For several quarters now, I've been talking about how little Broadcom (NASDAQ:BRCM) seems to be affected by external market forces that are tossing competitors such as Texas Instruments (NYSE:TXN) around like rag dolls. Unfazed by slowdowns in some chip sectors, Broadcom has again delivered another impressive quarter of earnings.
Overall, revenue rose 16% sequentially and 34% year over year to a level of $1.2 billion, surpassing what the company had projected. Broadcom generated $247 million in operating cash flow in the quarter and delivered GAAP net income of $134.8 million, nearly four times the $34.3 million reported last year. The strong results came from better-than-expected sales across all of Broadcom's business segments.
The $35.6 million in royalties the company received from Verizon (NYSE:VZ) and a $9 million check from Qualcomm (NASDAQ:QCOM) to cover legal expenses added some icing to the cake. In its product areas, Broadcom showed fairly even revenue distribution, with broadband communications making up 38% of total revenue, mobile and wireless accounting for 35%, and enterprise networking bringing in 27%. Providing products to leaders such as Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO), Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), and SanDisk (NASDAQ:SNDK), Broadcom sports top-tier customers in each area.
Broadcom sees the strong orders continuing as well -- the company expects next quarter's revenue in the range of $1.25 billion to $1.3 billion. With such impressive performance in an economy that appears worse than many thought, one would think Broadcom's stock is reaching new highs. Alas, Broadcom's stock has actually dipped, down more than 5% since yesterday's close.
What has some analysts concerned -- it's something that led analyst Quinn Bolton of Needham & Co. to downgrade the company's stock -- is new spending that Broadcom intends to embark on. Last year, margin-watchers saw Broadcom's bottom-line to top-line ratios shrink as the company aggressively dumped more dollars into research and development. In the past few quarters, the company eased up on spending, but now CFO Eric Brandt says there's a feeling that Broadcom is underinvesting in some areas and will kick up the spending by some $15 million to $20 million next quarter.
Not all of this will go to development activities. Half of the new spending is expected to be in the legal area. But this Fool thinks it silly to react negatively to increased investments by a business that, by most measures, is soaring. I guess there's just no pleasing the market sometimes.
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