AVGO · Forward model · Hock case
The Hock case, 20 quarters out
Model as of
Each segment is projected from its own operating driver, rolled up into consolidated cash flow, and discounted back to a fair value per share. The assumptions below are editable — change them and every number on this page moves with them.
Quarters are labelled by the calendar year the fiscal quarter ENDS in, matching the rest of r40: 2026 Q3 is Broadcom's third fiscal quarter, ended 2 August 2026. Broadcom reports two segments and this model carries three verticals, because the segment that matters splits into two businesses with almost nothing in common. Infrastructure Software ($8,752M in the basis quarter) is reported on the face of the release. AI semiconductor revenue ($16.7B) is management prose - stated in the release headline and again on the call - and is NOT a reportable segment: there is no reconciliation table and no prior-period series in the exhibit. Non-AI semiconductors is the arithmetic remainder of Semiconductor Solutions ($20,839M) less AI, so the three verticals sum to reported consolidated revenue ($29,591M) to the dollar. Nothing is apportioned. On the call Tan gives the non-AI line as approximately $4.2B; the $61M against the $4,139M remainder here is rounding inside the $16.7B AI figure. What the Q3 call changed: management stopped quoting a single fiscal-year AI target and started describing demand in gigawatts, customer by customer, and for the first time gave its own content per gigawatt - '$20 billion-$30 billion per gigawatt'. The capacity driver is built on that disclosure. The 759 MW basis figure is $16.7B at the $25M per MW midpoint and 88% utilisation, and is DERIVED: Broadcom has never disclosed gigawatts shipped. What is assumed rather than reported: the segment margin and capex splits. Broadcom discloses consolidated non-GAAP operating margin (67.9%) and consolidated capex ($532M) but neither by segment, so the three margin inputs are the author's and are calibrated to reproduce the consolidated figure. The arithmetic worth stating plainly. Management gave three AI numbers: $58B for fiscal 2026, approximately $115B for fiscal 2027 'secured', and line of sight to $230B in fiscal 2028. The first two are reproduced here exactly - Q4 AI of $21.7B and fiscal 2027 of $115.0B. The third is not reachable from the same build rate: $115B in fiscal 2027 requires the sequential ramp to DECELERATE hard through that year, and $230B in fiscal 2028 then requires it to RE-ACCELERATE. This model's base decelerates and AI plateaus near $132B a year, about 43% below the fiscal 2028 line of sight. That gap is the finding, not a bug, and it is what the bull case is for. Note that management's own customer roadmap describes exactly such a re-acceleration - Anthropic from 5 GW in 2027 to an incremental 10 GW in 2028, OpenAI from 1.3 GW to over 5 GW - so the disagreement is about whether that step happens, not about whether management said it would.
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Latest: $67.80B (2031Q3E)
| Period | Value |
|---|---|
| 2025Q2 | $15.00B |
| 2025Q3 | $15.95B |
| 2025Q4 | $18.02B |
| 2026Q1 | $19.31B |
| 2026Q2 | $22.19B |
| 2026Q3 | $29.59B |
| 2026Q4E | $35.26B |
| 2027Q1E | $39.86B |
| 2027Q2E | $43.60B |
| 2027Q3E | $46.69B |
| 2027Q4E | $49.25B |
| 2028Q1E | $51.42B |
| 2028Q2E | $53.28B |
| 2028Q3E | $54.90B |
| 2028Q4E | $56.34B |
| 2029Q1E | $57.65B |
| 2029Q2E | $58.84B |
| 2029Q3E | $59.96B |
| 2029Q4E | $61.02B |
| 2030Q1E | $62.04B |
| 2030Q2E | $63.02B |
| 2030Q3E | $63.99B |
| 2030Q4E | $64.95B |
| 2031Q1E | $65.90B |
| 2031Q2E | $66.85B |
| 2031Q3E | $67.80B |
Where each case comes from
Hock case — primary sources
The primary sources this case is built from — filings, calls and posts. Where they are claims by an interested party rather than disclosures, every number in the Hock column is what happens if they are taken at face value.
What management has actually put a number on
- Jun 3, 2026 Q2 semiconductor revenue from AI of $10.8 billion grew 143% year-over-year, above our forecast, driven by increasing demand for custom AI accelerators and AI networking.
- Jun 3, 2026 The momentum continues and in Q3 we expect semiconductor revenue from AI to grow over 200 percent year-over-year to $16.0 billion.
- Jun 3, 2026 In Q3 we expect consolidated revenue growth to increase 84% year-over-year to $29.4 billion, with non-GAAP operating margin stable at 67% reflecting our strong operating leverage.
The ramp behind it, quarter by quarter
- Dec 11, 2025 We see the momentum continuing in Q1 and expect AI semiconductor revenue to double year-over-year to $8.2 billion, driven by custom AI accelerators and Ethernet AI switches.
- Mar 4, 2026 Our AI revenue growth is accelerating, and we expect AI semiconductor revenue to be $10.7 billion in Q2.
- Sep 4, 2025 We expect growth in AI semiconductor revenue to accelerate to $6.2 billion in Q4, delivering eleven consecutive quarters of growth, as our customers continue to strongly invest.
Who the demand is coming from
- Jun 3, 2026 Tan and Brockman unveil their first jointly designed custom chip and address whether AI capex is a bubble, arguing committed customer demand underwrites the build-out.
- Jun 5, 2026 Tan describes the early Anthropic custom-chip engagement as a leap of faith that turned into a great bet, and discusses AI scaling and revenue visibility.
From cash flow to fair value
| Present value of free cash flow, 20 quarters | $503.68B |
| Terminal-year revenue | $265.50B |
| Terminal-year EBITDA | $180.06B |
| Exit multiple, on revenue | 9.0x |
| Terminal value | $2.39T |
| Discounted at 9.5% a year, terminal value becomes | $1.52T |
| Share of enterprise value from the terminal | 75% |
| Enterprise value | $2.02T |
| Net cash | -$35.44B |
| Equity value | $1.99T |
| Shares | 4.89B |
| Fair value per share | $406.40 |
| Against the deployed price of $357.89, as of | +14% |
7x terminal revenue against roughly 20x trailing enterprise value to revenue at the 2 September close. The terminal carries 67.6% of enterprise value, which is above two thirds and therefore the number to argue about: at 6x terminal revenue the base fair value falls to $225 and at 8x it rises to $275, so a single turn of the exit multiple is worth about $25 a share. By fiscal 2030 this model has consolidated revenue flat near $193B a year at a 67% EBITDA margin, with AI plateaued rather than compounding. Net cash is negative $35.4B - cash of $23,975M against short-term debt of $2,252M and long-term debt of $57,167M - so equity value is levered to the enterprise value and a turn of the multiple moves the share price more than it moves EV.
Read the other way round: at $357.89 the market is paying 7.6x terminal-year revenue, holding every other assumption on this page fixed. That is the number to argue about.
The projected path
| Quarter | AI Semiconductors | Non-AI Semiconductors | Infrastructure Software | Revenue | YoY | EBITDA | Capex | FCF | R40 | PV of FCF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 Q4E | $22.13B | $4.34B | $8.79B | $35.26B | +96% | $25.12B | $468M | $21.20B | +156 | $20.72B |
| 2027 Q1E | $26.43B | $4.54B | $8.89B | $39.86B | +106% | $28.21B | $568M | $23.77B | +166 | $22.72B |
| 2027 Q2E | $29.83B | $4.72B | $9.05B | $43.60B | +97% | $30.69B | $657M | $25.83B | +156 | $24.13B |
| 2027 Q3E | $32.54B | $4.90B | $9.25B | $46.69B | +58% | $32.69B | $736M | $27.48B | +117 | $25.09B |
| 2027 Q4E | $34.69B | $5.08B | $9.48B | $49.25B | +40% | $34.33B | $806M | $28.83B | +98 | $25.74B |
| 2028 Q1E | $36.43B | $5.25B | $9.75B | $51.42B | +29% | $35.69B | $868M | $29.95B | +87 | $26.14B |
| 2028 Q2E | $37.83B | $5.42B | $10.04B | $53.28B | +22% | $36.85B | $923M | $30.89B | +80 | $26.36B |
| 2028 Q3E | $38.97B | $5.59B | $10.35B | $54.90B | +18% | $37.85B | $973M | $31.71B | +75 | $26.45B |
| 2028 Q4E | $39.90B | $5.76B | $10.68B | $56.34B | +14% | $38.73B | $1.02B | $32.43B | +72 | $26.44B |
| 2029 Q1E | $40.68B | $5.93B | $11.03B | $57.65B | +12% | $39.53B | $1.06B | $33.09B | +69 | $26.37B |
| 2029 Q2E | $41.33B | $6.11B | $11.40B | $58.84B | +10% | $40.26B | $1.09B | $33.68B | +68 | $26.24B |
| 2029 Q3E | $41.89B | $6.29B | $11.79B | $59.96B | +9% | $40.95B | $1.13B | $34.25B | +66 | $26.08B |
| 2029 Q4E | $42.36B | $6.47B | $12.19B | $61.02B | +8% | $41.60B | $1.16B | $34.79B | +65 | $25.90B |
| 2030 Q1E | $42.77B | $6.65B | $12.61B | $62.04B | +8% | $42.24B | $1.18B | $35.31B | +65 | $25.70B |
| 2030 Q2E | $43.13B | $6.84B | $13.05B | $63.02B | +7% | $42.86B | $1.21B | $35.82B | +64 | $25.49B |
| 2030 Q3E | $43.45B | $7.03B | $13.51B | $63.99B | +7% | $43.47B | $1.23B | $36.33B | +63 | $25.27B |
| 2030 Q4E | $43.74B | $7.23B | $13.98B | $64.95B | +6% | $44.09B | $1.26B | $36.83B | +63 | $25.04B |
| 2031 Q1E | $44.00B | $7.43B | $14.47B | $65.90B | +6% | $44.70B | $1.28B | $37.34B | +63 | $24.82B |
| 2031 Q2E | $44.23B | $7.64B | $14.97B | $66.85B | +6% | $45.32B | $1.30B | $37.86B | +63 | $24.60B |
| 2031 Q3E | $44.45B | $7.85B | $15.50B | $67.80B | +6% | $45.95B | $1.32B | $38.38B | +63 | $24.38B |
Every row is projected. A year-over-year change is shown only where the quarter it compares against exists — an em dash means there is no comparable quarter, not a flat year.
Model revisions
Assumptions are marked to reality as each quarter prints. Every change is appended here, with the fair value the model produced at the time, so the model's own history stays visible.
| Date | Fair value then | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-20 | $282.09 | First cut, built on the 2026 Q2 earnings release. Three verticals: AI semiconductors on a megawatts-shipped driver calibrated to the $56B fiscal 2026 and $100B-plus fiscal 2027 AI targets, non-AI semiconductors on a cyclical recovery, and Infrastructure Software on a decaying VMware repricing uplift. |
| 2026-09-03 | $250.25 | Rebuilt on the Q3 FY2026 print and call. Basis moves from 2026 Q2 to 2026 Q3. The AI capacity driver is re-anchored on management's first disclosure of its own content per gigawatt ($20-30B, taken at the $25M per MW midpoint) rather than the previous $18M per MW estimate, and recalibrated to reproduce the guided Q4 AI revenue of $21.7B and the fiscal 2027 guide of $115B exactly. Non-AI semiconductors and infrastructure software are re-anchored on the Q4 figures management gave on the call ($4.3B and about $8.7B), the latter the first guided sequential decline in that line. Shares, net cash and reference price updated to the Q3 balance sheet and the 2 September close. |