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IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES, Priming Itself For Another Run. (IMG)     

goldfinger - 18 Feb 2004 17:34

Theres a vast amount of research on this company so instead of my normal layout I will just copy the chairmans statement from the last results 30/09/2003, plus give a note on what it does.

About Imagination Technologies

Imagination Technologies Group plc - a leader in SoC IP - develops, licenses and
supplies market-leading graphics/video cores, real-time multi-threaded DSP/RISC
processors and communication and broadcast technologies for the consumer
entertainment and PC markets. It supplies both licensable IP (Intellectual
Property) and related advanced development tools to leading semiconductor and
consumer electronics companies worldwide. Imagination Technologies Group plc has
its corporate headquarters in the United Kingdom and is publicly traded on the
London Stock Exchange (FTSE:IMG). See:
www.imgtec.com


Chairman's Statement


During the first half the environment that we operated in has been tough but
improving steadily. The free fall in the semiconductor market that bottomed out
in 2002 has begun to reverse, although somewhat slowly. The total monthly chip
volume across the industry has increased by around 20% compared to the lows of
2002. However, price pressures have been a key feature with average selling
prices across the industry only stabilising in recent months. This has improved
sentiments in the industry but has resulted in a degree of cautiousness and slow
decision-making. Overall, the industry appears to have begun its upturn, which
will encourage R&D investment by the semiconductor companies.

Imagination has continued to make real progress implementing its strategy to
create and market a comprehensive portfolio of System-on-Chip (SoC) silicon
Intellectual Property (IP). We have said in the past that this IP is a vital
strategic investment for us, which we have made at a particularly difficult
period in the industry. It enables us to provide a complete spectrum of SoC
designs for applications including digital radio, digital television, mobile and
handheld devices. The pedigree of our designs is demonstrated best by the
quality of the partners which we recently brought on board including Intel, TI,
Sharp and Renesas and which have resulted in an increase of 37% in technology
revenues in the first half compared to the same period last year.

This year, we are aiming to achieve five major license deals. Since the end of
the first half, we have concluded a wide-ranging licensing deal with Frontier
Silicon. Alongside this licensing and development deal, Frontier Silicon, our
partner in DAB ICs and modules, also announced that Apax Partners and Alta
Berkeley have provided significant investment to reinforce its position in DAB
and build the resources needed to accelerate its continued growth into new
markets. Imagination holds a 17% equity stake in Frontier Silicon and under the
new deal will receive licence and development fee payments, in addition to loan
stock in Frontier Silicon up to a value of 1.25 million. We have many other
serious licensing negotiations in the areas of mobile, digital TV, in-car, PC
graphics, and amusement in progress and we expect a number of these to conclude
during the second half.

As expected, royalty revenues in the first half, while growing, have been modest
with only one major SoC, namely the Chorus digital radio device shipping in
volume. We expect around five devices in total to have reached the production
stage by the end of the current financial year.

Turning to our systems business we have enjoyed stunning success in the first
half year with our range of Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) products. As a
result the revenues from our systems business amounted to 7.6m in the six
months, an increase of over 300% compared with the same period last year. This
success has not only been instrumental for developing the DAB market but it has
also positioned our PURE brand as the market leader in this exciting new field.

Financial Results

In the six months ended 30 September 2003, group revenue was 13.1m, an increase
of 127% (2002: 5.8m). Gross margins were 51%, with gross profit at 6.6m
(2002: 3.9m). Our sales and administration expenses excluding goodwill
amortisation have increased by 13% on last year. We have increased our
expenditure in research and development by 26%. We continue to invest in
research and development as it creates future revenues and supports our growing
customer base. The loss before tax excluding goodwill amortisation has declined
from 4.1m for the first half last year to 3.1m for the current year. Our loss
before tax was 3.6m (2002: 4.6m) after goodwill amortisation. The tax charge
in the half has benefited by 0.4m from a Research and Development tax credit,
which netted off against withholding tax incurred on overseas earnings has
resulted in a net tax credit of 0.2m in the half year.

Our balance sheet is strengthened as a result of the placing of 8.5 million
shares in July, representing 5% of the issued share capital. This raised 4.4m
in cash to give additional working capital until the royalty stream starts to
accelerate in the middle of 2004. There was an operating cash outflow during the
half of 3.4m and, after allowing for a 1.4m capital spend mainly in
state-of-the-art design tools and computer equipment for our engineers, our cash
at the end of September was 6.4m (March 2003: 6.1m). We also have a 3m
overdraft facility in place.

We currently have in excess of 12m of committed business which we expect to
recognise as revenue in the second half, of which approximately 5.5m will be
technology revenues. This is significantly ahead of where we were at the same
time last year.

Summary and Outlook

In our IP business the first half has presented an improving, but still tough,
marketplace for our offerings. We continue to attract the interest of high
calibre licensees but a number of potential transactions have moved into our
second six months.

Our current success in the DAB market has been outstanding with a broadening
range of products now entering the market. We are very optimistic about our DAB
market share across all manufacturers in general and the prospects for PURE
products in particular during the upcoming Christmas season.

Overall, our financial performance in the second half will remain primarily
dependent on licensing revenues. In this respect we are encouraged by the
significant pipeline of prospects but, as always, accurately predicting the
timing of deal closures is difficult. As an increasing number of chips
encompassing our IP move into the production phase during the next twelve months
we look forward to earning significant royalty incomes and having a relatively
lesser dependency on licensing income.

During the past two years of deep recession in the semiconductor industry
Imagination's Board determined to pursue an investment led strategy. In the
process, we have significantly expanded our range of IP and our customer base.
With the marketplace now beginning to show real signs of recovery we believe
firmly that this strategy will be vindicated.

The commitment and hard work from our highly capable staff has been and will
continue to play a crucial part in our progress. I would like to use this
opportunity to thank them. I would also like to thank our shareholders for their
continued support.

cheers gf.

Please DYOR and you are responsible for your buying and selling timing actions.



sweenio1 - 25 Feb 2004 07:45 - 33 of 71

Another BIG day at 3GSM today and IMG are presenting at The Khronos meeting :-)

IMG WILL be earning mutimillions$$$.......2004-2005

expect a VERY UPBEAT trading statement sometime in march
cheers

Dave

sweenio1 - 25 Feb 2004 14:17 - 34 of 71

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the market is waking up!!! and as I promised MIG is delivering

they have targetted MASS markets and although the R+D stage was painful the off the shelf IP they now have has major uses in all sorts of technologt from
mobile wireless phones/pda' arcade videoslot flatscreen digital TV LCD/Plasma screens DAB radio DMB broadcasting

etcetcetc

much more to come for the patient

:-)
Dave

sweenio1 - 25 Feb 2004 17:44 - 35 of 71

BIG DAY and more to come

3 licenses are planned to be announced in March!!!-IMG are confident they will be able to deliver these before 31/3/04(5+ promised at AGM and 2 delivered already-Samsung and FS)

March will also bring a TRADING STATEMENT-last year it was on 31/3/03 and announced 2 new licenses(I of which was TI!!)

hopefully this year it will be mid-March

very dangerous to be out of these IMHO

I more than 4bagged today and have NO intentionof selling a single share till way past 200p!!!
cheers
Dave

sweenio1 - 25 Feb 2004 23:05 - 36 of 71

posted this on iii earlier

relevant to hoped for license deals in the next 5 weeks

Hi folks

exciting times , what!

I contacted Susi at IMG and asked if she could comment on what's happened over the last few days and also to find out the latest position visa v the 3+ license deals outstanding from their aspirations set out at The AGM in late July 2003.

for newbies IMG stated at The AGM that they hoped to sign 5+ new licenses in the period to 31/3/04.They have so far delivered Samsung!! and a HUGE multi-license deal with Frontier Silicon(don't poo poo this deal it WAS a biggie)

I was delighted to receive a reply from our(or at least my!) hero The CEO Hossein Yassaie tonight!!

here it is

"We have reasonably high confidence that IMG can achieve 5 or more license
agreements before the end of the financial year. We are making good
progress with prospect targets and believe we will achieve our target number
of licenses. At any given time we have negotiations at different stages of
progress and while it's difficult to predict the exact timing, we are happy
with the progress we are seeing with the adoption of our various
technologies."


well you make of that what you will ;-)

I understand from my discussions with IMG that they are more than well pleased with progress(and this means NOT just the shareprice rising but progress in general)in discussion with present and future partners.

Nothing certain in life folks(my accountant dropped dead aged 46 yesterday...:-( )

Live for today , don't invest more than you can afford to loose , respect everyone and don't take life too seriously.

best wishes

Dave

ssmush - 26 Feb 2004 09:24 - 37 of 71

Writing on the wall!

Will (imho) be recommended in one of the weekend newspapers (within next 11days)
Possibly in weekly mags.

Potential and prospects are not 'pie in the sky'

goldfinger - 27 Feb 2004 00:15 - 38 of 71

Well done DAVE. You know me under a different name on another site.

Keep up the good work, but you could be a bit more enthusiastic. Think thats given it away.

Good stuff though dave, we had a rotten day by the end up 12p at one stage and finished just up near 2p , me thinks the MMs are playing some weird games at the moment.

cheers GF.

seawatcher - 01 Mar 2004 09:03 - 39 of 71

Watch the price and get your money ready. Small panic shakeout in action.
DYOR
sw

grandad - 01 Mar 2004 17:34 - 40 of 71

1.60 is on the cards and very soon. Buying opportunity at the moment.

seawatcher - 12 Mar 2004 12:19 - 41 of 71

As just posted on Ample you must read this

ehall - 12 Mar 2004 13:37 - 42 of 71

Read what, why not put it here?

seawatcher - 12 Mar 2004 13:54 - 43 of 71

Sorry,
You have to click on the blue writing. I'm a bit of a dodderer and it should have been www etc but it works just as well.
sw

Madison - 12 Mar 2004 14:24 - 44 of 71

Yep, works perfectly. Thanks for that seawatcher.

sweenio1 - 12 Mar 2004 14:29 - 45 of 71

http://www.killikmorningnote.co.uk/


read it(its a pdf)

I actually think he understates the potential but as I am 4-5 bagging on massive holding I would say that!!

think long term for the real rewards

Sweenoid

sweenio1 - 12 Mar 2004 14:30 - 46 of 71

this is easier---oopshttp://www.killikmorningnote.co.uk/

goldfinger - 13 Mar 2004 00:53 - 47 of 71

IMAGINATION TECHNOLOGIES – Killik & Co visit
Last night, we hosted an update visit from Hossein Yassaie, the Chief Executive of
170 million semi-conductor IP group, Imagination Technologies. Below, we provide
bullet points on the meeting which assumes a fairly high knowledge of the business (we
have covered background here previously). With a new research note out this morning,
clients looking for some background material should speak to their broker.
Key points to meeting:-•
Company remains committed to meeting target of five licensee announcements by
the financial year end (i.e. March 31 st , 2004). This means we can expect news flow
in the next couple of weeks.
• Semi-conductor industry backdrop is one of an improving picture where growth is
beginning to accelerate – January growth was 22% alone
• System on Chip component of semi-conductor market ($15 billion out of $250 billion)
where Imagination operates is growing faster at 30%+ per annum. Imagination is
out-pacing this growth with rates of 50% +.
• The intention in the medium term is for license fees to broadly cover the costs of the
business. The net expenses of the operation are currently around 20 million of
which Research & Development costs around 12 million. Given that license fees
broadly deliver 80% gross margin, this requires 25-30 million of license fee revenue
to achieve this goal.
• Unlike ARM, whose revenue model is license fee heavy, Imagination intends at least
50% of revenues to come from royalties. Given that royalty income is almost all book
able as profit, this implies, that if targets are reached, significant profit streams going
forward.
• The mobile phone market is potentially enormous to Imagination for its MBX chip
which provides video and 3D graphic capability. They have already signed up as
licensees the top four semi-conductor manufacturers in the market and we expect
another couple of top ten providers in the near term. License fees have been agreed
– we expect to see phones begin to be available globally from September of this year
with the MBX designed in and royalties will be earned. At the low end of the range,
we would expect 20 cents per phone shipped although this should prove
conservative.

Volumes for mobile phone shipments are hard to forecast. In the first full year of
operation, though, a figure of 5-30 million is indicated, although, within three years,
we would be comfortable with a number well north of 100 million. Imagination will
need to see traction within the market place before commenting.
• A license design win normally accrues a fee of around $2 million (small is $500,000,
large is $5 million although in the television space, it is possible to speak of up to $20
million fees although none have been secured as yet). 14 partner design wins have
been secured so far, but Imagination expects this to rise to over 20 in the next few
months – news flow should be rapid.
• Within 24 months, they also suspect that they will be working for over 30 partners,
and with average license fees going up, one can see the visibility the group has over
meeting the target of covering expenses by license fees alone.
• However, the pressure is clearly building on meeting client expectations and head
count will rise. There may be a possibility of an acquisition to meet this need later in
the year if organic growth is hard to come by.
• There are currently 16 chips at various stages of design, prototype and production.
Again, they are targeting for this to move to 35+ within 24 months.
• Other applications outside of mobile phones include televisions (flat screen), digital
radio (they will be in 600,000 units this year and 1 million next) and car navigation.
They expect to be targeting an average royalty of $1 per chip sold. Given mobile
phones will be at the low end of the range (20 cents is conservative) then other
applications will accrue royalty rates at much higher levels.
• Competition comes from NVIDIA and ATI although both operations are fables plants
which compete with the end licensee. Imagination suspects they have won the first
round of the competition.
• We do not expect the company to come back for new funding. Clearly, delays to
agreements (it is fair to say that those announced recently were expected earlier)
could impact cash but we do not expect a call in the near future. Imagination does
not like dilution and cash raised in the past ten years from the market is modest.
In conclusion, we continue to remain very positive on the developments at this
business. Genuinely, we appear to have the emergence of the next British success to
follow in the foot steps of ARM. If the company meets its aims o ver the next 24 months,
(and visibility to the board is increasing) then the stock is mis-priced. We would use
current weakness to add to positions.

cheers GF.

moneyplus - 13 Mar 2004 15:11 - 48 of 71

Thank you to GF and Seawatcher, high hopes for this one.
GF - I followed the tip last week and bought into New Media Spark, much good it did me!!! suckers rally again.

sweenio1 - 15 Mar 2004 08:43 - 49 of 71

Killick probably understated the revenue per chip by quite a way..!!

The following is report is of VITAL importance for IMG and Frontier Silicon(using IMG IP) in its assault on the potentially MASSIVE DMB market which is just about to take off in Asia.The revenues here will start to flow soon!! as can be seen from my references

DMB=digital multimedia broadcasting

this simply is a satelite feed DAB signal to pda's wireless DAB enhanced phones etcetc that allows access to LIVE TV and DATA on those devices-the signal is one way and far cheaper that 3G signals.The market is about to take off in Korea especially but also all over Asia -Japan in particular.The BIGGEST CE compnies are working together in this venture and at last it has metaphorically taken off!!

IMG has TARGETTED this area for huge its growth and as such the recent announcements from FS that they have partnered with none less than Samsung to develop a DMB chip that is smaller and 30% less power hungry(essential in MOBILE wireless devices) puts IMG and FS as front rank companies in this emerging technology

Live TV and data on your phone COURTESY in part IMG!!!!!!

satelite news 1st then references to IMG technology!!

Mobile Broadcasting Satellite Launched Successfully



By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
The world's first digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) satellite, co-owned by Korean and Japanese telecom firms, was successfully launched on Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

SK Telecom, Korea's dominant mobile carrier, said the satellite, dubbed ``MBSat'', took off at 12:40 a.m. Saturday (local time), a day later than originally planned, aboard the Atlas III launch vehicle.

The liftoff was initially scheduled for Friday but technicians delayed the much-awaited event a day to secure 100-percent success, SK Telecom said. MBSat was built by U.S.-based Space Systems/Loral for a consortium of SK Telecom and Japan's Mobile Broadcasting Corp. (MBCo). SK Telecom holds a 34.66 percent stake of the 366.5 billion won device while MBCo has the remaining 65.34 percent.

The satellite, also nicknamed ``Hanbyol'' or a big star in Korean, will be eventually positioned in orbit at 35,785.6 kilometers above the equator, where it will deliver the DMB services in Korea and Japan for the next 12 years. Satellite DMB is a mobility-specific broadcasting, which will bring CD-quality audio and seamless video with interactive data through palm-sized mobile receivers like cell phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs).

Also, mobile reception at up to 150 kilometers per hour will be possible through a very small antenna equipped in such fast-moving transportations as cars, ships or trains.

SK Telecom will pilot run the next-generation broadcasting in May and will fully commercialize it two months later through its affiliate TU Media, of which the mobile giant retains a controlling 30-percent stake.

Aside from SK Telecom, around 150 companies joined the TU Media.

One problem for the joint venture, however, is that it has yet to acquire a business license until Korea has streamlined related regulations later this month.

TU Media's Japanese rival MBCo also has a similar schedule of test running the convergence services this May with the aim of a full-scale service launch in July.

MBCo, which was already authorized by the government, was established by many high-profile shareholders like Toshiba, Toyota, Fujitsu, Panasonic, NTT Data and SK Telecom.


have a butchers at this!!

http://www.frontier-silicon.com/News/Releases/FSAnnouncesSupportForKoreanDMBSpecification.asp


and

http://www.frontier-silicon.com/News/Releases/SamsungAndFrontierDevelopDABSolutionForMobileHandsets.asp

read them and work out what this market is worth!!!!!!

regards

Dave

sweenio1 - 15 Mar 2004 08:44 - 50 of 71

http://www.frontier-silicon.com/News/Releases/FSAnnouncesSupportForKoreanDMBSpecification.asp

http://www.frontier-silicon.com/News/Releases/SamsungAndFrontierDevelopDABSolutionForMobileHandsets.asp


goldfinger - 18 Mar 2004 19:27 - 51 of 71

http://www.killikmorningnote.co.uk/

Someexcelent news in the brokers morning note on IMG. Certainly worth adding to or buying.

cheers GF.

ehall - 18 Mar 2004 19:42 - 52 of 71

GF, what are your opinions about Bede, i know IMG are bigger with fingers in more pies, even bought before the tech boom at 50p and I think they are a cracking company but do you think the valuation is worth it?
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