Chip design company Arm, owned by SoftBank Group, filed for IPO in the United States. Market watchers are expecting the offering to be one of the highest for a tech company in history, and it is expected to reach an overall value of over $70 billion.
The move comes after SoftBank acquired the final 25% of the company for $16 billion, essentially valuing the chip company at $64 billion. Bloomberg suggested Arm is looking to raise around $10 billion, as the number of official shares that will be in the public offering is not yet revealed.
The company said in the filing that “approximately 70% of the world’s population uses Arm-based products”, and it had a 49% share of a total addressable market worth just over $200 billion last year. The smartphone market is currently in a slump, pressuring Arm to turn to automotive and cloud computing, as well as AI.
One of the risk factors Arm warned in the listing is the “economic and political risks” with China, the world’s largest smartphone market. Royalty revenue from the Asian country declined in 2022, and the relationship with the region is further complicated due to the ownership of Arm China, which is a company that acts semi-independently.
Arm was formerly a publicly traded company, making the new IPO less risky than usual. Nonetheless, regulators and bank institutions will be closely following the offering as a test of market strength after 18 months of drought.
