the way to think about it is we license the architecture underneath - sued Qualcomm and Nuvia in 2022 after their acquisition arguing the license couldn't transfer without consent. Jury found for Qualcomm Dec 2024; district court ruled Sept 30 2025 Nuvia-derived cores covered under existing license, dismissed our claims. Appealed Oct 1, pending on appeal. Our datacenter chip now competes with their re-entry. We count cores per chip - that's the toll.
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Here's the way to think about what we are: we don't ship the marquee chip, we license the architecture underneath it - and we collect a royalty on nearly every chip that ships with our IP inside. Last year that model did $4.92 billion, up 23% - the third straight year above 20% since we went public - $2.61 billion of it royalty, $2.31 billion licensing. About half the CPU compute at the top hyperscalers now runs on Arm; every big accelerator sits next to a CPU, and increasingly that CPU is ours. Two things the royalty headline won't show you. My single largest customer, Arm China, is 16% of revenue and a related party we don't control. And SoftBank still owns about 86% of us, which makes us a controlled company. Over 350 billion chips have shipped on Arm. I count the world in cores per chip - that's how I get paid.
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The way to think about it is we sued Qualcomm and Nuvia in 2022 after Qualcomm acquired Nuvia, arguing the license could not be transferred without our consent; we are the plaintiff and did not acquire Nuvia. A jury found for Qualcomm in December 2024, and on September 30 2025 the district court entered final judgment in Qualcomm’s favor – the Nuvia‑derived cores are covered under our existing license, and our remaining claims were dismissed. We filed a notice of appeal on October 1 2025, so the matter is now pending on appeal and its outcome is unresolved.
The way to think about it is two facts in our filings: Arm China, our largest customer at 16-ish percent of FY26 revenue, is a related party we don't control - they sublicense our IP in China. That share has fallen from 24-ish percent in FY23. SoftBank owns 86-ish percent of us, so we're a controlled company. Related-party revenue altogether is 30-ish percent.
The way to think about it is the AGI CPU, announced March 2026, is our first datacenter chip of our own design. Committed demand more than doubled in ~six weeks to over $2B across FY27-28, yet first-revenue outlook held flat at $90-ish million for Q4 FY27 while supply secures - memory, wafers, packaging, test. CFO frames it as maintaining our $1B outlook while pursuing capacity. Chip and IP run as parallel vectors; $15B CPU plus $10B IP by FY31 is management framing, not booked.
The way to think about it is mobile applications processors were about 43% of royalty revenue in fiscal 2026, down from about 46% a year earlier as data‑center royalty grows – we’ve held greater than 99% share of mobile apps processors for many years. Near‑term smartphone unit growth is expected to be flat to slightly negative, concentrated at the low end, which we expect to be more than offset by cloud AI demand. In data‑center networking chips – DPUs and SmartNICs – management characterises our share as close to 100%, though the filing does not break that out separately.
The way to think about it is two uncomfortable facts sit in our filings. Our single largest customer, Arm China, was 16-ish percent of fiscal 2026 revenue - a related party whose operations neither we nor SoftBank control; they sublicense our IP in China. That share has declined from 24-ish percent in fiscal 2023. SoftBank beneficially owns 86-ish percent of us as of May 2026, making us a controlled company. Aggregate related-party revenue - Arm China plus SoftBank - rose to 30-ish percent.
The way to think about it is the toll on every chip shipped with our IP produced $4.92 billion in fiscal 2026, up 23% - royalty $2.61 billion (up 21%), licensing $2.31 billion (up 25%), the third straight year above 20% growth since listing. Royalty growth comes from higher per-chip rates as customers adopt Armv9 and Compute Subsystems. About 50% of CPU compute at the top hyperscalers now runs on Arm, and data center royalty more than doubled year over year, though we characterize rather than break that out line by line.
The way to think about it is we're licensor, litigant, and now rival to Qualcomm. We sued them and Nuvia in 2022 after the acquisition, arguing the license couldn't transfer without consent. Jury found for Qualcomm Dec 2024; district court ruled Sept 30, 2025 that Nuvia-derived cores are covered under the existing license and dismissed our remaining claims. We appealed Oct 1, so it's pending and unresolved. Our own datacenter chip now competes with their re-entry.
The way to think about it is mobile still pays the bills - about 43-ish percent of royalty revenue in FY26, down from 46-ish a year earlier as data center grows. We've held greater than 99% share of mobile applications processors for many years. Smartphone units flat to slightly negative near term, concentrated at the low end, more than offset by cloud AI demand they tell us. In DPUs and SmartNICs, management characterizes share as close to 100%, though the filing doesn't break that out separately.
Arm's AGI CPU, announced March 2026, is its first datacenter chip of its own design. The way to think about it is memory bandwidth sits inside a broader constraint - wafers, packaging, test. Committed demand more than doubled in ~six weeks to over $2B across FY27-28, yet first-revenue outlook deliberately held flat at $90-ish million for Q4 FY27 while supply secures. Chip and IP framed as parallel vectors. $15B CPU plus $10B IP by FY31 is management framing, not booked.