The more sophisticated our phones, media players and cars become the more chips they need and this is music to the ears of Imagination Technologies.

The company swung to an annual pre-tax profit of £1.9 million as it signed up licensing deals with Texas Instruments and Intel and royalties begin to roll in.

Chief executive Hossein Yassaie was in a bullish mood yesterday, telling investors the group would meet its target of shipping 200 million chips by 2010 despite the uncertain market conditions. Moreover, the company’s Pure digital radio business continues to win market share and could be a beneficiary if the UK and other countries adopt the DAB format.

Imagination’s shares rose 15½p to 68½p.

Murchison United, the AIM-listed uranium explorer in Western Africa, lost 2¼p at 7.625p after it formed a strategic alliance with the French state-owned energy company Areva, which could see the latter take a 15 per cent stake in the company.

Invocas Group gained 15p to 54p, after it said it expects a spike in demand for its debt advice services as the economic environment weakens.

Styles and Wood added ½p to 10¾p on positive discussions between the company’s management and a few of its major retail clients.

Shares in Petards were temporarily suspended at 0.33p after it said it could not report its results because of continuing takeover talks.

PetroLatina Energy rose 4½p to 52½p after its reserves were valued at $165 million, compared with previous estimates of $30 million.

Greencore Group lost 0.375p to 2.08p after it cut profit forecasts because of “deliberate concealment” of costs in its mineral water business.

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