Chip sales slightly higher than Street estimate
Broadcom Inc. shares fluctuated between slight gains and losses in the extended session Thursday after the semiconductor and software company’s quarterly results were in line with Wall Street estimates and its outlook range bookended the analyst consensus.
Broadcom AVGO, -0.20% shares, which had declined as much as 3% after hours, were last up 1%. That followed a 0.2% decline in the regular session where shares closed at $308.89.
“Second-quarter results were in line with our expectations, and saw limited impact from the effects of COVID-19,” said Hock Tan, Broadcom president and chief executive, in a statement. “Looking ahead, our third-quarter guidance for semiconductors reflects a surge in demand from cloud, telecom and enterprise customers, offset by supply-chain constraints and an expected substantial reset in wireless.”
The company reported fiscal second-quarter net income of $488 million, or $1.17 a share, compared with $691 million, or $1.64 a share, in the year-ago period. Adjusted earnings were $5.14 a share, compared with $5.21 a share in the year-ago period.
Revenue rose to $5.74 billion from $5.52 billion in the year-ago quarter.
Analysts surveyed by FactSet had forecast earnings of $5.14 a share on revenue of $5.69 billion.
Back in March, Broadcom pulled its guidance for the year, and had forecast fiscal second-quarter revenue of $5.55 billion to $5.85 billion.
The company reported chip sales of $4.03 billion and infrastructure software sales of $1.72 billion.
Analysts had forecast a 2.5% decline in chip sales to $3.99 billion and a 21% rise in infrastructure software sales to $1.71 billion.
Broadcom expects third-quarter revenue of $5.6 billion to $5.9 billion, while analysts forecast revenue of $5.79 billion.
Of the 31 analysts who cover Broadcom, 24 have buy or overweight ratings and seven have hold ratings, along with an average price target of $296.82, according to FactSet data.
Recently, several analysts noted that Broadcom’s Symantec business has fallen under pressure from CrowdStrike Holdings Inc. CRWD, -2.16%, which reported earnings on Tuesday, as more businesses that need to accommodate work-from-home employees because of the COVID-19 pandemic are gravitating toward cloud-based cybersecurity rather than on-premise software.
Broadcom acquired Symantec’s enterprise cybersecurity business in late 2019 for $10.7 billion, leaving the remaining consumer business to continue as NortonLifeLock Inc. NLOK, +1.88%.
On the conference call, Tan said that Symantec revenue rose 2% sequentially to more than $400 million for the quarter, but that declines in revenue from Brocade Communications, the network-equipment business which Broadcom acquired in 2017, would be down significantly because they were reducing channel inventory.
“So with the result, we expect revenue from the software segment to be down approximately 7% sequentially in the third quarter,” Tan said.
Over the past 12 months, shares of Broadcom have gained 16%. In comparison, the S&P 500 SPX, -0.33% has grown 11%, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index COMP, -0.69% is up 28%, and the PHLX Semiconductor Index SOX, +0.82% is up 44% over that time.