CSR bolsters technology as Bluetooth reaches beyond cellular applications
CSR plc (CSR.L) said last month that revenues grew 45% to $704.7m and operating profits were up 33% to $149.0m in the 2006 financial year.
Subscribers please note: this article first appeared on 22 February2007 but a technical glitch deleted it from our comprehensive news data base.
CSR said it was successfully executing on its strategy to diversify beyond supplying its Bluetooth technology to mobile phone customers. More than 50% of its revenue in 2006 came from non-cellular business.
In the mobile phone market, CSR said it continued to offer the strongest Bluetooth product range to phone designers. This was borne out by its winning 99 out of the 226 phone designs from top tier phone makers.
To ensure it maintains the lead in this market, some of CSR’s recent technology developments have included BlueCore5-FM (Bluetooth silicon with integrated FM radio); and its software GPS offering (technology acquired via the acquisitions of Cambridge Positioning Systems and NordNav Technologies), which is to be integrated into its Bluetooth silicon this year and will ultimately provide an embedded GPS solution for mobile handsets with a cost adder of less than $1.
The Bluetooth market overall grew from 310-320 million in 2005 to over half a billion units in 2006. In 2006, 43% of all qualified Bluetooth products were in the non-cellular sector.
CSR believes strong growth in the Bluetooth market will continue in 2007 and in particular will be seen beyond the cellular sector in applications including PCs, gaming, music and automotive.
CSR continues to innovate in these other markets with a raft of partnerships under its eXtension Partner Programme bringing a wide range of audio enhancements to multimedia Bluetooth products, in particular to headsets where CSR won 84% of the designs in 2006.
CSR’s UniFi single-chip WiFi products are also continuing to penetrate the market, the Cambridge-based company said, and, as part of its convergence strategy, CSR launched two products: UniVox, a low cost, low power Voice over IP solution for DECT-replacement handsets for the home; and UniVox Mobile, a WiFi and Bluetooth subsystem for converting mobile handsets into dual mode Voice over IP handsets.
In the automotive segment, CSR won 75% of all products qualified in this market in 2006, with notable design wins including TomTom in Europe and Garmin in the US. The automotive market for Bluetooth is growing and CSR’s RoadRunner Plug-n-Talk is now shipping as a ready engineered and fully-interoperable automotive solution that provides a pre-tested, customisable package from which OEMs and ODMs can quickly and easily create a low-cost Bluetooth handsfree kit.
The company stated that Q1 2007 revenues are expected to be in the range of $145-160 million. On the basis of the company’s leading design win share, a strong product range in all segments, a growing cellular market and in particular a growing market beyond the mobile phone, CSR believes that the company is on track to meet its expectations for 2007.
22 February 2007
