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Arm CEO Rene Haas cheers as Arm holds an initial public offering at the Nasdaq MarketSite in New York on Sept. 14, 2023.

Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

Semiconductor technology company Arm reported its first post-initial public offering earnings on Wednesday that beat Wall Street expectations for sales and showed that the company’s lucrative licensing business doubled in size over the past year.

Arm shares fell over 7% in extended trading after the company’s revenue guidance was short of expectations.

Here’s how the semiconductor licensing company did versus consensus expectations by LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv, for Arm’s second fiscal quarter ending Sept. 30:

  • Earnings per share: 36 cents, adjusted
  • Revenue: $806 million vs. $744.3 million expected

Arm said it was expecting earnings per share between 21 cents and 28 cents on sales of between $720 million and $800 million in the current quarter. That’s a little lighter than what Wall Street was looking for, which was 27 cents per share on revenue between $730 million and $805 million.

Arm reported a net loss of $110 million, or 11 cents per share. The company said the loss was due to more than $500 million in one-time share-based compensation triggered by the recent IPO, and that share-based compensation would land between $150 million and $250 million in future quarters.

Total revenue was up 28% on an annual basis during the quarter.

Arm’s intellectual property is in nearly every smartphone, many PCs and other miscellaneous chips. Arm says more than 7.1 billion Arm-based chips were shipped during the quarter.

It makes money through royalties, or when chipmakers pay Arm for access to build Arm-compatible chips, typically a small percentage of the final chip price. It also sells licenses to more complete chip designs, saving chipmakers time and effort, which are recorded as licensing revenue.

Arm royalty revenue was $418 million, a 5% decline from the same period last year. But Arm licensing sales were $388 million, up 106% from the same period last year. It’s a sign that Arm may be able to sell increasing amounts of technology to its current customers, which is a key metric watched by analysts.

Arm attributed licensing sales to multiple long-term agreements with technology companies, suggesting the segment’s growth could continue in future quarters, but warned that the broader economy could affect future licensing growth.

Arm went public in an IPO in September. Before that, it was owned by SoftBank, which reached a deal to sell the firm to Nvidia before the transaction was scuttled by regulators in 2022. It was founded in 1990 to develop technology for low-power chips.

Arm said that firms including Google, Meta and Nvidia were developing artificial intelligence-capable chips with its technology.

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Amazon shutters 4 Fresh stores in Southern California as grocery strategy keeps shifting

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Amazon shutters 4 Fresh stores in Southern California as grocery strategy keeps shifting

An employee arranges a salad dressing display at an Amazon Fresh grocery store on December 12, 2024 in Federal Way, Washington.

David Ryder | Getty Images

Amazon is closing four more Fresh supermarkets in Southern California as the e-commerce giant continues to focus its grocery strategy around Whole Foods and delivery.

The closures will take place in the coming weeks, Amazon confirmed to CNBC. They follow the shuttering of four other U.S. locations in recent months, in Washington, Virginia, New York and a Los Angeles suburb.

“Certain locations work better than others, and after an assessment, we’ve made the decision to close these Amazon Fresh locations,” Amazon spokesperson Griffin Buch said in a statement. “We’re working closely with affected employees to help them find new roles within Amazon wherever possible.”

At one Fresh supermarket in La Verne, California, employees were told to gather for an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, according to an internal message viewed by CNBC. They learned at the meeting that the store would close in mid-November, and that employees would receive a severance package, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the details were confidential.

The other three stores that are closing are in cities of Mission Viejo, La Habra and Whittier.

Last week, Amazon said it intends to close 14 Fresh grocery stores in the U.K. and convert its five other locations there into Whole Foods markets.

Amazon said it regularly evaluates its store portfolio, which can lead to opening, reopening, relocating or closing certain locations. In the U.S., the company has more than 60 remaining Fresh stores. Last year, the company removed its “Just Walk Out” cashierless technology from the stores. It’s also been culling its footprint of Go cashierless convenience stores.

Amazon has been determined to become a major grocery player for nearly two decades. The company launched Amazon Fresh in 2007, then a pilot project for fresh food delivery, before acquiring upscale chain Whole Foods for $13.7 billion in 2017, its biggest purchase on record.

Amazon debuted its Fresh grocery chain in 2020, with an eye toward mass-market shoppers. The rollout has been turbulent since its early days.

The company opened a flurry of Fresh locations by 2022, but the expansion plans ran into CEO Andy Jassy’s widespread cost-cutting efforts as the company reckoned with the impact of rising interest rates and soaring inflation. In 2023, Amazon announced it would shut some Fresh stores and halt further openings temporarily as it evaluated how to make the chain stand out for shoppers.

While it’s closing Fresh stores, Amazon continues to “innovate and invest in making grocery shopping easier, faster, and more affordable,” Buch said. The company still maintains 500 Whole Foods locations and has opened mini “daily shop” Whole Foods stores in New York City.

On Wednesday, Amazon also launched a new “price-conscious” grocery brand that will be offered online and in its physical stores. And last month, Amazon expanded same-day delivery of fresh foods to more pockets of the U.S.

Jassy and other company executives have touted the success of sales of “everyday essentials” within its online grocery business, which refers to items such as canned goods, paper towels, dish soap and snacks. Jassy told investors at the company’s annual shareholder meeting in May that he remains “bullish” on grocery, calling it a “significant business” for Amazon.

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Quantum stocks Rigetti Computing and D-Wave surged double-digits this week. Here’s what’s driving the big move

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Quantum stocks Rigetti Computing and D-Wave surged double-digits this week. Here's what's driving the big move

Inside Google’s quantum computing lab in Santa Barbara, California.

CNBC

Quantum computing stocks are wrapping up a big week of double-digit gains.

Shares of Rigetti Computing, D-Wave Quantum and Quantum Computing have surged more than 20%. Rigetti and D-Wave Quantum have more than doubled and tripled, respectively, since the start of the year. Arqit Quantum skyrocketed more than 32% this week.

The jump in shares followed a wave of positive news in the quantum space.

Rigetti said it had purchase orders totalling $5.7 million for two of its 9-qubit Novera quantum computing systems. The owner of drugmaker Novo Nordisk and the Danish government also invested 300 million euros in a quantum venture fund.

In a blog post earlier this week, Nvidia also highlighted accelerated computing, which it argues can make “quantum computing breakthroughs of today and tomorrow possible.”

Investors have piled into quantum computing technology this year, as tech giants Microsoft, Nvidia and Amazon have embraced the technology with a wave of new chip announcements, multi-million dollar investments and research plans.

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How to get Sora app invite codes for OpenAI’s viral AI video creator

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How to get Sora app invite codes for OpenAI's viral AI video creator

Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images

OpenAI’s new artificial intelligence video app Sora has already grabbed the top spot in Apple‘s App Store as its number one free app, despite being invite-only.

Sora, which was launched on Tuesday, allows users to create short-form AI videos and share them in a feed. The app is available to iPhone users but requires an invite code to access.

Here’s how to snag a Sora app invite code:

  • First, download the app from the iOS App Store. Note that Sora requires iOS 18.0 or later to be downloaded.
  • Login using your OpenAI account.
  • Click “Notify me when access opens.”

A screen will then appear asking for an access code.

Currently, OpenAI has said that it is prioritizing paying ChatGPT Pro users for Sora access. The app is only available in the U.S. and Canada, but is expected to roll out to additional countries soon, the company said.

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If you do not know someone who can provide an access code, several people are sharing invite codes on the official OpenAI Discord server, as well as on X and Reddit threads.

Once you input your access, you will be able to start generating AI videos using text or images. Users are also able to cameo as characters in their videos as well as “remix” other posts.

The app is powered by the new Sora 2.0 model, an updated version of the original Sora model from last year. The video generation model is “physically accurate, realistic, and more controllable” than prior systems, the company said in a blog post.

OpenAI's Sora 2 sparks AI 'slop' backlash

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