LONDON, June 30 (Reuters) - Imagination Technologies, which provides graphics technology to Apple,said it was confident of achieving licensing revenue growth of10 percent this year, a target which reassured investors after adowngrade last year.
For the year to April 30, Imagination on Tuesday reportedlicensing revenue growth of 2 percent, in line with thedowngraded forecast for single-digit growth provided in March.
Shares in Imagination, which receives revenue from sellinglicenses to partners that incorporate the technology in theirchips, climbed 2.5 percent following the publication of thecompany's results.
"You have to frame the licensing revenues target against thewarning back in March. It's a bit of a relief around that,"Jefferies analyst Robert Lamb said.
Imagination's confidence in the rise in licensing revenuescame after the company said it had secured a new licensing dealwith an unnamed tier-one mobile company and said thatSpreadtrum, a Chinese mobile chip-maker, had also become alicensee.
"We see these as extremely positive developments forImagination," added the analyst.
The company, which has a market capitalisation of 585million pounds ($920 million), reported annual adjustedoperating profit of 21.1 million pounds, slightly behind lastyear, and guided that profitability would rise in 2016. ($1 = 0.6358 pounds) (Reporting by Sarah Young; editing by James Davey)
