Arm shares soar after company reports strong earnings and forecast

Shares of chip designer Arm climbed more than 60% on Thursday morning after the company reported better-than-expected earnings Wednesday and a strong profit forecast for the current quarter.

Arm's chip design technology is in most smartphones and many PCs. The company reported higher-than-expected earnings per share and revenue for the quarter that ended in December.

Earnings per share came in at 29 cents adjusted versus the 25 cents expected by analysts, according to LSEG, formerly known as Refinitiv. Revenue for the quarter was $824 million, compared with the $761 million expected.

The company also forecast earnings per share for the current quarter to be between 28 cents and 32 cents on sales of $850 million to $900 million. Analysts expect earnings of 21 cents per share on sales of $780 million.

Arm, founded in 1990 and acquired by Softbank in 2016 for $32 billion, went public in September. The company sold shares at $51 apiece in its initial public offering and was trading at just below $100 a share Thursday morning.

Softbank still owns about 930 million shares of the chip designer, or roughly 90% of its outstanding stock, and had gained about $6.8 billion as of early trading Thursday.

— CNBC's Kif Leswing contributed reporting.