the computing market by 2015, including an 85% dominance of tablet devices.

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