Brithsh ARM Holdings Plc, the chip designer whose technology is in almost all of the world’s smartphones, reported strong first-quarter sales on the success of the latest handsets. The company's total revenues was up 14% year-on-year, reaching $348.2 million.

Processor royalty revenue was 31% year-on-year, and processor licensing revenue in was down 2% year-on-year.

In Q1 2015, the company said that 30 processor licences signed for a broad range of applications from sensors to smartphones to servers. In addition, 4 ARMv8-A processor licences signed, and an additional architecture licence for smart mobile devices.

During the sdame period, ARM said that 3.8 billion ARM-based chips were shipped - up 31% year-on-year.

ARM is being buoyed by a surge in smartphones that take advantage of its more powerful architecture for 64-bit semiconductors found in newer devices, such as Apple’s iPhone 6 and Samsung Electronics’s S6, which went on sale this month.

Assuming that the macroeconomic backdrop remains supportive of consumer spending, ARM expects group dollar revenues for the full-year 2015 to be at least in line with current market expectations.

Relevant industry data for Q1 2015, being the shipment period for ARM’s Q2 royalties, points to a sequential decrease in industry-wide revenues, broadly consistent with normal seasonality. In this context ARM expects group revenues for the second quarter to be in line with current market expectations.

In related news, ARM today announced the acquisition of Wicentric, a Bluetooth Smart stack and profile provider, and Sunrise Micro Devices (SMD), a provider of sub-one volt Bluetooth radio intellectual property (IP). Terms of the agreements have not been disclosed.

The IP of both companies will be integrated to form the ARM Cordio portfolio. This portfolio will complement ARM’s existing processor and physical IP targeting end markets requiring low-power wireless communications such as the Internet of Things (IoT).