Broadcom Sinks as CEO Becomes Defensive on AI Opportunity -- Should Investors Buy the Dip?

Broadcom (NASDAQ: AVGO) once again reported robust artificial intelligence (AI) revenue growth in its fiscal second-quarter results released this week, with promises that the strong revenue growth would continue. The stock slipped despite an upbeat outlook, although it remains up more than 75% over the past year.

Let's take a closer look at Broadcom's most recent results and the AI opportunity in front of it to see whether investors should buy this small dip.

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Broadcom CEO gets defensive, but huge AI opportunity remains

Broadcom CEO Hock Tan initially got investors excited back in December 2024 when he talked about the company having a $60 billion to $90 billion serviceable addressable market (SAM) opportunity in fiscal year 2027 with its three largest hyperscale (meaning they operate huge data centers) customers. However, when asked whether its SAM had increased, Tan told analysts he's "not playing the SAM game" and to "stop talking about SAM now."

Image source: Getty Images.

It was an unusual and defensive response from an executive who, only six months ago, was hyping Broadcom's SAM opportunity. However, Tan had said earlier that he anticipates Broadcom's current AI semiconductor revenue growth to sustain into fiscal 2026 after projecting it would grow by 60% to $5.1 billion in fiscal Q3. As one analyst on the call pointed out, that would imply $30 billion or more in AI semiconductor revenue in fiscal 2026.

Much of Broadcom's AI semiconductor revenue growth is currently coming from its networking portfolio, particularly Ethernet switches. The company said its AI networking revenue surged by 170% year over year and represented 40% of its AI revenue.

Perhaps, the bigger opportunity, though, is in custom AI chips. The company stated that custom AI chip revenue rose by double digits in the quarter and that it expects demand in the back half of 2026 to accelerate as inference demand surges. This is most likely coming from Alphabet, which was Broadcom's first customer for custom AI chips. However, the company said it still expects its three largest custom chip customers to each deploy 1 million AI chip clusters in 2027, mostly for training foundational AI models.

Turning to Broadcom's results, its overall revenue climbed 20% year over year to $15 billion in the quarter, while adjusted earnings per share (EPS) soared 44% to $1.58 (adjusting for its prior 10-for-1 stock split). The results edged past analyst expectations for adjusted EPS of $1.56 on revenue of $14.99 billion, as compiled by LSEG. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA), meanwhile, surged 67% year over year to $10 billion.

AI-related revenue jumped 46% year over year to $4.4 billion. Total semiconductor solutions revenue rose 17% year over year to $8.4 billion, as the recovery in its non-AI chip revenue continues to be slow.

Infrastructure software revenue, meanwhile, increased by 25% to $6.6 billion. The company credited the growth to strong sales of its VMware Cloud Foundation (VCF) platform and the transition of customers to subscription models. Its VCF platform helps customers create hybrid and multicloud environments, giving them the flexibility to manage workloads across both public clouds and their own on-premise data centers. Approximately 87% of VMware's top 10,000 customers have now adopted its VCF platform.

Broadcom continues to generate strong cash flow, with cash flow from operations coming in at nearly $6.6 billion and free cash flow of $6.4 billion. It ended the quarter with nearly $9.5 billion in cash and equivalents and $67.3 billion in debt after buying back $4.2 billion worth of shares in the quarter. Its debt is a result of its $69 billion acquisition of VMware in 2023.

Looking ahead, Broadcom forecasts fiscal Q3 revenue to increase by 21% to $15.8 billion, with semiconductor revenue rising 25% to $9.1 billion and infrastructure software revenue increasing 16% to $6.7 billion. It expects adjusted EBITDA to be about 66% of revenue, or about $10.4 billion.

Should investors buy the dip?

Broadcom continues to see strong AI revenue growth, led by its networking portfolio. But the best opportunity may still be in front of the company, with its custom AI chips. Only Alphabet is truly ramped up, and it has a huge opportunity with other customers.

Now, Tan's sudden reluctance to talk about Broadcom's AI semiconductor SAM is disappointing, and the extent to which China's ByteDance -- one of its suspected in-progress large AI chip customers -- and the new Chinese export controls might have on that is unknown. Still, he did not back down from the growth of the company's three large hyperscale customers or that they plan to each deploy 1 million AI chip clusters in 2027. He also still has Apple as well as other customers that aren't quite as far along, which should also power growth in later years.

From a valuation perspective, Broadcom now trades at a forward price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of about 31.5, based on fiscal 2026 analyst estimates, and a price/earnings-to-growth ratio (PEG) of less than 0.4. Stocks with PEG ratios below 1 are generally considered undervalued.

Given the growth opportunities still in front of it, I think investors can use this price dip to start building positions. The biggest risk would be a slowdown in spending on AI infrastructure, but we still appear to be in the early innings.

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Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. Geoffrey Seiler has positions in Alphabet. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet and Apple. The Motley Fool recommends Broadcom. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.