Imagination Technologies, the UK-based chip designer that provides graphics processors for iPhones and iPads is cutting jobs. According to a report in news agency Reuters, chip technology design maker Imagination Technologiesplans to lay off 20% of the company’s staff. The report quotes sources familiar with the matter. Imagination Tech is owned by the private equity firm Canyon Bridge, which is backed by the Chinese state-owned China Reform holdings.Canyon Bridge acquired Imagination in 2017 after Apple said it would develop its own graphics technology, which sent the company’s shares down 70%.
Imagination Technologies’ statement
The UK-based company said that it was cutting jobs because of a challenging “business environment” over the last 18 months, according to a reported internal message. In a statement, Imagination Technologies said that the company was taking the “steps necessary to adapt to the challenging and evolving market” and declined to comment further.
All units to be impacted
The layoffs are company-wide and are said to impact every unit, according to one of the sources quoted in the report.
Apple-Imagination deal
Imagination makes technology that competes with Arm Holdings, which recently went public. In January 2020, Imagination said that it had entered into a multiyear license agreement with Apple, under which the Cupertino, California-based firm will have access to “a wider range of Imagination’s intellectual property in exchange for license fees.”
“Imagination Technologies (“Imagination”) announces that it has replaced the multi-year, multi-use license agreement with Apple, first announced on February 6, 2014, with a new multi-year license agreement under which Apple has access to a wider range of Imagination’s intellectual property in exchange for license fees,” said the company in a statement on its website.