Broadcom reported in-line April-quarter results and good July-quarter guidance. Management maintained its outlook for "more than $100 billion" in artificial intelligence revenue in fiscal 2027. Shares fell 14% after hours, as investors hoped for higher guidance in 2027 and beyond.
Broadcom is best-of-breed in custom AI accelerators, boasting the largest customer in Google and layering new customers in like Anthropic and OpenAI. Rising AI spending portends immense growth.
Bears
Broadcom’s chip business bears significant customer concentration, with a small handful of large AI customers driving the bulk of revenue and future growth.
Broadcom is one of the largest semiconductor companies in the world and has also expanded into infrastructure software. Its semiconductors primarily serve computing and networking, with custom AI accelerators now accounting for the bulk of the business. It is primarily a fabless designer, but holds some manufacturing in-house, such as for its best-of-breed film bulk acoustic resonator filters that sell into the Apple iPhone. In software, it sells virtualization, infrastructure, and security software to large enterprises, financial institutions, and governments. Broadcom is the product of consolidation. Its businesses are an amalgamation of former companies like legacy Broadcom and Avago Technologies in chips, as well as VMware, Brocade, CA Technologies, and Symantec in software.