Please stand by. Our presentation will now begin. Welcome to the Avnet Q1 Fiscal Year 2022 earnings call. I would now like to turn the floor over to Joe Burke, Vice President of Treasury and Investor Relations for Avnet.
Thank you, operator. Earlier this afternoon, Avnet released financial results for the first fiscal quarter of 2022. The release is available on the investor relations section of the company's website. A copy of the slide presentation that will accompany today's remarks can be found via the link in the earnings release, as well as on the IR section. Lastly, some of the information contained in the news release and on this conference call contain forward-looking statements that involve risk, uncertainties, and assumptions that are difficult to predict. Such forward-looking statements are not the guarantee of performance, and the company's actual results could differ materially from those contained in such statements. Several factors that could cause or contribute to such differences are described in detail in Avnet's most recent Form 10-Q and 10-K and subsequent filings with the SEC.
These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this presentation.
Critical to our success to date, and I'm confident they will continue to yield strong returns. Now, with that, let me turn to the highlights of the Q1 on slide 5. In the quarter, we achieved sales of $5.6 billion, up 7.6% sequentially, and 17.5% year-over-year in constant currency. Excluding TI sales and the extra week in the prior year, sales grew 32.9% year-over-year in constant currency. Record sales for Electronic Components and for Farnell, supported by improved operating efficiencies, allowing us to deliver operating margins that reached our short-term targets of 3% and 10% respectively.
We were pleased to achieve these targets sooner than originally forecast, and given the current market environment and the improvements we have made to our business, we expect to sustain these margins in the coming quarters. Our strong results are partially driven by continued market strength. Overall, demand was robust across vertical segments, with the industrial, automotive, and communications segments serving as significant drivers. Looking at Electronic Components segment on Slide 6, revenues for the business were up both sequentially and year-over-year in the quarter to $5.1 billion, with sequential growth across all three geographic regions. Growth primarily came from our largest region, Asia, which again, had record quarterly sales. Strong performance in EMEA and continued improvement in the Americas also contributed to better than expected results in the quarter.
Our investments in digital and design tools and field application engineers continues to pay off as we had another strong quarter of design and engineering activity across all regions. Strong levels of design registrations and design wins in prior quarters have resulted in record sales in design win revenue and gross profits for the Q1. These design wins and registrations continue to be a key organic growth driver for Avnet, benefiting our operating margins while also driving new business for our supplier partners. As mentioned last quarter, our supply chain services capabilities also continue to be of great value to new and existing customers as they navigate the increasingly complex supply chains. We are excited to continue to build out this capability and demonstrate Avnet's vital role at the center of the global technology supply chain.
We exited this quarter with a positive book to bill in all regions, well above parity. Now, before I move on to Farnell, I would like to briefly address the Analog Devices Maxim decision. As we shared a few weeks ago, Maxim intends to discontinue its distribution relationship with our electronic components business. Maxim products only accounted for about 3% of the company's sales during fiscal year 2021, and the financial impact on our business won't be immediate. Given current market dynamics, the strength of our existing line card and supplier partners, and our track record of managing through the impact of industry consolidation, we believe we can replace the margin dollars. We are proud of the strong supplier partnerships we have today and look forward to expanding these relationships to meet the specific analog needs and the broader technology needs of our customers.
Now, turning to Farnell on slide 7. Our strategic investments in SKUs and e-commerce continue to benefit performance at Farnell as we achieve record revenues of $455 million and operating margins of 10.9% in the quarter. Our investments in Farnell continue to deliver meaningful returns. In the quarter, Farnell's digital capabilities yielded notable performance, with 53% of revenues and 69% of total transactions attributed to e-commerce sales. We have seen positive results from the Farnell platform over the last 18 months as the team has embraced digital transformation, and we're really excited by the potential for even greater success as we move all Avnet businesses to the platform over the coming quarters. We also continued to invest in inventory this past quarter, adding 18,800 SKUs.
This reflects continued progress on our plan to add an additional 250,000 SKUs through the fiscal year 2022. Our inventory investments at Farnell have been critical to our success. This quarter, 15% of Farnell sales were derived from new SKUs added over the last two years. We look forward to delivering continued returns on these investments as they've enabled us to grow and strengthen our overall offering to our broad base of engineering customers and suppliers around the globe. With that, I'll turn it over to Tom to dive a bit deeper into our Q1 results.
Thank you, Phil. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for attending today's call. As Phil stated, we were very pleased with our results this past quarter. While there's still work ahead, I am encouraged by our strong start to the fiscal year and excited to share some highlights from the quarter. Turning to slide 9. Our revenues of $5.6 billion in adjusted EPS of $1.22 both exceeded guidance. Consistent with our objective of growing higher margin businesses, our Farnell revenues grew 33.5% year-over-year, while the electronic components grew 17.1%. We delivered our second consecutive quarter of record sales in both our electronic components and Farnell segments. We reached our short-term operating margin objectives, achieving 3.2% for electronic components and 10.9% for Farnell.
Our operating expenses remain well managed, declining $12 million sequentially in a quarter in which our revenues grew. We continue to manage our working capital, with net working capital days decreasing to 69 days compared to 79 days a year ago. All of these contributed to a return on invested capital of 11% in the quarter. As demonstrated on slide 11, this was our fifth consecutive quarter of operating margin expansion. It was also our fifth consecutive quarter of reducing our operating expense as a percentage of gross profit dollars. Our goal is to deliver sustainable operating margins of at least 3%-3.5% for total Avnet. Moving to the Q1 income statement on slide 12. Gross margin of 11.8% was down slightly from 12.3% last quarter, primarily due to regional mix.
The September quarter is seasonally slower for EMEA, while Asia remains strong. Compared to the prior year quarter, gross margin improved by 88 basis points. All of our businesses improved gross margin year-over-year. Adjusted operating expenses of $481 million were down $12 million or 2.5% sequentially. On the non-operating front, interest expense decreased slightly to $22.8 million from the prior quarter. We recorded foreign currency transaction losses of $5.1 million, which represent the impact of FX fluctuations throughout the quarter, primarily between the U.S. dollar and the euro and British pound, as well as the costs associated with hedging our foreign currency risk. We booked a 21% adjusted tax rate in the Q1, which is also our estimated rate for total fiscal year of 2022.
On slide 13, we highlight results across our electronic components segment and Farnell. Looking first at electronic components, we achieved revenues of $5.1 billion, with every region growing sales in a strong market. Operating margins were 3.2%, a slight improvement from last quarter as the team continues to manage operating expenses while growing revenues, driven by improved efficiencies across the business. Farnell achieved a record sales quarter with revenues totaling $455 million. The Farnell segment had an operating margin of 10.9% in the quarter. While favorable pricing contributed approximately 200 basis points of the 10.9%, the Farnell team has made notable improvements in their business, primarily driven by investments made over the last 2 years.
As Phil noted, these initiatives include our efforts to expand SKUs and Farnell's inventory and enhance new product introductions, as well as make investments in systems and e-commerce, all of which have been major contributors to strong and sustainable operating margins. Overall, we are at these levels in a tight market. While working capital dollars were up, we were still able to improve our working capital days to 69. Our liquidity position remains strong. We ended the quarter with cash and equivalents of $299 million and $1.5 billion of available lines of credit. We remain comfortable with our debt position. Our gross debt leverage was 2.1, and net debt leverage was 1.7. Our net book value per share increased to $41 compared to $38 in the year ago period.
On slide 15, I would like to reiterate our capital allocation priorities. You should expect a balanced approach to our capital allocation, with approximately half going to reinvestment in our business and half to shareholder returns. Reinvestments will primarily be capital expenditures for distribution centers and business systems for continued efficiency improvement as well as expansion. A portion will be dedicated to M&A to grow our higher value add businesses such as Farnell, IP&E, and embedded systems. For shareholder returns, you voice your desire for steady and reliable returns, and we have responded by focusing on delivering a steadily increasing dividend. We increased our dividend by 9.1% in the quarter on top of a 4.8% increase in the June quarter. As a shareholder, you should expect an increasing dividend through the cycle.
We also reinitiated our share repurchase program toward the end of the quarter, and we expect to continue our repurchase activity going forward as an integral part of our capital allocation plan. Let me wrap up on slide 16 with guidance. Our Q2 guidance today assumes ongoing strong demand, continuing supply constraints and associated electronic components price inflation. The impact of COVID-19 across the globe remains uncertain as it relates to potential shutdowns and constraints, and today's guidance assumes conditions remain about where they are today. For our fiscal Q2, we are guiding revenue in the range of $5.3 billion-$5.7 billion and adjusted EPS in the range of $1.20. Turning to slide 17. In summary, we remain committed to building a better business, supported by excellent execution in our core distribution and growing our higher value.
Through the cycle, our objective is sustainable operating margins of at least 3%-3.5%. A focus on growing higher value add businesses, a reliable and increasing dividend, opportunistic buybacks, and investments in both organic and inorganic growth. We remain committed to this roadmap for increasing shareholder value. Peter for questions and answers.
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. Thank you. Our first question is from Nik Todorov with Longbow Research.
Yeah, thanks and good afternoon, and congrats on achieving the margin goals ahead of timeline. So question on that, Phil, given that you've reached that milestone, you're seeing the benefits of the current environment in the backdrop of the whole environment. How should investors think about the next near-term goal for the margins? I think you mentioned that you anticipate that you're gonna sustain those, but what are the levers that you can pull so you can continue to see improvement in those margins?
Sure, Nik. We expect to be able to do that for the next several quarters and beyond. You know, the levers are really what we've always talked about. For now, you know, they got to 10%. You know, their investments in the SKUs and inventory are paying off. You see that in the revenue. The investments in the e-commerce is paying off. You see that in the e-commerce revenue. Over on the core is what we've talked about with Americas. Americas, you know, that team has done a stellar job of getting the growth, and throughput margins are over halfway to where we want them to be. Those are, you know, continuing on demand creation, but those are the main levers. You know, we called out with Farnell.
Yeah, they are benefiting from pricing, so we wanna be sustainable regardless of that pricing benefit. I think the other thing you should know, though, there are some headwinds in all of our businesses, like fuel costs, expediting costs. You know, we expect those to subside over. You know, op team did a good job of op margins and more to come.
Okay, great. A question on capital return. You obviously raised the dividend again about the balance of increasing the dividend throughout the cycle and the return through buybacks. Given just where the stock is, I think it's fairly obvious that, you know, it's pretty attractive to buy back the stock here. How do you balance that with the dividend increases that you're planning to do to this cycle?
Yeah, we spend a lot of time internally, you know, as most come through different cycles, many sessions with our finance committee and what our message is that, you know, we believe we're at a point where we can deliver an increasing dividend through going forward. That's why it's different from the past. Well, we're starting with a much lower debt position, right? We're just in a better position from the balance sheet. You may see more on the dividend. We look at it as a percent of net income. I'm not gonna go into the specifics, but we're trying to get it to the level that we think is appropriate, and from there, we will, you know, continue to increase it on an annual basis.
This took a lot of time, our capital allocation plan, but we're really happy where it landed. You know, you should expect that it'll vary based on share price, and we're in the market back in the game on buybacks.
Okay, thanks. Last one for me. Phil, just on Maxim, can you dive a little bit on the strategy to replace the lost growth dollars from that? Can you talk about Maxim for the next few quarters to help us understand the timing of transition and the commitment there? Thanks.
Yeah, sure Nik. Thanks. Yes, on Maxim, as we put in the script, our total revenues, we 8-K'd it a few weeks ago. Internally, just so you know, we're not doing any rebudgeting. We don't see it anticipated affecting our earnings over the next through the balance of the fiscal year, and frankly, beyond. We have plans in place. We've got great supplier partners that have parts of that technology and we're mapping it over. That's gonna be. This one is, again, relatively small. We see it as an opportunity for us to replace it, but it won't be. Not an issue, Nik. We got a great line card.
Got it. Thanks. Good luck.
Thanks, Nik.
Thanks, Nik.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Sheerin with Stifel. Please proceed with your question.
Yes, thanks, and good afternoon. Phil, I just wanted to ask about the supply environment. You know, everyone's been talking about supply constraints. Customers are all missing guidance because they can't get parts. They're talking about, you know, decommits from semi suppliers. Could you give us color on what you're seeing? I know imagine you'd probably wanna have more if you could get it, so are you having issues getting parts as well? Could you just give us color there?
Well, you know, Matt, it's such a broad spectrum. You know, some parts are more readily available than others. As a standard, you know, the lead times I'm looking at now across the commodities have not really expanded out a whole lot since the last quarter, but they're still pretty far out there, pretty much, you know, pretty much across the board. Hey, we're expediting every day different commodities. You know, the $50 million roughly, we're really fine with that and our days inventories. We'd like to have more, right? No question about it. We're, as we were last quarter, we were fine with the inventory going up.
Of course, you saw that play out in Asia's numbers. Yeah, you know, it's a tough call, Matt. It's just customer by customer. But, you know, overall, you know, we saw good growth. We're pleased with that. We can always do more if we got more inventories for so much, but there's still a lot of pain in the supply chain. There's no doubt about it.
Okay. Thank you. On the gross margin, which was down sequentially, I imagine that was mostly on mix, but I also would think that you're benefiting in addition to Premier Farnell, but your core business a little bit on the pricing side in terms of margin. What went into the number? It looks like that it should be up sequentially, the gross margin.
Yes, Matt. Flat to up. In the current quarter, you know, the gross margin, but they did a great job this time. They were not slower, but Asia really, this is a big quarter for building electronic components for the U.S. The good news is, if you look at every one of our businesses year-over-year, the gross margin is up.
Right. Right. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Matt.
Thank you. Our next question is from Ruplu Bhattacharya with Bank of America. Please proceed with your question.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Congrats on the quarter and on the strong guide. My first question has to do with Farnell margins. I think Tom used the 260 basis points sequential improvement, 200 of those basis points was from pricing. I also see that you had a good e-commerce transaction quarter, 69% of transactions were e-commerce. The question I have is, do you think this is sustainable given, you know, it's a demand-constrained environment, and so pricing is strong. Do you think there's on the Farnell side and then just going forward, I mean, when should we think about 15% as the next target? Is that something you can achieve in fiscal 2022?
Just puts and takes on quarter and if that can sustain going forward.
Yeah. Ruplu, thank you for the question. You know, Farnell, they had a stellar operating margin and gross margin quarter. In other words, if you take out pricing benefit, they would have been at 8.9%, which is still a strong quarter. You know, keep in mind, there was a pricing benefit the quarter before and that's anything new. To us, they're performing very well. We think without the pricing, they can get to 10% or higher. We're not gonna. You know, their peers operate at much higher levels, but you know, the puts and takes are, number one, continue to invest in SKUs that is bringing new people to the website, and you're seeing that in revenue. You know, number two, continue with our investment in systems and e-commerce.
You know, a web order is cheaper to process, and it's generally less price sensitive. You know, they have some headwinds with, as every business does, with fuel and freight costs. You know, we think over time, those will subside and help them even more. You know, just really good things happening with Farnell.
Thanks for that, Tom. I appreciate the details. I wanted to ask you about, you know, OpEx. You've done a good job controlling spend on your restructuring efforts. Is there any more opportunity to have more operational efficiencies take more cost out? How should we think about SG&A going forward?
Yeah. Because really their operating expense as a percentage of gross profit dollars. The reason for that, you know, in a growing market, yeah, you know, we're gonna need more cost to freight out for logistics. Good news is, that was one of the slides. OpEx as a percent of gross profit dollars has come down for five quarters in a row. It's at, you know, the low 70, 72%, I think it was. We'd like to get that into the high to mid-60s. We think that's very doable. You know, are there specific things that we continue to work on to reduce costs? Yeah, there's certain things we're outsourcing. You know, view those more as dollars available for reinvestments in the business and to deal with an inflationary economy.
Yeah. Ruplu, this is Phil. Let me just jump in there with Tom. There's the hard black and white costs. Then there's the official side of the equation. Even you just brought it up, Farnell, you know, close to 70% of their transactions, over 50% of their dollars being generated online. Well, same thing, taking that over to the core as well, right? Digital automation about customer self-serve, technical support, you know, online to as an adjunct to our FAE community. So a lot of it is those areas where we can get efficiency, so as we do a lot more of that.
Okay, thanks for that. If I can just squeeze one more in for Phil. Can you just remind us, you know, of the TI revenue that you were trying to make up, where does that stand? How much more do you need to make up based on your target? Then with Maxim, I mean, do you have a similar target of how, you know, how long it can take for you to make up that revenue?
The TI, it's kinda in the rearview mirror at this point in time. I mean, most regions have recovered, most if not all. We got the help of the market there for sure. If you look at Asia, for example, we had a record quarter in Asia without Texas, you know. Parts of our divisions in Europe had record quarters, all-time record quarters without those guys. We're kinda moving on and off of that. As far as Maxim, it's not gonna have any effect, we don't believe, in the next several quarters to our earnings. As we plan for fiscal 2023, it'll be just the net number that we plan for and take it. No rebudgeting on this end for Maxim.
Okay. Thank you for all the details. Congrats again.
You got it.
Thanks for the clue.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one. An informational tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. Our next question comes from Jim Suva with Citigroup. Please proceed with your question.
Thank you very much. I have two questions. You can ask them any order you want, and then I'll be finished and give up the mic. The question is, you know, there's been over the past handful of years of relationships. With that, you know, are there any more in the works other than Maxim, or do you think we're gonna come to an end here? Or with the semiconductors still doing more, do you think that we could enter some more share shifts? 'Cause it seems like, you know. That's my one question. The second question is, everybody asks, are you overearning on components given the shortages? Maybe if you can just answer that elephant in the room question and why or why not? Thank you.
Yeah, Jim, I'll take the first one. Look, supplier, you really talk about share shift, you talk supplier consolidation. You know, put it right out there. Sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose, and sometimes they're neutral, right? It's not new. I've been around for, you know, four decades. When I started at General Electric, Fairchild and National were the top lines. Motorola and they're all gone, right? They've been acquired and merged. You know, this most recent one, okay, decision went the other way. If you look at Cypress acquired Microsemi. We've got that back. Renesas acquired IDT and Dialog, and then that's in the Avnet house. So they kind of go back and forth, and our job is to adjust to that. We can't predict.
All we can do is go drive and execute to the value proposition we're bringing to the marketplace from design, okay, through supply chain and being the center of technology. Again, tough to predict, frankly. We don't sit in our boardrooms, but we feel on the winning side for as many as we possibly can. Again, don't know, Jim. It's gonna continue. There's no question. There's gonna be something else happening out there. You know, to be around 100 more, and that's what we're doing with this one. The mindset is on offense, no issue. On the earnings, on the overearnings, I'm assuming you're talking about. Tom can jump in, and I know you jumped off the mic. ASP is, I assume, what you're bringing up and-
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
The ASP.
Oh.
Yeah, the ASPs, exactly.
Yeah. Okay, good. You're still there. Hopefully I answered your first question. Lift is some ASP inflation, right? I mean, as we get cost increases from the suppliers, which has been, by the way, over 50-plus suppliers, and there's been multiple iterations of price increases. You can imagine the effort on the part of our teams, which we're really proud of. We work to pass those on to the customers as quickly as we can. Every supplier handles it a little bit different. You need to keep in mind, it's not on 100% of our portfolio, right? It's on a, you know, 30% or 40%, whatever that number may be exactly. The balance of it is prices are flat and others are still competitive in the marketplace.
You know, if you know, 3%-5%, we're looking at that by SKU, by the way, year-on-year, quarter-on-quarter, trying to nail that down. How much is inflationary ASPs versus not? It's not as much as you would think.
And, uh-
Tom, go ahead. Yeah.
Just to add. You know, Jim, that's why we're saying 3%-3.5% operating margins on a sustainable basis. You know, as Phil said, you know, in the core, you know, you're not profiting that much from the price increase. For now, you know, we are, right? Again, it's 200 basis points, but they do have headwinds with their freight out. I just wanna be transparent, 3%-3.5% on a sustainable basis. We realize that, you know, there are some benefits here to pricing. I was gonna say near term, but, you know, it's hard to say on that. That 3%-3.5% sustainable basis.
Okay, Jim.
Thanks so much for the details and clarifications.
Yeah.
It's greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Jim.
Thank you. Our next question is from Melissa Fairbanks with Raymond James. Please proceed with your question.
Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. Allocation slide. A couple of things that we noticed. It's been a while since you've done M&A, and now that's one of the things that you highlighted as one of your priorities for capital allocation. What are potential targets that you're looking at? I know you mentioned, you know, benefiting Farnell and accretive to margins. Is this a shift in the strategic focus or is this just kind of business as usual? And then as a follow-up to that, you know, with the share buyback reintroduced, excuse me, do you have a target for optimal capital structure, like with the leverage, you know, normalized capital returns?
Any kind of color that you can provide there? Thanks.
Sure. Thanks, Melissa, and welcome to, you know, the
Thanks very much.
... the M&A capital allocation, you know, it's a slight refinement, maybe. We've said smaller, strategic, you know, the refinement more how you add businesses. That's why we mentioned Farnell. That's why we mentioned IP&E, which is, you know, passive interconnect, which is slightly higher margin. We added, I don't think we've talked too much about support software, you know, things that we do that we think that can benefit and going to that term, make Avnet a better company by bringing on a few. Yeah, we have targets internally. We're not gonna share them. Capital structure, you know, we look at our leverage as more of a, you know, the mid-2s is desirable. You know, depending on where you're in the cycle, it could be 3, it could be below 2.
you know, our target through the cycle is more a mid-2x gross leverage. That's important because net leverage is less. Does that answer your question?
It sure does. Thanks very much.
Thanks, Melissa.
Thank you. Our next question is from Joe Quatrochi with Wells Fargo. Please.
Yeah, thanks for taking the question. Curious on the Farnell pricing benefit of the 200 basis points you talked about. What was that last quarter? And then also, is there a goal in terms of just, % of sales for that business over time?
I think last quarter we said it was about 150 basis points. This is not all. It was in that range. Continued benefit going into this quarter. We haven't publicized a goal for the web orders only to say that, yeah, they're more efficient to handle. They're typically better for Farnell to grow.
Yeah, Joe. Yeah, absolutely. On the e-commerce side, we're really pleased. We broke over to 50% in revenue and closer to 70% of the transactions. That really lifts a load off the team. An exact goal wouldn't publish, but it's obviously to continue to increase that. What's helping with that obviously is our increased SKU count, right? We committed to put over 200,000. That's gonna drive the automation, if you will, e-commerce, which we've got many initiatives behind the scenes to go with the, if you will, low touch, you know, high service model. You know, importance as well. Take the best of what Farnell does and went out and leverage it across the enterprise, which we're beginning to do as well.
Thanks. That's helpful. This is a follow-up. I was wondering if you could maybe talk about the demand that you're seeing for your supply chain services, given, you know, all the disruptions that we're seeing out there. You know, I assume that's relatively sticky in higher margins.
Yeah, I'll touch on supply chain services picking up. As I like to say, people don't worry about supply chains till they can't get what they need. We're getting calls from many Tier 1s and many of our suppliers for assistance in tech because they're near capacity. Dave Paulson's team with Velocity. Yeah, they are more sticky for sure. We're seeing some unique opportunities as well, which is exciting. The margins, a lot of those are. It depends on the margin, Joe. We model those on returns, you know. They also have a typically higher returns model. The margin might be a little different, but the returns are well above the corporate goal of net ROWC over 20%, 20%-25%.
They're good business. To your point, it's very sticky. Typically they're global, okay, which is great. A few calls.
Thank you.
Thanks, Joe.
Thank you. Our next question is from Nik Todorov with Longbow Research. Please proceed with your question.
Just one follow-up. Do you guys see a change in the volume or breadth of expedite requests by customers? There were some suppliers that talked about it. If you do, why do you think-
Nik, is this the same earnings call and you jump back in again? No problem. Yeah, I would say as far as expedites go. So they're not declining by any stretch. I'm involved in quite a few myself, people I haven't talked to in many years, frankly, and a lot of tier ones calling us, Nik. So I think it's just a sign. Back to Matt's question, you know, what products are tighter than others and what's causing the issues. This time it's just so broad. Again, a lot of products are fine and available, but certain in the controller space, you know, sensors are just really tight, you know. So it's causing some of the disruption that was asked earlier in the call.
I think it's gonna get a little tighter for
Got it. Last question, just on Asia. Very strong performance in the quarter. What are you seeing in terms of order trends there? Some people are seeing a softening or moderation, call it. What do you see from your perspective in Asia, particularly in China? Do you hear about any impact from the power shortages there too? Thanks.
Yeah, great question. Yeah, weak orders in Asia Pac, and it's really across Asia. It's not just China or Greater China, which is really good news 'cause it's more diversified, if you will, from a revenue stream. I think moderation is probably the right word. I mean, you know, the book to bill are still positive on pretty much record billing numbers. You know, a moderation is probably not necessarily a bad thing, okay? It's just starting to maybe normalize and moderation is the right term. Again, we'll see how this quarter goes, then you get into next year. You know, last year, Chinese New Year was effectively canceled. It won't be this year.
There's a lot more variables to map in here over the next 3, 4, or 5 months. Oh, you know, pretty strong with our team there.
Got it. Thanks.
Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. To Phil Gallagher for any closing comments.
Great. Thank you very much. I wanna thank everybody for attending today's earnings call. Appreciate all the questions. It's pretty incredible that this year will be our anniversary celebration. The century in business is a pretty outstanding accomplishment that not many companies achieve. In my time here, I've certainly seen our company adapt, persevere, and evolve. As we said, as we look ahead to next quarter, we expect the current operating environment to persist. Our priority remains staying close to all of our customers and supplier partners and continue to demonstrate that Avnet's role in supply chain is more vital than ever. We've made significant durable changes over the past year that positions us to capture growth, continue to invest in our business, and sustain at least the 3%-3.5% in any type of market.
In turn, driving our ability to deliver steadily increasing shareholder returns. We believe our results of the past year reflect the impact of these changes, and we will continue to execute. With that, I hope everyone stays healthy and safe. I look forward to speaking to you again in January for our fiscal year 2022 Q2 earnings results. Have a great day. Thanks.
Ladies and gentlemen, this does conclude today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation. Have a wonderful evening.