“Connecting Everything,” a perfect company slogan for a company which has been doing just that. Broadcom (BRCM: 24.06, -0.85 (-3.41%)), a semiconductor company based in Irvine, CA has had explosive growth recently. Many of their products are regarded as products of the wireless and multi-face future. Their low-cost, high-speed multi functioning “system-on-a-chip” semiconductors and the software that combines voice, video, data, and multimedia applications are best-of-breed in the industry. In addition, Broadcom has contracts with other highly regarded computer companies such as Apple, Alcatel, Cisco, Dell, EchoStar, HP, IBM, LG, Nintendo, Nokia, Nortel Networks, Pace, Samsung and many others. Although they have a lot of contracts with these big name companies, they also do a lot of business with smaller companies. In 2007, the leading five customers accounted for about 40% of total revenue.
Guiding the Future
Broadcom is moving quickly to enter the digital television industry. This past Monday, they announced that they will buy Advanced Micro Devices’ digital television chip business for $192.8 million in cash. This move comes ahead of the FCC’s new regulation on broadcasting companies in which they will be forced to broadcast only in digital on February 17th. Since the division wasn’t a main part of AMD’s business, they were unable to monopolize on it. Broadcom believes it will be able to churn a profit in this business relatively soon.
