Broadcom (AVGO) Risk Factors

The trading price of our common stock has, at times, fluctuated significantly and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to any of the risk factors listed in this "Risk Factors" section, and others, including: - issuance of new or updated research or other reports by securities analysts;- anticipated or actual demand for AI-related products, including ASICs such as custom AI accelerators or XPUs;- broad market, industry and competitor-related fluctuations;- unsubstantiated news reports or other inaccurate publicity regarding us or our business;- fluctuations in the valuation and results of operations of our significant customers as well as companies perceived by investors to be comparable to us;- announcements of proposed acquisitions by us or our competitors;- announcements of, or expectations of, additional debt or equity financing transactions;- hedging or arbitrage trading activity involving our common stock; and - significant sales of our common stock by one or more of our largest investors. These fluctuations are often unrelated or disproportionate to our operating performance. Broad market and industry fluctuations, as well as general economic, political and market conditions such as recessions, interest rate changes or currency fluctuations, may negatively impact the market price of our common stock. You may not realize any return on your investment in us and may lose some or all of your investment. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. We may be the target of this type of litigation in the future. In addition, we have been, and in the future we may be, subject to lawsuits stemming from our acquisitions. Securities litigation against us, including the lawsuits related to such acquisitions, could result in substantial costs and divert our management's attention from other business concerns, which could seriously harm our business.

As of November 3, 2024, the aggregate indebtedness was $69,847 million. Our substantial indebtedness and the instruments governing our indebtedness could have important consequences including: - increasing our vulnerability to adverse general economic and industry conditions;- exposing us to interest rate risk as our 2023 Term Loans bear floating interest rates;- limiting our flexibility in planning for, or reacting to, changes in the economy and the industries in which we operate;- placing us at a competitive disadvantage compared to our competitors with less indebtedness;- making it more difficult to borrow additional funds in the future to fund growth, acquisitions, working capital, capital expenditures and other purposes; and - potentially requiring us to dedicate a substantial portion of our cash flow from operations to payments on our indebtedness, thereby reducing the availability of our cash flow to fund our other business needs. We receive debt ratings from the major credit rating agencies in the U.S., and any downgrade in our credit rating or the ratings of our indebtedness, or adverse conditions in the debt capital markets, could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition and results of operations.

The industries in which we operate are highly competitive and characterized by rapid technological changes, evolving industry standards, changes in customer requirements, often aggressive pricing practices and, in some cases, new delivery methods. We expect competition in these industries to continue to increase as existing competitors improve or expand their product offerings or as new competitors enter our markets. In addition, the trend toward consolidation is changing the competitive landscape. We expect this trend to continue, which may result in combined competitors having greater resources than us. Some of our competitors have longer operating histories, greater name recognition or presence in key markets, a larger installed customer base, larger technical staff, a more comprehensive IP portfolio or better patent protection, more established relationships with vendors or suppliers, or greater manufacturing, distribution, financial, research and development, technical and marketing resources than us. We face competition from companies that receive financial and other support from their home country government, customers who develop competing products, public cloud providers, numerous smaller companies that specialize in specific aspects of the highly fragmented software industry, open source authors who provide software and IP for free, and competitors who offer their products through try-and-buy or freemium models. The actions of our competitors, in the areas of pricing and product bundling in particular, could have a substantial adverse impact on us. Further, competitors may leverage their superior market position, as well as IP or other proprietary information, including interface, interoperability or technical information, in new and emerging technologies and platforms that may inhibit our ability to compete effectively. If we are unable to compete successfully, we may lose market share for our products or incur significant reduction in our gross margins, either of which could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

The industries in which we compete are characterized by rapid technological change, new technological trends such as AI and cloud computing, changes in customer requirements, frequent new product introductions and enhancements, short product cycles, evolving industry standards and new delivery methods. In addition, to compete successfully in the semiconductor industry, we must continue to develop and respond to technological advancements and requirements, such as low-power consumption, higher bandwidth and increase in the number of clusters. Failure to successfully develop increasingly advanced technologies, including ASICs such as custom AI accelerators or XPUs and other AI-related products, could impair our competitive position. In order to remain competitive, we have made, and expect to continue to make, significant investments in research and development. If we fail to timely develop new and enhanced products and technologies, if we focus on technologies that do not become widely adopted, or if new competitive technologies that we do not support become widely accepted, demand for our products such as our custom AI accelerators or XPUs and other AI-related products may be reduced. Increased investments in research and development, or slow or unsuccessful research and development efforts, would have a negative impact on our financial results.

Our success depends in part upon protecting our IP. To accomplish this, we rely on a combination of IP rights, including patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets, as well as customary contractual protections with our customers, suppliers, employees and consultants. We spend significant resources to monitor and protect our IP rights, including the unauthorized use of our products and usage rates of the software seat licenses and subscriptions that we sell. Even with significant expenditures, we may not be able to protect the IP rights that are valuable to our business or have sufficient IP rights to protect our products or our business. Further, effective IP protection may be unavailable or more limited in other jurisdictions, relative to those protections available in the U.S., and may not be applied for or may be abandoned in one or more relevant jurisdictions. In addition, when patents expire, we lose the protection and competitive advantages they provided to us. We also generate revenue from licensing royalty payments and from technology claim settlements relating to certain of our IP. Licensing of our IP rights, particularly exclusive licenses, may limit our ability to assert those IP rights against third parties, including the licensee of those rights. In addition, from time to time, we acquire companies with IP that is subject to licensing obligations to other third parties. These licensing obligations have extended, and may in the future extend, to our own IP, limiting our ability to assert our IP rights. From time to time, we pursue litigation to assert our IP rights, including, in some cases, against our customers and suppliers. Claims of this sort could also harm our relationships with our customers and might deter future customers from doing business with us. Conversely, third parties have and may in the future pursue IP litigation against us, including as a result of our IP licensing business. Any inability to adequately protect our IP could limit the value of our technology, result in the loss of opportunities to sell or license our technology to others or limit our collection of royalty payments, any of which could negatively impact our business, financial condition and results of operations. In addition, from time to time, we obtain or renew IP licenses. Our inability to obtain or renew these licenses on acceptable terms, or at all, could have a material adverse effect on our business and results of operations.

Our business depends on a wide variety of complex IT systems and services, including cloud-based and other critical corporate services relating to, among other things, product research and development, financial reporting, product orders and fulfillment, HR, benefit plan administration, IT network management, and electronic communication and collaboration services. These systems and services are both internally managed and outsourced, and in many cases we rely upon third-party data centers. Any failure of these internal or third-party systems and services to operate effectively could disrupt our operations and could have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition and results of operations. Our operations are dependent upon our ability to protect our IT infrastructure against damage from business continuity events that could have a significant disruptive effect. Although these systems are designed to protect and secure our customers', suppliers' and employees' confidential information, as well as our own proprietary information, we are, out of necessity, dependent on our vendors to adequately address cybersecurity threats to their own systems. In addition, software products we use and technologies produced by us have occasionally had in the past and may have in the future, vulnerabilities that, if left unmitigated, could reduce the overall level of security of the systems on which the software is installed. Cyber-attacks are increasing in number and sophistication, are well-financed, in some cases supported by state actors, and are designed to not only attack, but also to evade detection. Since the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access to systems, or to otherwise sabotage them, change frequently and are often not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventative measures. The emergence and maturation of AI capabilities may also lead to new and/or more sophisticated methods of attack, including fraud that relies upon "deep fake" impersonation technology or other forms of generative automation that may scale up the efficiency or effectiveness of cyber threat activity. As a critical vendor in the digital supply chain for both governmental entities and critical infrastructure operators, we and our products may be targeted by those seeking to threaten the confidentiality, integrity and availability of systems supporting essential public services. Geopolitical instability may increase the likelihood that we will experience direct or collateral consequences from cyber conflicts between nation-states or other politically motivated actors targeting critical technology infrastructure. Accidental or willful security breaches or other unauthorized access to our information systems or the systems of our service providers and business partners, or the existence of computer viruses or malware (such as ransomware) in our or their data or software have in the past exposed, and could in the future expose, us to a risk of information loss, business disruption, and misappropriation of proprietary and confidential information, including information relating to our products or customers and the personal information of our employees or third parties. Such an event could disrupt our business and result in, among other things, unfavorable publicity, damage to our reputation, loss of our trade secrets and other competitive information, litigation by affected parties and possible financial obligations for liabilities and damages related to the theft or misuse of such information, significant remediation costs, disruption of key business operations and significant diversion of our resources, as well as fines and other sanctions resulting from any regulatory non-compliance, any of which could have a material adverse effect on our business, profitability and financial condition. While we may be entitled to damages if our vendors fail to perform under their agreements with us, any award may be insufficient to cover the actual costs incurred by us and, as a result of a vendor's failure to perform, we may be unable to collect any damages. Despite our internal controls and investment in security measures, we have, from time to time, been subject to disruptive cyber-attacks and unauthorized network intrusions and malware on our own IT networks or those of our service providers or business partners. Although no such cybersecurity incidents have been material to us, we continue to devote resources to protect our systems and data from unauthorized access or misuse, and we may be required to expend greater resources in the future. Businesses we acquire have previously increased, and may continue to increase, the scope and complexity of our IT networks, and this has, from time to time, increased our risk exposure to cyber-attacks when there are difficulties integrating diverse legacy systems that support operations for the acquired businesses. In addition, certain aspects of effective cybersecurity are dependent upon our employees, contractors and other trusted partners reliably safeguarding secrets (e.g., application credentials) and adhering to our security policies and access control mechanisms. We have in the past experienced, and expect in the future to experience, security incidents arising from a failure to properly handle such secrets or adhere to such policies and, although no such events have had a material adverse effect on our business, there can be no assurance that an insider threat will not result in a material cyber incident. Our logging, alerting and cyber incident detection mechanisms may not cover every system potentially targeted by threat actors, may not have the capability to detect certain types of unauthorized activities, and may not capture and surface information sufficient to enable us to timely detect and take responsive action to insider or external threats. U.S. and non-U.S. regulators, as well as customers and service providers, have also increased their focus on cybersecurity vulnerabilities and risks. Compliance with laws, regulations, and contractual provisions concerning privacy, cybersecurity, secure technology development, data governance, data protection, confidentiality and IP could result in significant expense, and any failure to comply could result in proceedings against us by regulatory authorities or other third parties and may also increase our overall compliance burden. See also "Failure of our software products to manage and security IT infrastructures and environments could have a material adverse effect on our business."

Although we operate a primarily outsourced manufacturing business model, we also rely on our own manufacturing facilities, in particular in Fort Collins, Colorado, Singapore, and Breinigsville, Pennsylvania. Our Fort Collins and Breinigsville facilities are the sole sources for the FBAR components used in many of our wireless devices and for the InP-based wafers used in our fibre optics products, respectively. Many of our facilities, and those of our CMs and suppliers, are concentrated in the same geographic regions of California and the Pacific Rim, which have above average seismic activity and severe weather activity, and increases the risk of natural disasters impacting multiple suppliers. In addition, a significant majority of our research and development personnel are located in the Czech Republic, India, Israel, and the U.S., and our primary warehouse is in Malaysia. A prolonged disruption at or shut-down of one or more of our manufacturing facilities or warehouses or those of our CMs or suppliers, due to natural- or man-made disasters or other events outside of our control, such as climate change, water shortages, political unrest, military conflicts, geopolitical turmoil, trade tensions, government orders, labor shortages, medical epidemics, economic instability, equipment failure or for any other reason, would limit our capacity to meet customer demands and delay new product development until a replacement facility and equipment, if necessary, were found. To date, such events have not had a material adverse effect on our business. However, such an event could disrupt our operations, forgo revenue opportunities, potentially lose market share, result in us being unable to timely satisfy customer demand, expose us to claims by our customers, result in significant expense to repair or replace our affected facilities, and, in some instances, could significantly curtail our research and development efforts in a particular product area or target market, any of which could materially and adversely affect our business. This disruption could also prevent our customers from resuming their own manufacturing following such an event, they may cancel or scale back their orders from us and this may in turn adversely affect our results of operations. Such events could also result in increased fixed costs relative to the revenue we generate and adversely affect our results of operations.