VentureBeat spreads word that shipments of ARM's Mali graphics chip hit the 150 million unit mark in 2012, up from 50 million in 2011. The explosive growth is anticipated to continue this year, analysts expect the number to grow to 240 million in 2013. ARM's Mali GPU is used in a wide variety of devices, including smartphones, tablets and TVs.
The number of licensees has grown by 30 percent to 75 companies, which use the Mali designs in smartphones, tablets, and digital TVs. The licensing company made the announcement at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona, Spain. At the show, ARM will demonstrate GPU Compute, or the use of ARM Mali graphics to handle nongraphics tasks. Key areas that benefit from GPU Compute are photography and games.
“ARM’s Mali has slowly snuck up on the embedded graphics markets, particularly in DTVs and Android tablets where they have established somewhat of a beachhead,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy. “Imagination, Qualcomm and Nvidia really need to keep an eye on what they doing in smartphones as ARM is making many strong moves.”
