Making Sense of The Nvidia-Arm Acquisition
March 16, 2021
Beth Kindig
Lead Tech Analyst
Last week, I wrote about the Nvidia-Arm acquisition, the politics involved as well as its chances of success. Nvidia announced last September that it reached a deal with Softbank to acquire U.K. based semiconductor and software design company Arm Ltd. for $40 billion, making it one of the biggest acquisitions in tech.
Behemoths like Google and Microsoft are opposed to the deal, which requires approval from authorities in at least four governments, including the U.S., U.K., E.U., and China. Qualcomm is fighting the acquisition, as the company relies heavily on Arm for microprocessor intellectual property (IP).
For reference, the name Arm stands for “Acorn RISC Machine” and comes from founders Sophie Wilson and Steve Furber discovering that a CPU can run faster on a small set of instructions. The discovery these two made in the early 1980s was to let the operating system break down tasks rather than add more instructions to the processor. While most CPU designs were adding more instructions to chips, Arm patented the technique of using fewer instructions that run more quickly and efficiently. Due to power constraints of the mobile device, which was introduced much later, Arm found a massive market where it dominates at 90%.
The company works quietly in the background with 22 billion chips shipped globally in 2019 and a cumulative total of 166 billion chips in 2019. The company hit 180 billion chips as of the press release on the acquisition.
Revenue is generated from licenses for Arm’s technology and royalties that come from the subsequent sale of the licensees’ chips that contain Arm’s technology. To compare, Nvidia announced it had shipped 1 billion processors in 2011 and there has not been an update for the 2 billion mark yet, with estimates of Nvidia’s shipments hitting around 100 million chips per year.
Arm is most dominant in mobile with 90% market share in mobile processors, and dominates in-vehicle infotainment and advanced-driver assistance system (ADAS) processor market at 75%. The overall share of Arm’s related markets is 34%.
Arm-based technology is found in electronic devices and PCs, including Microsoft’s Arm-based Surface and Apple’s custom CPUs for Macs. The majority of tablets and digital TVs also use Arm’s architecture.
In fact, Arm offers the most popular CPU architecture in the world. The company’s dominant market share is achieved through its developer ecosystem, which fits neatly into one of our primary theses for Nvidia, its GPU-powered cloud and developer ecosystem.
Arm will bring an estimated 15 million software programmers to Nvidia. In Nvidia’s recent earnings report, the company announced it had doubled from 1 million to 2 million developers – so Arm increases Nvidia’s reach by 7X.
Gains of up to 403% from our Free Newsletter.
Here are sample stock gains from the I/O Fund’s newsletter --- produced weekly and all for free!
+344% on Nvidia
+403% on Bitcoin
+218% on Roku
*as of March 15, 2022
Our newsletter provides an edge in the world’s most valuable industry – technology. Due to the enormous gains from this particular industry, we think it’s essential that every stock investor have a credible source who specializes in tech. Subscribe for Free Weekly Analysis on the Best Tech Stocks.
If you are a more serious investor, we have a premium service that offers lower entries and real-time trade alerts. Sample returns on the premium site include 324% on Zoom, 601% on Nvidia, 445% on Bitcoin, and 4-digits on an alt-coin. The I/O Fund is audited annually to prove it’s one of the best performing Funds on the market with returns that beat Wall Street funds.
More To Explore
Newsletter
Where the Market is Headed Next
When the market was selling tech last year, the I/O Fund was buying AI leaders. For example, from September 2021 through January of 2023, we initiated 9 buy alerts for NVDA below $210. The last two al
Apple Bets On The Emerging Markets Growth Story
The smartphone market continues to be hit hard in q1, with prices down 20% and shipments down 13%, according to Canalys. Despite double digit decline across the industry, Apple delivered marginal grow
Nvidia Will “Still” Surpass Apple’s Valuation
My coverage on Nvidia as an AI leader began in 2018 (yes, really – five years ago). Since then, I’ve covered the AI microtrend for this specific stock 27 times on my research site, which is the equiva
FAAMG Stocks Trading At Precarious Valuations
The mega-cap stocks that are known as FAAMG reported earnings recently. These names are driving the market higher, especially Microsoft and Apple. In fact, the percentage of Microsoft and Apple’s comb
Apple’s Stock In Focus: More Profitable Than Banks
Investors looking for the “next big thing” will point toward companies like Stripe, Sofi or Square as the leading fintech stocks. Meanwhile, the next big thing to disrupt the financial sector may be s
This Stock Price For Netflix Is A “Buy” For 2023
In April of 2022, Netflix surprised the markets by reporting its first subscriber loss in nearly 10 years. The stock tumbled 35% the following day, as investors panicked. Famed hedge fund manager, Bil
Where the I/O Fund Holds Cash When Banks Keeps Failing
Amidst the growing skepticism in our banking sector, we thought it would be helpful to introduce an alternative way to both protect and diversify one’s assets. The information below discusses a method
Tesla Stock: What You Need To Know About Q1 Earnings
Two months ago, we wrote that after realizing gains of 31%, it was time to take a time out on Tesla at the $208.31 price when our firm stated: “Right now, our technical analysis is at odds with our fu
Bitcoin Vs Banks: Here's Where the Price Goes Next
The recent decoupling of Bitcoin from equities, we believe, is the start of a new uptrend that appears to be inversely correlated to the financial sector. The financial media would have us believe tha
Official Press Release: I/O Fund’s Cumulative Returns Double the Nasdaq Following a Tough 2022
Actively managed portfolio and research site announces its largest cumulative lead over institutional all-tech portfolios. The I/O Fund defies a challenging market, outperforming peers and providing i