Additional Risk Factors for Q4 2008

  • general economic and political conditions and specific conditions in the markets we address, including the continuing volatility in the technology sector and semiconductor industry, current general economic volatility, trends in the broadband communications markets in various geographic regions, including seasonality in sales of consumer products into which our products are incorporated, and possible disruption in commercial activities related to terrorist activity or armed conflict;
  • the timing, rescheduling or cancellation of significant customer orders and our ability, as well as the ability of our customers, to manage inventory;
  • our dependence on a few significant customers for a substantial portion of our revenue;
  • the gain or loss of a key customer, design win or order;
  • the rate at which our present and future customers and end-users adopt Broadcom's technologies and products in our target markets;
  • our ability to specify, develop or acquire, complete, introduce, market and transition to volume production new products and technologies in a cost-effective and timely manner;
  • risks and uncertainties resulting from Broadcom's equity award review, including potential claims and proceedings related to such matters, such as shareholder litigation and any action by the SEC, U.S. Attorney's Office or other governmental agency that has resulted in, and could result in further civil or criminal sanctions against the company and/or certain of our current or former officers, directors or employees, or other actions taken or required as a result of the review, and the extent to which we are able to receive reimbursement of our expenses related to such litigation and actions through our directors' and officers' insurance carriers. In the event that the company's coverage under these policies is reduced or denied, our financial exposure would be increased;
  • our ability to retain, recruit and hire key executives, technical personnel and other employees in the positions and numbers, with the experience and capabilities, and at the compensation levels needed to implement our business and product plans;
  • intellectual property disputes and customer indemnification claims and other types of litigation risk;
  • the effectiveness of our expense and product cost control and reduction efforts;
  • our ability to scale our operations in response to changes in demand for our existing products and services or demand for new products requested by our customers;
  • the risks inherent in acquisitions of technologies and businesses, including the timing and successful completion of technology and product development through volume production, integration issues, potential contractual, intellectual property or employment issues, the risk that anticipated benefits of the acquisition may not be realized, and accounting treatment and charges;
  • the availability and pricing of third party semiconductor foundry, assembly and test capacity and raw materials;
  • the quality of our products and any potential remediation costs;
  • competitive pressures and other factors such as the qualification, availability and pricing of competing products and technologies and the resulting effects on sales and pricing of our products;
  • changes in our product or customer mix;
  • the volume of our product sales and pricing concessions on volume sales;
  • our ability to timely and accurately predict market requirements and evolving industry standards and to identify opportunities in new markets;
  • the risks of producing products with new suppliers and at new fabrication and assembly and test facilities;
  • problems or delays that we may face in shifting our products to smaller geometry process technologies and in achieving higher levels of design integration;
  • delays in the adoption and acceptance of industry standards in our target markets;
  • the timing of customer-industry qualification and certification of our products and the risks of non-qualification or non-certification;
  • fluctuations in the manufacturing yields of our third party semiconductor foundries and other problems or delays in the fabrication, assembly, testing or delivery of our products;
  • the risks and uncertainties associated with our international operations, particularly in light of terrorist activity, armed conflict or political unrest; and
  • the level of orders received that can be shipped in a fiscal quarter.