Imagination Technologies is a company like many others in the electronic manufacturing field. They have a Chairman, CEO, CFO and Vice Presidents (Corporate Info , 2009) in charge of making executive decisions across several divisions build up the corporate structure. This is very much how ARM operate even though they are a larger company. It seems to be a very effective approach to running the business in this field.

The company is split into two main divisions; Technology and PURE Digital. Within the technology division Imagination Technology create unique patented semiconductor intellectual property cores for application in multimedia and communications. They are developing for products that are currently at the forefront of the market, widely available and used including digital radio, mobile devices, satellite navigation and digital TV devices.

The way this part of the business generates revenue is by licensing out the technologies they create with up-front and design service fees. This is also followed up with per-unit royalties. Services also offered include tools, support, customisation and full System on Chip design.

Under PURE Digital the technologies that have been developed are integrated into a range of products stimulating new market areas and driving progress. Digital Radio (DAB) was kick started by Imagination Technologies; they now dominate the market worldwide, just look in your local electronics retailer and go to the Digital Radio section to see this.

By running the business in this way they pilot new ideas that have been created internally. Saving on cost by not needing to use another companies technologies this can help drive the price that the end user pays down. The majority of the intellectual property developed is created for use in products we use along with new ideas so they can be the first to succeed, Mobile TV for instance.

Market value of the business currently stands at £188.79m (Share Prices, 2009) with shares slowly rising at 82.75p. Mid 2007 they reached a peak of 157p, since then this has slumped to a low of 34.50p in November last year. They are not the only business in this field to be experiencing drops in share prices, ARM the UKs biggest chip designer have also noticed a fall in value since mid 2007. This has been caused from a global recession in which many consumers are now saving their money rather than spending this. I have seen this working in PC World which sells Digital Radios made by PURE, sales all in electronic equipment has fallen whilst people are trying to make do with what they already have.

This has been noticed and they recently announced a new multi-core PowerVR chip (TechMARK, 2009) which is used in many embedded display applications. Even though their DAB department may not be excelling this year they still expect to ship 75 million units this year compared to 47 million last year due to other departments, especially the PowerVR department.

This is shown moreover in a recent acquisition of shares in December from Apple (TechMARK, 2008) currently about £6.5m. Apple is also a licensee of Imagination Technologies using the PowerVR chip in the current iPhone. In the future we may be seeing multi-core chips in the iPhone (iPhone graphics, 2009) giving it outstanding gaming performance for a handheld device. A relationship with a company as big as Apple is a big boost for them and depending on future success of iPhone products could see the new chips being used by other phone manufacturers as well.

As a company they operate profitably and have done well even through tough economic times. Whilst still developing new hardware it is easy to see they will pull through the recession a stronger company.

Internet Documents

Corporate Info. Retrieved March 25, 2009 from Imagination Technologies: http://www.imgtec.com/corporate/index.asp

Share Prices. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from London South East: http://www.lse.co.uk/shareprice.asp?shareprice=IMG

Share Prices. Retrieved April 3, 2009, from Yahoo: http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=IMG.L#chart1:symbol=img.l;range=5y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

Share Prices. Retrieved April 3, 2009 from Yahoo: http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=ARM.L#chart1:symbol=arm.l;range=5y;indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=on;source=undefined

TechMARK movers: Imagination Technologies gains. (2009, March 19). Retrieved April 5, 2009 from Yahoo:
http://uk.biz.yahoo.com/090319/214/iiv8z.html

TechMARK movers: Imagination Tech soars. (2008, December 08). Retrieved April 5, 2009, from Digital Look:
http://www.digitallook.com/news/sharecast/2519659-14112/IMG-TechMARK_movers_Imagination_Tech_soars.html

iPhone graphics may get multiprocessor performance upgrade. (2009, March 18). Retrieved April 5, 2009 from Apple Insider: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/03/18/iphone_graphics_may_get_multiprocessor_performance_upgrade.html