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The logo of semiconductor design firm Arm on a chip.

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Exactly two years ago, Nvidia’s attempt to purchase chip designer Arm from SoftBank came to an end due to “significant regulatory challenges.”

Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s billionaire founder, has never been so lucky.

That agreement would have involved selling Arm for $40 billion, or just $8 billion more than SoftBank paid in 2016. Instead, Arm went public last year, and the company is now worth over $116 billion after the stock soared 48% on Thursday.

SoftBank still owns roughly 90% of the outstanding stock, meaning its stake in Arm increased by over $34 billion in a day.

But the rally is somewhat confounding when looking at how the market values Arm. Wall Street may start to get a clearer sense of how much investors are willing to pay next month, when the 180-day lockup period expires and SoftBank will have its first opportunity to sell.

Analyst says Nvidia has 'significant amount of upside,' but gives his bear case

Chipmakers Nvidia and AMD have been Wall Street darlings of late due to their central position in the artificial intelligence boom. Nvidia makes the bulk of the processors used for cutting-edge AI models like those that power ChatGPT, while large tech companies have also indicated their interest in purchasing competitive chips from AMD as they hit the market.

But Arm is now being valued at a much higher earnings multiple than either of those companies. As of Thursday’s close, investors are valuing Arm at close to 90 times forward earnings. That compares to a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 33 for Nvidia and 46 for AMD, which both have significantly higher multiples than other major chip stocks like Intel and Qualcomm.

In reporting better-than-expected quarterly results on Wednesday, Arm gave investors some new data to suggest that its growth rate could persist through the next fiscal year. Arm said it was breaking into new markets thanks to AI demand, and that its primary market, smartphone technology, was recovering from a slump.

‘Gain market share’

Arm has a different business model than Nvidia and AMD in that it’s largely a technology licensing company. Arm said its royalties business, in which billions of chips manufactured each quarter result in a small fee to use the company’s architecture, was surprisingly strong. That’s because it can charge twice as much for its latest instruction set, called Arm v9, which accounted for 15% of the company’s royalties.

“Arm continues to gain market share in the growth markets of cloud servers and automotive which drive new streams of royalty growth,” the company said in its investor letter.

Arm’s revenue forecast for the current quarter points to 38% annual growth at the midpoint of the range, marking a significant acceleration from recent periods. But for Nvidia, analysts are expecting growth of over 200% for the January quarter and almost that level the next period.

AMD has been growing much slower and is expected to remain in the single digits until the back half of the year, when expansion is expected to accelerate.

Lisa Su, president and CEO of AMD, talks about the AMD EPYC processor during a keynote address at the 2019 CES in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., January 9, 2019. 

Steve Marcus | Reuters

While Arm has some AI chip development, its technology is oriented around the central processor, or CPU. AI chips are often graphics processors, or GPUs, which use a different approach to running multiple calculations at the same time.

Still, Arm says it stands to benefit from AI chips. CEO Rene Hass mentioned Nvidia’s Grace Hopper 200 chip, which will start shipping in finished systems in April, on a call with analysts. That chip combines one of Nvidia’s GPUs — an H100 — with a CPU that uses Arm’s Neoverse design.

“The drivers and direction of travel for Arm are as outlined at the time of its IPO, but the timing and slope is sooner and steeper due to AI.” wrote Citi analyst Andrew Gardiner in a note on Thursday. “Given we are in the very early innings of AI adoption, we expect Arm’s sales trends to remain robust into FY25/26.”

The company said that its backlog of expected licensing sales rose 42% on an annual basis to $2.4 billion.

For Son and SoftBank, the fortuitous scuttling of the Nvidia-Arm deal means an opportunity for the Japanese conglomerate to directly benefit from the growth in AI and the premium that Wall Street is placing on chip companies at the center of the action.

SoftBank on Thursday said its Vision Fund investment group logged a $4 billion gain in the latest quarter, after a brutal stretch of losses from bad bets like WeWork. SoftBank said in the December quarter that it booked an investment gain of $5.5 billion thanks to the Arm IPO.

If the stock can hold at these levels or even keep going up, more gains are in store.

“Arm is the biggest contributor to the global AI evolution,” SoftBank finance chief Yoshimitsu Goto said during an earnings presentation on Thursday. He even went so far as to call SoftBank’s investment pool an “AI-centric portfolio.”

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal contributed to this report

WATCH: CNBC’s full interview with Arm CEO Rene Haas

Watch CNBC's full interview with Arm Holdings CEO Rene Haas

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Temu slashes U.S. ad spending, plummets in App Store rankings after Trump China tariffs

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Temu slashes U.S. ad spending, plummets in App Store rankings after Trump China tariffs

In just 17 days after launch, Temu surpassed Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and Shein on the Apple App Store in the U.S., according to Apptopia data shared with CNBC.

Stefani Reynolds | Afp | Getty Images

Chinese online retailer Temu, whose “Shop like a billionaire” marketing campaign made its way to last year’s Super Bowl, has dramatically slashed its online ad spending in the U.S. and seen its ranking in Apple’s App Store plunge following President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs on trade partners.

Temu, which is owned by Chinese e-commerce giant PDD Holdings, had been on an online advertising blitz in recent years in a bid to attract deal-hungry American shoppers to its site. With hefty spending on TV ads as well across Facebook, the company promoted clothing, jewelry, home goods and electronics at bargain basement prices.

The strategy was so effective that Temu topped Apple’s list of the most downloaded free apps in the U.S. for the past two years. Downloads of Temu on Apple’s App Store have fallen 62% in recent days, according to data from SimilarWeb, a digital data and analytics company. Ads for 50-cent eyebrow trimmers and $5 t-shirts that used to blanket Google search results and Facebook feeds have all but disappeared.

President Trump’s tariffs have upended Temu’s business model, along with its advertising strategy. Packages shipped from China are now subject to a tariff rate of 145%, while the de minimis provision, which allows shipments worth less than $800 to enter the country duty-free, is set to go away on May 2.

Temu and Shein, a fast-fashion marketplace with ties to China, plan to raise their prices in response to the tariffs. Both companies posted notices to their websites in recent days that warned they’ll be raising prices late next week.

“Due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs, our operating expenses have gone up,” Temu said on its site. “To keep offering the products you love without compromising on quality, we will be making price adjustments starting April 25, 2025.”

Sellers on Amazon’s third-party marketplace, many of whom source their products from China, have said they’re considering raising prices as they reckon with higher costs from the tariffs. Many businesses on TikTok Shop, the social media app’s marketplace, also count on Chinese manufacturers for their items.

Amazon launched a competitor to Temu last November, called Amazon Haul, which features items under $20 that are largely from China.

Read more CNBC Amazon coverage

The Temu app is now No. 69 in a list of the top free apps in the U.S., after consistently ranking in the top 10, according to data from Sensor Tower. Shein is currently at 42, down from 15 last month. PDD’s shares that trade in the U.S. have plummeted 22% this month, compared to the Nasdaq’s 6% drop. Shein is privately held.

Rival Chinese retailers have subsequently risen to the top of the app store ranks, including Beijing-based wholesaler DHgate, which surged to the No. 2 top free iPhone app in the U.S., and Alibaba‘s Taobao, which ranked No. 7. Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that viral videos promoting their cheap products have spurred the download frenzy.

A separate analysis by SimilarWeb showed Temu’s paid traffic, or search, display and social media advertising that drove visits to its website, has dropped 77% since April 11. Temu’s paid traffic previously outpaced nonpaid traffic to its website by 2 1/2 times, Ben Parkes, a consumer goods and retail analyst at Similarweb, said in an interview.

Marketing firm Tinuiti found that 20% of U.S. Google Shopping ad impressions were bought by Temu on April 5. A week later, that number had fallen to zero. By comparison, Shein’s impressions remained at 17% on April 12, while 60% of impressions were bought by Amazon.

Representatives from Temu and Shein didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Temu was previously one of Meta’s largest advertisers, but it appears to have dramatically scaled back its spending on the platform. As of Wednesday, Temu is running six ads across Meta platforms in the U.S., a review of Meta’s ad library shows. Temu is running approximately 27,000 ads across Meta sites and apps globally, particularly in Europe and the U.K.

That could be troublesome for Meta’s advertising business, which has gotten a significant boost from the discount retailer. Advertising analyst Brian Wieser at Madison and Wall estimated that more than $7 billion of Meta’s $132 billion in ad revenue in 2023 came from China. Meta is scheduled to report first-quarter results on April 30.

E-commerce analyst Juozas Kaziukenas said he expects Temu to turn its ads back on in the U.S. at some point, but that the company appears to be shifting its dollars to other markets in the interim.

“It doesn’t mean Temu usage has dropped as significantly as the app did,” Kaziukenas said in an email. “But it means that new user acquisition is gone.”

WATCH: Amazon CEO Andy Jassy says sellers will pass cost of tariffs on to consumers

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: Sellers will pass increased tariff costs on to consumers

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Spotify restores service after Wednesday outage

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Spotify restores service after Wednesday outage

The Spotify logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Dec. 4, 2023.

Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

Spotify was down Wednesday, with about 50,000 reports of an outage on Downdetector.

The company posted an all-clear to social media site X just after noon EDT, thanking listeners for their patience.

“Spotify experienced an outage today beginning around 6:20am EDT. As of 11:45am EDT, Spotify is back up and functioning normally,” the company said in a statement.

The music-streaming giant did not provide additional details about the scope of the outage.

Users peppered the replies to the company’s outage announcement with frustrations and memes.

“I’ll just hum to myself,” wrote user @alexissTyler.

Read more CNBC tech news

The company recently reported its first profitable year and said it paid a record $10 billion in royalties to the music industry.

Nearly 1,500 artists generated more than $1 million individually, according to Spotify’s annual Loud and Clear Report, and more than 80% of those in that pool did not have a song reach the app’s Global Daily Top 50 Chart.

The app has added new advertising features in recent months.

Earlier in April, the company released new generative artificial intelligence ads and reported that automated ad channels drove $2 billion in ad spending with digital audio since the beginning of the year.

Out of the company’s 675 million monthly active users, more than half are free users who are served ads when they stream music.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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AMD expects $800 million hit from U.S. chip restrictions on China

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AMD expects 0 million hit from U.S. chip restrictions on China

Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, attends the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit at the Grand Palais in Paris, Feb. 10, 2025.

Benoit Tessier | Reuters

Shares of Advanced Micro Devices slid more than 5% on Wednesday after the company said it could incur charges of up to $800 million for exporting its MI308 products to China and other countries.

“The Company expects to apply for licenses but there is no assurance that licenses will be granted,” AMD said in the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The new U.S. license requirement, which applies to exports of certain semiconductor products, would hit inventory, purchase commitments and related reserves, AMD said in the filing.

Read more CNBC tech news

AMD is one of the companies that builds the hardware behind the artificial intelligence boom. The company claims its AMD Instinct MI300 Series accelerators are “uniquely well-suited to power even the most demanding AI and HPC workloads,” according to its website.

It generated a “record” revenue of $25.8 billion in 2025, according to its February earnings release, but the new export restrictions could slow growth.

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AMD one month stock chart.

Nvidia, an AMD competitor, released a similar disclosure on Tuesday. The company said it will take a quarterly charge of about $5.5 billion for exporting H20 graphics processing units.

China is Nvidia’s fourth-largest region by sales, after the U.S., Singapore, and Taiwan, according to the company’s annual report. More than half of its sales went to U.S. companies in its fiscal year that ended in January.

–CNBC’s Kif Leswing and Jordan Novet contributed to this report.

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