Shares of Irvine’s Broadcom Corp., a maker of chips for computers, cell phones and consumer electronics, rose on Monday after an analyst said it’s set to be among the big winners at this week’s International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
Broadcom’s shares were up more than 3% Monday before closing about 1.5% higher on a recent market value of $23 billion.
Jefferies & Co. analyst Adam Benjamin said he sees Broadcom, among others, benefiting from a variety of consumer electronics trends set to be showcased at the yearly trade show, which starts Tuesday.
New tablet computers, 4G cell phones and Internet connected TVs are all “positives” for Broadcom, Benjamin said in a research note.
Broadcom doesn’t disclose which devices uses its chips but likely supplies networking and Bluetooth chips to a variety of tablet-PC makers, which are expected to debut a slew of the touch-screen devices this week.
“We expect nearly every major manufacturer to introduce a tablet at CES as the market races to deliver devices to catch up with the Apple iPad,” Benjamin said.
Right now, the tablet PC market is a wide open field.
Industry watchers see 2011 as the proving ground for tablets, with manufacturers duking it out to see who will rise up to compete with the iPad.
“In the same way the e-reader market essentially narrowed to basically the Kindle, Nook and Sony, we expect the tablet market to consolidate to only a couple of main players later this year,” Benjamin said.
Benjamin’s eyeing Motorola Inc., which is expected to debut a 10-inch tablet that runs on Google Inc.’s third-generation Android platform. The device, which is said to contain Broadcom chips, is tentatively called “Xoom.”
The Consumer Electronics Show runs until Sunday and is set to attract nearly 130,000 attendees and some 2,700 exhibitors.
