Broadcom just posted one of the strongest AI revenue quarters in semiconductor history. The market’s response? Sell first, ask questions later.
The chipmaker’s fiscal Q2 2026 results, reported on June 3, showed AI semiconductor revenue hitting $10.8 billion, a 143% jump compared to the same period last year. But investors were already looking ahead, and what they saw in the Q3 guidance wasn’t enough to keep them happy.
Broadcom guided Q3 fiscal year 2026 AI revenue at $16 billion. Wall Street’s consensus estimate sat at approximately $17.2 billion. That $1.2 billion gap, roughly 7% below expectations, triggered a post-market stock decline of about 11-13%.
The numbers behind the sell-off
Broadcom’s Q2 performance was driven primarily by surging demand for custom AI accelerators and networking technologies. The company has built deep relationships with some of the biggest names in the AI race, including Meta, Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI. Those partnerships have translated into a disclosed AI order backlog of approximately $73 billion.
