Imagination Technologies is a fabless semiconductor company. They don’t make physical chips, but they license their know how of creating chips that go into devices that range from mobile phones, to set top boxes, to the radio inside millions of automobiles. Apple uses them for the PowerVR architecture that handles the graphics inside the iPhone and iPod Touch. Back in December 2008 Apple purchased a 3.6% stake in the company for roughly $5.17 million. Today Imagination Technologies announces that Apple has increased their stake to 9.5% for another $5.17 million.
Why? The world may never know. With a nearly 10% stake in the company, would Apple have a say into the where they want Imagination to go in the future? Would Apple pay a reduced royalty fee for the IPR associated with the PowerVR architecture? I’m sure some analyst is going to say something about this, and then all the Apple blogs on the planet will quote his theory as truth.
According to TechCrunch, earlier this week Intel increased their stake in Imagination Technologies to 16.02%.
[Via: mocoNews]