All right, everyone, it's so nice to be back up on stage, and I'm so pleased to welcome Avnet with us this afternoon. I'm joined by Phil Gallagher, CEO, Ken Jacobson, CFO, and we're going to have a very enlightening discussion, so hold on to your seats, guys. We're going to start off as an introduction and just take a few minutes for Phil and Ken to describe to us what Avnet is and what Avnet does.
Thank you, and welcome, everybody. Appreciate you being here or online, and appreciate your interest in Avnet. So I'll try to give a little elevator speech here on what Avnet is. We're one of the largest publicly held companies that a lot of people don't know anything about. We're a Fortune 180 company. We're listed on NASDAQ, obviously. Our corporate's Phoenix, Arizona, but we were founded in New York post-World War I in military surplus coming back from the war. So we've been around since 1921. Roughly $24-$25 billion in revenue globally. 45%-50% of our business is done in Asia-Pac. Europe's our second largest region, 30%-35%, and America's in the 20%-25% range. We're in a semiconductor business, so 80% of our business is semiconductors.
We're a distributor, so we manage supply chains, from design chain to supply chains, we like to call it. So a lot of our top suppliers are here at this conference, actually. And around 20% of our business is IP&E. We call it interconnect passive electromechanical. We have roughly 250 product lines on our line card. We service customers in, obviously, all geos and very diversified portfolio of verticals. Our largest vertical is industrial, roughly 30%-35% of our business. The next would be transportation. Let's call it 12%-15% of our business. In the Americas, defense and aerospace is about 20%-25% of our business, and that'll be a growth market here in Europe with all that's going on that's been announced of recent. We have roughly 15,000 employees globally.
We're in 43 countries around the world, and we ship into 145 countries globally. So that's kind of a little snapshot of who we are and what we are and what we do. But we'd like to just say that we're in the center of technology supply chain. We manage and work with all of our supplier partners to deliver from design to supply chain solutions down to our customers. And I guess I should mention that we have, in the Avnet core, roughly 100,000 customers in total, including individual customers. We have 450,000- 500,000 customers around the world. It's a very diversified portfolio. I guess last comment: no one supplier is more than 10% of our revenue. It's very widespread, and no one customer is more than 4% of our revenue. And the customers we service are all pretty much household names that you would know.
So anybody that has any kind of electronic components in it, semiconductors, connectors, capacitors, resistors, odds are we're selling and servicing those customers.
Impressive and global.
Global.
Global. Great, great. So can you discuss areas where you believe that AVT has a competitive advantage? So capabilities, geographic footprint, line cards, business units. There's historically been a view that competition in electronic component distribution is driven strictly by price. But can you both please describe why this isn't necessarily the case?
Yeah, I'll start and turn it over to Ken for a couple of comments. Well, I know this is going to sound soft, but our people and our culture. I mean, we have a very strong culture. When you're in distribution, it is a people business. It's a relationship business. It's a business built on trust over long periods of time. And we've had a very stable executive team. I've actually been with the company for 43 years. I've been CEO for over five, Ken, 13 years. I go right on down the line. It's cultures. It does matter. It does make a difference. Our global footprint, as I just talked about, is absolutely a differentiator. We can help customers move their design chains or their supply chains anywhere in the world. So a lot of things we help design in might happen here in Europe or in the U.S.
It ends up being manufactured in Southeast Asia or China or Japan, wherever it might go, Guadalajara, et cetera. So our global footprint. Our line card, you mentioned the line card. We have some of the top lines in the world. I mentioned Onsemi's here, Microchip's here, Broadcom, AMD, you know, I could go on and on, NXP, Advanced Energy, who's also here, are all part of our line card. So our line card is an absolute differentiator. And then our diversification of portfolios, as I just talked about, is, we believe, a big differentiator for us as well. And lastly, I'll turn it over to Ken, is the whole digital. You know, we've invested a tremendous amount and continue to in digital. Digital footprint, you know, future-proofing, if you will, our company. Because more and more engineers looking for design solutions, they're going to start online.
The number roughly is around 68% of engineers today go online first to look for design solutions. Then they'll go and contact our field application engineers, of which we have E E engineers, 2,000 roughly around the world. Then we have a division that's based here in the U.K., actually in Leeds, called Farnell. And that's our e-commerce, I'll call it our front end, where they're servicing customers for new products, introduction. 72% of their business is done online of their line items and over 50% of their revenues. Did I save anything?
Yeah, I think, you know, not much left, but I think, you know, the other thing is the strength of our balance sheet along with our size, you know, ample capacity to support customers' needs, right? Because part of what we do provide is, you know, working capital solutions and things like that as we talk about supporting our customers globally.
Great. That's very, very helpful, especially the touch on the culture.
Yeah.
Right, you can't discount how important that is. I agree with that. And we're perhaps at the end of a prolonged down cycle. And looking back and then looking ahead, first, what was different about this cycle? And then what's your strategic focus as a company as you emerge from it?
Yeah, so as I said, I've been around for four decades or so and I've seen a lot of cycles. And the one that always sticks in my mind for those that have been around for a couple of years is 1999, 2000, 2001. We had the Y2K, the perfect storm.
Tech bubble.
The whole tech bubble, exactly. And that was a precipitous drop. It just, boom, it just kind of happened overnight. Then it stayed flat for a while, then boom, came back up. This one is different. And I think it's different for a lot of, it's more global, one. Our businesses are a lot more global than they were. You got the whole geopolitical situation around the world going on. It's just continuing to add to some uncertainty, if nothing else. And inventory. So inventory became a real issue. Inventory is not a bad thing, but there was way too much of it out there for a whole myriad of reasons. But it just, it has been prolonged. And the recovery is like, in the one-on-ones, I'm just like, people say, "Are you calling the recovery?" I'm not calling anything anymore. You know, there's no way.
I've been wrong like six times in the last couple of years, but I am encouraged. I'm really, really encouraged about the bookings, the book- to- bills, the backlog increasing. Our e-commerce activity is going way up. The Farnell that I just talked about, another thing we're focused on. I mean, coming out of this, look, you control the things you can, okay? Everyone wants to get, you know, fancy, dancy, all that. We got to focus on execution. We got to, like Ken talked about asset management. We got to focus on our asset management. We got to focus on our inventory. Inventory for our suppliers that are here is not a bad thing. Now, too much inventory for too long, it's not wine, okay? You got to move it sooner or later, but it's not a bad thing.
It's actually going to help set us up for what I think is an encouraging and optimistic view as we get into 2026. But it is about, it's about execution, okay? Focus on your execution.
Yeah, I'd say one of the things that did surprise us about this cycle is, you know, one of the strengths of our business model is the countercyclical balance sheet. So as we grow, we tend to consume cash to invest in inventory and accounts receivable working capital. But as we go down in business, which we've had over the last, you know, year and a half, we typically generate a lot of cash, right? Which we can do different things with, buy back shares, reinvest in the business. And I think, you know, with the inventory situation as it is, inventory has trended a little higher than we normally would have expected.
There's still some opportunity for our pockets of excess to unlock that cash. But I guess the good news is coming into what we would perceive to be an upturn here coming, we're not calling it, but I think there's a lot of positive signs. You know, we're well positioned, not only from a working capital standpoint, but also from, you know, resources in terms of our technical capabilities, our engineers, our sales force, right? We're well positioned there. So as we begin to recover, we're not going to have to invest a lot of expense into the model. So a lot of operating leverage should be created over the next couple of years.
You know, and through this cycle, we've managed expenses well. You know, and we, yeah, where you got to reduce, you got to reduce.
But we did a much more, you know, right-sized approach, if you will, versus a broad, you know, just 10% cut. Because we wanted to be positioned for the market recovery. But one area, when you reduce expenses, you always got to make investments. But in our IT infrastructure and our supply chain services we just talked about, and all about digital. I know we'll get the AI here, I'm sure, in a minute.
We have to.
Yeah, yeah. Heck or not. But the digital implementation of, you know, tools, okay? By the way, internal tools for our people. How do we connect better with our suppliers from an API, just, you know, digitally? So we're partnering with suppliers in a more automated fashion and with our customers on a global basis. So they're the things we're focused on to drive more efficiency, productivity, scalability. They're the things we need to continue to drive.
And we keep on talking about recovery. So with recovery comes demand, right? So what are you seeing on a regional basis? And what markets and verticals are strong and which are weak? I know you mentioned Asia being stronger than other regions and growing faster. So what are the drivers for that performance and how will you continue to sustain these drivers in the future?
So this is where I get the word encouraged. I'm careful, you know, maybe encouraged, optimistic. There's stabilization, you know, all these. But, you know, if you start with Asia, a quick tour around the world. Asia-Pac, we've had five quarters of year-on-year growth and a record, pretty much a record quarter this quarter in December with, on top of that, positive book-to-bills. So the backlog is strong as we go into March. But we've already talked about going into March. So we think there will be a Lunar New Year. Well, there's a Lunar New Year every year. But post-COVID, you know, the typical seasonality kind of got out of whack. This year we expect March to be a little softer in Asia, which is fine. Europe, you know, has been the toughest region, right?
For a lot of reasons that many of you in the audience know or online know. But we're starting to see positive signs this quarter in Europe as well, which is great news. It's our most profitable region. You know, with Asia going up, it's a little bit less margin. In Europe, coming down, it's created a geo mix, which we think is going to start to correct this quarter and next quarter. In Europe, also positive book-to-bill, which is good impact while growing. Same thing in Americas. America's probably led Europe a little bit. Again, good billings. September quarter in America was our first quarter of year-on-year growth since 2023. Good signs in the Americas. Again, good book-to-bill. As I mentioned, Farnell. Farnell is a kind of a canary in a coal mine because it's so broad, okay?
And service, and like I said, 400,000 engineers around the world. Their activity is up.
Let's dive into Farnell a little bit. So talk to us a little bit more about that and how it differentiates Avnet in general.
Yeah, so Farnell, again, they grew September quarter 15% year-on-year. And, you know, I'll fall on the sword. They had the, Farnell at one time was roughly 6% of our revenues. And you kind of go, "Oh, okay, that's not too exciting." But they're 20, 20 or 20% of our operating income. So it's really critical to Avnet's success. And in the downturn, let's just say they got a little too top-heavy. And in the downturn, they had a lot of negative leverage, got down almost, you know, let's call it 1% operating margin, which is not acceptable. So we've made a tremendous amount of structural changes there, including leadership. It's now led by Rebeca Obregon, who's changed over about 80% of the leadership there. And we're on the recovery. Why is it important? Farnell's kind of our digital e-commerce front end.
So we call it the power of one. You got Avnet Core, which is our, you know, the core business. That's the $22 billion machine, if you will. And then you have Farnell's about $1.6 billion. Okay, but they service all the engineers out there. And there's not a customer that we're doing business with on the core that Farnell's not doing business with in some way, shape, or form. They pretty much mirror our line card. Okay, so when they sell a leading-edge product, a high-technology product, it becomes a sales lead for the core team to go follow up. Because again, Farnell's more online. They have some salespeople, but not near as much as the core. And the other thing that's nice about Farnell is they carry, from a diversification standpoint, you know, they give test and measurement.
So, you know, lines like National Instruments, Keysights, Tektronix, et cetera. So that's a nice diversification to their portfolio. So we report them separately. And we think we have some runway. We know we have some runway in getting them into the double-digit operating margin.
I just think the path to recovery there is a multitude of things, and I think there's some more when it comes to OpEx and really some low-hanging fruit that we have in terms of our e-commerce proposition and conversion rates, but it also gets back to, you know, some being the market recovery, which, you know, for us is the market recovers within Farnell, which is primarily a Europe-based business. You'll sell more on-the-board components, semiconductors and IP&E, but that comes with a higher gross margin, so if you think about Farnell's business model, you know, it's two and a half times the gross margin that Avnet Core has, so it's very attractive and can create a lot of operating leverage as they continue to grow, so the good thing is the gross margin's stable, but there's some more runway there as the mix improves to more on-the-board components.
So it would not be 2025 without talking about AI. So I'll let you lead the witness here. Tell me a little bit about how you're using AI in the business, how it's a differentiator. Go for it.
Yeah, so it's almost been a tale of two cities when you talk about the market, right? You got the hyperscalers, the data center, the AI, kind of over here, and everybody knows who those guys are that are just, you know, going gangbusters, then you got the balance of the semiconductor market, which has been just a little bit different, but AI for us, we actually, there's three major opportunities in selling and driving revenue, let's call it, then we'll get into some applications, but one, we do sell directly into some of the hyperscalers, mostly in Asia, and we called that on the last earnings, it's roughly 7% of our revenue, so not overly top-heavy, but nice growth, and I think just briefly, I could bless you, so you got selling into it, and then you have a lot of our customers.
Again, our number one segment, the vertical for customers is industrial. So anybody in, you can think about this, anybody in power, power management, they're customers of ours. A lot of their growth is coming from, they're all selling into the data centers and selling into the hyperscalers. So we got that piece, which is a great, including the EMS providers, one major one that's here at the conference, as a matter of fact. It's a big part of their business, and they're having great success. Well, they're big customers of ours. So as they service it, we're servicing them, that's a benefit. And then a third, the real benefit that thing is going to come for us anyway is the enablement that AI is going to drive into the edge, okay? Edge computing, okay? Into sensors.
I mean, just think about, you know, smart buildings. I mean, smart medicals, the rings people want to watch at work.
Oh, I can't wait to get a ring for Christmas. It's on my list.
My daughter's too.
Yes.
But, you know, everything is kind of going that way. And this is going to just, you know, times that by 10, you know, the enablement. And that's all of our, I can't start naming suppliers because I'll miss one, and then I'll get in trouble, you know. But we have the best line card out there for microcontrollers. And microcontrollers are on the edge. So I look at those three vectors. So it's a great opportunity for us. As far as POCs or proof of concepts and applications, you know, we've got a bunch of them going. I've just heard the previous presenter talk. It's all about the data.
Yeah.
So if the data's not right, you're going to have problems on the edge in AI. So we've got a bunch of proof of concepts going. We actually have already implemented some of our supply chain areas. It's a great opportunity for us. You know, we take in thousands, literally, of customers' forecasts and MRPs on a daily, weekly, monthly basis. Via EDI, API, they can still fax it to us if they want. Then we got all the supplier data coming in. How can we make better use and intelligence, in turn, you know, data into actionable information?
Yeah.
Okay, it's just one opportunity. We have major call centers, multiple around the world. And the number one call we get is, "Where's my parts?" Like, "Where are my parts?" Expedites. AI is an application area that we can start using. So I would just caution, and I'm not saying that everybody doesn't know already, is you just got to have a discipline, you know, because the applications are endless, and they could also cost you a lot of money and not get you any ROI. So I think we have the right pace. We're right where we need to be from the application. Just need to pick and choose carefully. I think you want to add on that?
Yeah, I mean, I just think there's, you know, how do we make it easier for our customers to do business with us, as well as how do we provide our technical resources more capacity through the use of AI? So I think there's lots of internal applications we can use in addition to, you know, some of the business we're doing, actually selling parts into the AI phenomenon.
Yeah, engineering solutions, for example. A lot of it can be done, maybe not finished, but started there.
Right, right.
So it's exciting.
It is exciting.
It's crazy.
It's crazy.
I mean, scary, crazy, fun, exciting. You know, glad I'm on the back nine. This is going to get scary. This is going to be interesting.
You've lived through all the cycles. I think you're well equipped to handle this one too. So let's take a second to see if there's any questions in the audience.
No, there you go. Great.
Can I just ask?
Sure. We'll review that.
Well, if you give it one second just so we can make sure it gets recorded on the webcast. The microphone is coming.
Thank you so much. Just given your exposure to industrial markets, can you talk about, from our side, we look, we've seen the large investments by different Chinese companies and lagging-edge technology? Can you help us understand, like, how to parse that in terms of the impact on your sort of, on your markets of these investments? And how does it impact your suppliers? How does it impact your customers? Are you making any changes to adjust for this other supply that's become available? Because, as you say, this isn't a cycle like any other cycle. And that factor is obviously one of the factors.
Was that a Chinese semiconductor manufacturer you're talking about?
Just because when we look at how much CapEx has gone into China and how much of that is for lagging-edge semis.
Yeah.
Given that industrials tend to use more of lagging-edge semis and some of the other markets, it's like, from our side, it's very difficult to sort of try and figure out, like, how that plays out over time, how much of it has played out. Just anything you can sort of.
Yeah, that's a great question. And that's happening. There's no doubt that the Chinese investments, and I'm sure some of the semiconductor guys that are here could probably answer that even better than I can, the amount of capacity that they're putting in on the, you're right, on the lagging-edge technologies, where a lot of the investment in the last X number of years has been leading-edge, okay, which is going to, which for sure, we see this, particularly in the industrial market you're tying it to, industrial, medical, defense aero. They don't do, I didn't bring my phone with me. They're not really spending designs and manufacturing something new every six months, 18 months. They're five years, 10 years, 15 years. So what China is doing here, it's going to be interesting to see how that plays, not just for China, but for the rest of the world.
Right now, their exposure to the rest of the world, from my vantage point, is minimal, like in chips, if you will. But is that going to change over time? And that's not, you know, for me to answer. I would think it would, but over time, not anytime soon, but it will over time. But yeah, this is going to be an issue. And it's going to be, I think it's going to become a long pole in the tent down the road for the industrial, medical, defense, aerospace that have these long 10-, 15-, 20-year manufacturing cycles. They need that lagging-edge technology. Now, for us, I guess selfishly, it's an opportunity for us because we manage supply chains.
So how can we help our customers, you know, whether it be buffering or what have you, or end of life, you know, with products to help them support their manufacturing needs over a longer period of time? So I think it's going to be interesting to see how this all plays out. But there's no doubt that China is going to be a player. I mean, they are a player. And maybe through different things that we've done in the West, we've accelerated their progress. Okay, but they're definitely for real, and they're definitely investing quite a bit in that capacity.
It's something that looks like a secular.
Yes.
Just getting the magnitude of that is what I'm trying to see whether it can help us at all.
Yeah, that's, you're right. It's definitely a secular, I think it's a secular movement as well. And we'll just have to see how the balance of the manufacturers respond to that too, right? And I think, you know, I got some of my peers here from our suppliers, you know, competition makes us better, right? So just got done talking to a couple of analysts about that, a couple of shareholders. I mean, so you're not going to stop it, you know, but how can we compete with that?
I'd also point out that the capacity is still coming online. It's not fully ramped. I still think it's going to be several years before all of that investment really becomes, you know, the utilization goes up. So we'll continue to monitor.
It's a very good question.
Any other questions? All right. I think we're going to move on to Ken and some financial questions specifically. So obviously for either of you, whoever wants to jump in. But can you remind us of the countercyclical nature of your balance sheet? Touch on working capital management, the company's needs to support components growth. And then what are your thoughts on working capital requirements over the next few quarters and, of course, free cash flow?
Yeah, I think we talked about it a little bit, but the business model is one that, you know, when things are tough, we tend to spin off a lot of cash, right, which we can then reinvest in the business and buy back shares and be opportunistic with. But when we're growing, typically you had to invest in working capital, primarily inventory, and then, you know, accounts receivable to support customers' needs. And where I'd say we're at right now is, you know, inventory is higher than we'd like it to be. There's some pockets of excess we still need to work down. And so, you know, we think in the near term, we'll get into the 80s in inventory days and then eventually a 7 in front of it.
But I think as we look at the prospects going into next quarter and then the rest of our fiscal year, you know, we feel good about our overall working capital position that there's not going to have to be a lot of investment to support growth in the near term. And then, you know, when it comes to other uses of cash, we will have, you know, some light CapEx to invest in some of the digital tools and capabilities that Phil's mentioned. But for the most part, you know, the free cash flow we generate, you know, we'll have opportunity to buy back more shares, although in the current state of where we're at with the balance sheet, you know, our leverage is a little high. So we're going to focus on reducing leverage to a more appropriate level just to maintain this strong balance sheet.
But at, you know, less than $50 a share, we feel the shares are highly attractive. And we also have a dividend that's been increasing quarterly, so we support the dividend every quarter on top of buybacks.
We have two minutes left. I'd love to end on talking a little bit about your most recent earnings call. I know you gave some financial outlook and just some general outlook on 2026, what's ahead and what you're excited about. Let's end on a positive note.
Yep. Maybe I'll take the guidance and you can take the, what we're excited about. But I think our guidance for the December quarter was encouraging. Is the word I would use. And why I say that is because although the growth was only roughly 2%, you know, quarter over quarter, the EPS guidance is roughly 12% increase, right? And so what that means is you're starting to see a little bit of uptick, not only in Farnell, but also the Americas, which is our higher margin regions. And you can start to see the operating leverage come back. So, you know, we're encouraged about the guidance in terms of, you know, we're starting to see that return to growth in both Farnell and the Americas. We think Europe's, you know, closely behind there.
And so as we usually get into our March quarter, which is our seasonally strong quarter for not only Europe and the Americas, but also Farnell, we would expect to see an overall gross margin uptick, which then creates even more operating leverage, you know, all things being equal. And Phil, what do you think about 2026?
Yeah, we don't give guidance for the year, but I give you a feel, and I think I already did. We're really feeling very good about the current quarter. We're feeling good about the book-to-bills. We're overusing the word probably encouraging for obvious reasons. Because you just said there's so many still uncertainties out there. You don't know what could happen tomorrow. I mean, you didn't mention tariffs, thank you. But, you know, so a tariff change, a geopolitical situation change, I mean, it's pretty tenuous out there.
That aside, you know, we feel very positive about the outlook. And to Ken's point, we're positioned well. You know, we managed our expenses down well. We didn't overdo it because we wanted to be sure we were ready for the upturn. So when we get asked questions, how much do you have to invest back in? There's an upturn. Not much. Variable comp, which is commissions, you know, warehouse logistics, you know, more labor. That's it. So the beauty of our model is when the top line comes, it drops to the bottom pretty quick. So I'm feeling really positive about where we're at and the position we're in in the market. Thank you.
Awesome. Well, I'm excited.
Thanks.
I hope this was a good conversation for you all. I really, really appreciate you joining us here at NASDAQ for the conference.
Thanks so much.