ARM vs HSBC Comparison

Arm Holdings is the IP owner and developer of the Arm architecture, which is used in 99% of the world's smartphone CPU cores. It also has high market share in other battery-powered devices like wearables, tablets, and sensors. Arm licenses its architecture for a fee, offering different types of licenses depending on the flexibility the customer needs. Customers like Apple or Qualcomm buy architectural licenses, which allow them to modify the architecture and add or delete instructions to tailor the chips to their specific needs. Other clients directly buy off-the-shelf designs from Arm. Both off-the-shelf and architectural customers pay a royalty fee per chip shipped. In 2026, Arm announced the launch of its own CPU products on top of its existing royalty business.

Established in 1865 in Hong Kong, London-based HSBC is one of the largest banks in the world, with assets of USD 3 trillion and over 40 million customers worldwide. It operates in more than 50 countries with over 200,000 full-time staff. Hong Kong and the United Kingdom are its two largest markets. The bank offers retail, commercial and institutional banking, global banking and markets, wealth management, and private banking.