Shares of Irvine chipmaker Broadcom Corp. continued falling Wednesday on concerns about higher expenses eating into profits in the current quarter.
The stock was down nearly 5% at close of trading on a recent market value of about $13 billion.
For the current quarter, Broadcom said it’s looking for sales of $1.25 billion to $1.3 billion, versus the $1.16 billion analysts had been expecting.
It didn’t give a profit outlook.
In a conference call on Tuesday the company said it could see higher costs in the current quarter, which may have spooked some investors.
Broadcom said it expects higher operating expenses in the range of $15 million to $20 million. About half is due to higher legal costs, the company said.
The bearish run comes a day after Broadcom reported that it quadrupled its profits in the second quarter from a year earlier and saw revenue that beat analysts’ expectations.
Profits for the quarter were $135 million, up from $34 million a year earlier.
The figure includes costs for stock compensation, research and development, write-downs on assets and other charges.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Broadcom met analysts’ expected profits of $187 million excluding charges.
The company reported sales of $1.2 billion, up 34% from the same period a year earlier and a bit above analysts’ expectations of $1.1 billion.
Broadcom also beat its own quarterly sales outlook of $1.075 billion to $1.125 billion, which it gave in April. It didn’t give a profit outlook at the time.
Hitting more than $1 billion in quarterly sales was a milestone for Broadcom, which makes communications chips that go into cell phones, TV set-top boxes and other consumer electronics.
For the six months through June, Broadcom said it saw $72 million added to its top line in licensing revenue from various deals.
Broadcom took charges of $12 million during the second quarter to settle a lawsuit with the Securities and Exchange Commission over options backdating in April.
The company said it also paid about $4 million related to its ongoing courtroom battles over chip patent infringement by San Diego rival Qualcomm Inc.
