Broadcom Inc.’s stock fell slightly in after-hours trading today despite the chipmaker posting a solid fiscal first-quarter earnings beat.

The company reported a profit before certain costs such as stock compensation of $6.61 per share on revenue of $6.655 billion. That was up 14% from the same quarter a year ago. The results just beat Wall Street’s expectations, with analysts looking for earnings of $6.55 per share on revenue of $6.61 billion.

Broadcom Chief Executive Hock Tan said the company executed well and highlighted “organic growth” of 14% during the quarter. “This growth reflects the critical role our technology franchises play in this environment of accelerated digital transformation,” Tan said.

Broadcom’s business is focused on making wireless chips for smartphones such as Apple Inc.’s iPhones and other devices. It also makes semiconductors that are used in broadband communications, networking, storage and industrial applications. In addition, it has a growing infrastructure software business in areas such as data centers, mainframes and cybersecurity.

Both businesses performed well. The semiconductor unit accounted for 74% of the company’s total sales with revenue of $4.908 billion, up 17% from the year-ago period. The infrastructure software business added $1.747 billion in revenue, up 5%.

Moor Insights & Strategy analyst Patrick Moorhead told SiliconANGLE that the after-hours stock drop shows that investors were expecting a better quarter from Broadcom, despite the earnings and revenue beat. “The company is experiencing major challenges from the likes of Intel, Qualcomm and Marvel in digital networking, and on the analog side from Qualcomm RF,” he said.

Analyst Holger Mueller of Constellation Research Inc. said he believes the company’s investors may have been hoping for a more resilient product revenue mix too, so they might be disappointed by the pedestrian growth in Broadcom’s infrastructure business.

“On the positive side, Broadcom has really taken a cut out of its sales and marketing expenses while growing its revenue, which is a very rare feat,” Mueller said. “At the same time it has protected its R&D investments for its future offerings.”

The company said it expects that both of these businesses will continue their growth into the current quarter. It’s forecasting total second-quarter revenue of $6.5 billion at the midpoint, which would be an increase of 13% from the same period a year ago. Wall Street had modeled quarterly revenue of $6.33 billion.

Photo: Broadcom/Facebook