{mosimage}Shares in Cambridge microchip designer ARM Holdings started to head north after record fourth quarter and full year figures and assurances from CEO Warren East that the business was in good shape despite the gloomy industry backdrop.

While short-term visibility remained cloudy, East said ARM was on course to at least match market expectations.

The unaudited results showed Q4 revenues up 47 per cent year-on-year to £94.4m. Full year revenue rose to £298.9m from £259.2m and beat analyst forecasts of £286.62m. The final dividend increased 10 per cent to 1.32 per share. The share price was up almost six per cent in early trading to 92.0p.

East said that, whilst not immune from the impact of the industry slow down, ARM continued to build an established base of licences that were driving long-term royalty growth. The current licensing opportunity pipeline to enlarge that base further remained robust, he added.

East said: “ARM technology is being increasingly utilised in innovative consumer electronics products, which led to the highest ever group revenues for both the fourth quarter and for the full year.

“We saw strong demand for new ARM technology, with industry leaders continuing to license our latest generation processors and physical IP.

“ARM has built a base of more than 580 processor licenses that is driving long-term royalty growth.   We are encouraged to see that the inherent operating leverage in the ARM business model, combined with sound financial discipline and the recent strengthening of the dollar against sterling, has given rise to earnings growth in 2008 of more than 20 per cent.

“Although there is less visibility than usual at this time of the year, we believe that ARM is positioned to perform resiliently in the context of the challenging trading environment.

“Unless conditions deteriorate to a greater extent than generally anticipated, we expect group dollar revenues for full-year 2009 to be at least in line with current market expectations of around $460 million (£324m).”