In our fiscal Q3 2025, total revenue was a record $16 billion, up 22% year-on-year. Revenue growth was driven by better-than-expected strength in AI semiconductors and our continued growth in VMware. Q3 consolidated adjusted EBITDA was a record $10.7 billion, up 30% year-on-year. Looking beyond what we're just reporting this quarter, with robust demand from AI, bookings were extremely strong, and our current consolidated backlog for the company hit a record of $110 billion.

Q3 semiconductor revenue was $9.2 billion, as year-on-year growth accelerated to 26% year-on-year. This accelerated growth was driven by AI semiconductor revenue of $5.2 billion, which was up 63% year-on-year, and extended the trajectory of robust growth to 10 consecutive quarters. Let me give you more color on our XPU business, which accelerated to 65% of our AI revenue this quarter. Demand for custom AI accelerators from our three customers continued to grow, as each of them journeys at their own pace towards compute self-sufficiency.

Reflecting this, we now expect the outlook for our fiscal 2026 AI revenue to improve significantly from what we had indicated last quarter. Turning to AI networking, demand continued to be strong because networking is becoming critical as LLMs continue to evolve in intelligence, and compute clusters have to grow bigger. Over the past two years, we have deployed our Jericho 3 Ethernet router with hyperscale customers to just do this. Turning to our forecast, as I mentioned earlier, we continue to make steady progress in growing our AI revenue.

What went well
  • Record total revenue of $16 billion, up 22% year-on-year, driven by AI semiconductors and VMware.
  • Record consolidated adjusted EBITDA of $10.7 billion, up 30% year-on-year, at 67% of revenue and above the 66% guidance.
  • AI semiconductor revenue of $5.2 billion, up 63% year-on-year, extending robust growth to 10 consecutive quarters.
  • Record consolidated backlog of $110 billion on extremely strong AI bookings.
  • Qualified a fourth XPU customer that released production orders, securing over $10 billion of AI rack orders and lifting the fiscal 2026 AI outlook.
  • Infrastructure software revenue of $6.8 billion, up 17% year-on-year and above the $6.7 billion outlook, with total contract value over $8.4 billion booked.
  • Delivered VMware Cloud Foundation 9.0; software operating margin reached 77% (vs 67% a year ago) on completed VMware integration.
  • Free cash flow of $7 billion, representing 44% of revenue.
What went wrong
  • Non-AI semiconductor demand remained slow to recover; Q3 revenue of $4 billion was flat sequentially.
  • Enterprise networking and server storage were down sequentially within non-AI semiconductors.
  • Consolidated gross margin fell 100 basis points sequentially on revenue mix.
  • Semiconductor segment gross margin was down 30 basis points year-on-year on product mix.

Guidance Changes

MetricPeriodCurrent guidance
Consolidated revenueQ4 FY2025~$17.4B, up 24% YoY
Semiconductor revenueQ4 FY2025~$10.7B, up 30% YoY
AI semiconductor revenueQ4 FY2025~$6.2B, up 66% YoY
Infrastructure software revenueQ4 FY2025~$6.7B, up 15% YoY
Non-AI semiconductor revenueQ4 FY2025~$4.6B, up low double digits sequentially
Adjusted EBITDA marginQ4 FY2025~67% of revenue
Consolidated gross marginQ4 FY2025down ~70 bps sequentially on higher XPU and wireless mix
Non-GAAP tax rateQ4 FY2025 / FY202514%

Performance Breakdown

MetricYoYNote
Total revenue +22% Better-than-expected strength in AI semiconductors plus continued VMware growth.
AI semiconductor revenue +63% Growing custom XPU demand from three (now four) hyperscale/LLM customers on their path to compute self-sufficiency.
Semiconductor revenue +26% Acceleration driven by AI, offsetting flat non-AI semiconductors.
Infrastructure software revenue +17% Strong VMware VCF bookings; total contract value over $8.4 billion.
Adjusted EBITDA +30% Revenue growth and operating leverage.
Operating income +32% Record $10.5 billion; operating margin 65.5%, up 20 bps sequentially on operating leverage.
Software operating margin 67% to 77% Completion of VMware integration.

Earnings Call Themes & Trends

TopicPrevious mentionCurrent periodTrend
Custom XPU customer count3 production customers4 customers after qualifying a fourth with over $10 billion of AI rack orders
Fiscal 2026 AI revenue outlookGrow ~50-60% year-on-year (mirroring 2025)Expected to accelerate above 2025's rate; a fairly material improvement
AI networking mixNetworking a larger share of AI revenueNetworking expected to be a declining percentage in 2026 as XPUs dominate the mix
VMware / VCF conversion~87% of top 10,000 accounts adopted VCFOver 90% have purchased VCF; second phase is enabling full private-cloud deployment
AI networking productsTomahawk 5, Jericho 3 deployedLaunched Tomahawk 6 (102 Tbps) and Jericho 4 (51.2 Tbps) for scale-up, scale-out and scale-across

Q&A Summary

What changed to make fiscal 2026 AI grow significantly faster than expected?
Both stronger demand from the existing three customers and, to a large extent, the addition of a fourth customer with immediate, fairly substantial demand shipping strongly in early 2026.
How should we think about the magnitude of the non-AI cyclical recovery given long lead times?
Non-AI is slow to recover; Q4 up only low single digits year-on-year. Only broadband is on a sustained uptrend. Expect a U-shaped recovery, with meaningful improvement perhaps mid-to-late 2026. Non-AI bookings up over 20% year-on-year.
Can you quantify the updated fiscal 2026 AI guidance and the networking-vs-custom mix?
Not giving a 2026 number, but growth will be a fairly material improvement and accelerating. XPUs drive most growth, so networking's share of the AI pool will decline in 2026.
Can you break down the $110 billion backlog by AI, non-AI and software?
Broadcom does not break out backlog, but at least ~50% is semiconductors, largely AI-driven; software adds steadily and non-AI has grown double digits.
How is the pipeline beyond the four customers and into 2027 progressing?
Seven identified players total (four now customers, three prospects), possibly one more; not giving color on prospects, but the million-units goal stands for the three/four committed customers.
Help reconcile only a 70 bp gross margin decline given higher wireless and XPU mix.
XPUs and wireless (seasonally heaviest quarter) carry lower margins, but software revenue coming up partially offsets the decline (Kirsten Spears).
Timeframe for the $10 billion of orders from the fourth customer?
Second and third deliveries around the second half of fiscal 2026, most likely Q3 FY2026 - it starts and ends in Q3.
Do you view meaningful ASIC/networking competition, and can UALink/PCIe displace scale-up Ethernet?
Ethernet is proven, open and the logical choice; latency can be tweaked below 250 ns, better than NVLink/InfiniBand. There is competition, which hyperscalers like; Broadcom stays ahead by out-investing and out-innovating on SERDES, packaging and low power.

More on Broadcom Inc.

Reported 2025-09-04 · figures from the Broadcom Inc. Q3 2025 earnings call.

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