Broadcom Swings to Loss; Shares Move Lower

Broadcom posted a quarterly loss and announced plans to cut jobs and implement other measures to reduce costs even as its revenue was slightly ahead of expectations.

After the news, Broadcom shares fell over 2 percent in late trade. The shares had closed down about 5 percent at $17.43 in regular Nasdaq trade.

Broadcom said it expects the weak economy to continue to hurt current quarter results and that as a result it would cut costs by delaying salary increases, reducing its workforce and cutting discretionary spending.

Broadcom, which makes chips for everything from set-top boxes to cell phones, posted a fourth-quarter net loss of $159.2 million, or 32 cents a share compared with a profit of $90.3 million or 16 cents a share in the year-ago quarter.

Revenue rose to $1.13 billion from $1.027 billion.

Analysts on average were expecting revenue of $1.07 billion, according to Reuters Estimates.

On Dec. 8, the company had said its gross margins would fall more than expected sequentially and it cut its revenue target for the quarter to a range of $1.05 billion to $1.1 billion from its previous estimate of $1.17 billion to $1.235 billion.

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