Why Broadcom's stock is this analyst's top chip pick for 2025, with 37% upside

MW Why Broadcom's stock is this analyst's top chip pick for 2025, with 37% upside

By Emily Bary

Broadcom's stock bucks Friday's tech-sector declines as a Jefferies analyst highlights rosy pricing and earnings-growth opportunities

Broadcom Inc. could follow up its blockbuster 2024 with another big year of stock gains, according to an analyst who sees the name as his top pick within the chip sector heading into 2025.

Jefferies analyst Blayne Curtis is highly upbeat about Broadcom's AVGO ability to see more momentum with its application-specific integrated circuits, which are playing an increasing role in the artificial-intelligence landscape. Broadcom is "uniquely positioned with AI ASICs rapidly growing in complexity and volumes," Curtis explained.

Whereas investors once thought ASICs would mostly find use in inference applications, now they're being used more for training. That trend "benefits the higher-end ASIC partners," including Marvell Technology Inc. $(MRVL)$ and Broadcom.

See more: Broadcom is having its own 'Nvidia moment' as stock swells further

Average selling prices can move meaningfully higher as these offerings get more complex, he noted. They currently stand at less than $5,000 but could get to "tens of thousands of dollars per unit" on the heels of a dramatic expansion in total compute die area.

Broadcom recently outlined a $60 billion to $90 billion serviceable addressable market in AI for 2027 based on three customers building big clusters, with room for that to grow depending on what two other pre-production customers do.

"The key point here is the complexity of these ASICs is skyrocketing with the chips pushing the limits of computing area, memory density and connectivity," Curtis wrote.

While he models $10.11 in earnings per share for Broadcom in calendar 2027, he sees the potential for that figure to be north of $12 if Broadcom "can achieve even the low end" of its serviceable-addressable-market target.

Curtis lifted his price target on Broadcom shares to $300 from $225, with the new target about 37% above Thursday's close of $218.32. He has a buy rating on the stock, which is bucking the technology sector's selloff Friday, up more than 1%.

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-Emily Bary

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December 21, 2024 06:25 ET (11:25 GMT)

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