Beware of the Broadcom Beast!

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
-- From "Jabberwocky," by Lewis Carroll, 1872

Broadcom (Nasdaq: BRCM  ) is an impressive beast -- though not nearly as strange as the dreaded Jabberwock.

The communications semiconductor designer reported stellar first-quarter results -- 71% sales growth to $1.46 billion, and a $0.19 GAAP loss per share reversed to $0.40 of profit per share, both on a year-over-year basis. But that's just the appetizer.

See, much of Broadcom's growth comes in hypercompetitive sectors, in which the company is gaining market share from some very respectable competition. Broadcom has been called "the Microsoft of Ethernet switching silicon," and it saw 15% sequential growth in the networking market. That's in competition with sometimes-partner, sometimes-rival Cisco Systems (Nasdaq: CSCO  ) , which likes to make its own switching chips.

But that's not even the best part. In the wireless baseband segment -- radio chips for cell-phone communications of various kinds -- Broadcom is rolling out wider partnerships with handset giants Nokia (NYSE: NOK  ) and Samsung. It's gaining share rapidly in this very important $11 billion market. Marvell Technology Group (Nasdaq: MRVL  ) and Qualcomm (Nasdaq: QCOM  ) can't stop Broadcom's gains here, while Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN  ) is getting out of the market altogether. Yes, Broadcom is increasingly successful in a large and profitable business that mighty TI couldn't figure out a way to mint a coin in.

According to CEO Scott McGregor, Broadcom's growth prospects are bright, thanks to a combination of factors:

It’s a combination of the market coming back a bit, but I think it’s really more than that. The cellular baseband area for example is really taking market share coming from a small position there. We are getting into Blu-ray players and digital TV. Those are new markets for us. And I think also in the enterprise space, moving into 10-gigabit networking and other things, we have got an opportunity to have some green-field growth there.

That's why Broadcom's stock is breaking new two-year highs today, and why it looks poised to keep growing through good times and bad. It's a financially strong and technically competent business with a finger in several of Silicon Valley's hottest pies right now.

I'm heading over to CAPS to rate Broadcom "outperform" for the next couple of years on that basis. You can follow in my All-Star footsteps with a couple of simple clicks right now.