Welcome to the ScanSource quarterly earnings conference call. All lines are in place in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session. Today's call is being recorded. If anyone has any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now turn the call over to Mary Gentry, Senior Vice President, Treasurer, and Investor Relations. Ma'am, you may begin.
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining us. Joining me on the call today are Mike Baur, our Chairman and CEO, John Eldh, our Chief Revenue Officer, and Steve Jones, our Chief Financial Officer. We will review our operating results for the quarter and then take your questions. We posted an earnings infographic that accompanies our comments and webcast in the Investor Relations section of our website. Let me remind you that certain statements in our press release, in the earnings infographic, and on this call are forward-looking statements. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause results to differ materially from such statements. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not limited to, those factors identified in the earnings release we put out today and in ScanSource's Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2021, as filed with the SEC.
Any forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today and should not be relied upon as representing our views as of any subsequent date. ScanSource disclaims any duty to update any forward-looking statements to reflect actual results or changes in expectations except as required by law. During our call, we will discuss both GAAP and non-GAAP results and have provided reconciliations between these amounts in the earnings infographic and in our press release. These reconciliations also can be found on our website and have been filed with our Form 8-K filed today. I'll now turn the call over to Mike.
Thanks, Mary, and thanks everyone for joining us today. Our Q1 performance was a terrific start to our fiscal year, driven by 13% net sales growth. Our excellent top-line growth was driven by strong demand. This proves our hybrid strategy is winning. I am extremely proud of the operational excellence delivered by our employees worldwide while navigating the ongoing supply chain challenges. This quarter, we made changes to our reported segments, now Specialty Technology Solutions and Modern Communications and Cloud, to align with our go-to-market strategy. Both of the new segments include hardware, services, and recurring revenue opportunities. This enables us to follow end user consumption patterns for all of our technologies. The foundation of our hybrid distribution strategy is helping suppliers and sales partners accelerate growth across innovative technologies by providing hardware plus services, software, or other recurring offers.
We connect devices to the cloud and are enabling our channel partners to meet end user demand in the exciting and fast-growing digital world. I will now turn the call over to John to discuss our business performance.
Thanks, Mike. I'm very proud of our Q1 performance. We delivered impressive results with 13% year-on-year net sales growth and 25% year-on-year gross profit growth. We saw momentum across our business given our power to combine hardware, software, connectivity, and cloud service offerings. This combination of capabilities is enabling us to deliver differentiated value to our partners and suppliers while accelerating growth opportunities across the channel, resulting in expanded margins across those segments. Our sales and supplier services teams' deep knowledge, trust, and specialty technology expertise provide us a competitive advantage in the marketplace. A big differentiator for our business is our focus on specialized technologies. This specialization brings us much closer to our suppliers, and in many cases, makes us their largest or second-largest customer. Our suppliers trust us to take care of their business and their customers and work to accommodate our inventory requirements.
Our first quarter results reflected strong demand driven by digital acceleration and technology refresh initiatives. We saw double-digit growth across large deals and run rate business. As end user buying and consumption patterns change, ScanSource enables partners to win and sell the technology stack by leveraging our hybrid distribution strategy. A recent example of a hybrid solution included cloud voice, connectivity, and SD-WAN controllers for a multi-brand retailer looking to consolidate suppliers across 1,000+ sites while connecting, securing, and maintaining business continuity. ScanSource orchestrated this solution, which resulted in a $500K end user MRR deal, highlighting our differentiated distribution capabilities. In our Specialty Technology Solutions segment, net sales increased 23% year-over-year, fueled by strong demand, increases in big deals, and market share gains.
Our segment gross profit grew 32% year-on-year. A more favorable sales mix, increased supplier sales incentives, and price performance drove higher profit margins. With increased demand and continued labor shortages, end customers are implementing mobile computing solutions to increase automation and worker productivity. Retailers are adopting our solutions to reduce friction across the buying experience, including self-checkout, curbside pickup, and storefront fulfillment for online purchases. Key to our hybrid distribution growth strategy is expanding use cases for attaching higher value services to hardware. Example use cases include key injection for payment devices, wireless connectivity with mobile computers, and integrated hardware deployments. These use cases demonstrate ScanSource's unique value proposition and enhance our margin profile. For our Modern Communications and Cloud segment, net sales increased 2% year-on-year, while gross profits increased 21% year-on-year, reflecting accelerated cloud and subscription adoption.
The hybrid work model, considered by many as the new normal, is providing significant opportunities for our partners across UCaaS, CCaaS, cloud-enabled endpoints, and connectivity. Hybrid work environments are transforming the way we work. According to Frost & Sullivan research, pre-2020, only 10% of meeting spaces qualified as huddle rooms. By 2024, approximately 75% of all video meetings will take place in huddle rooms. This expected growth is creating tremendous opportunity for our sales partners to update and refresh collaboration technologies in conference and huddle rooms, enabling hybrid work. Included in this segment is Intelisys, and we achieved 13% year-on-year net sales growth and exceeded $2 billion in end user ARR, annual recurring revenue, or billings by suppliers to end users. This marks our 21st quarter in a row of double-digit growth with Intelisys.
We are adding additional headcount ahead of revenue to accelerate our growth opportunity. We are encouraged by the continued adoption of the agency model by the VAR community, as witnessed by 23% year-on-year growth in new supplier billings through VARs. These VARs now represent 56% of Intelisys sales partners, up from 30% at the time of acquisition 5 years ago. Our team in Brazil continues to deliver consistent performance on top line revenue and profitability along with strong financial discipline. During the quarter, we experienced strength in big deals with double-digit growth across data center, digital workplace, and cyber security solutions. In addition to our success across hardware, our business in Brazil continues to build outstanding momentum across SaaS and digital solutions.
In summary, we are leading the way in hybrid distribution, accelerating the future of technology for our partners and suppliers across hardware, software, connectivity, and cloud services. I'm very excited about our Q1 performance, the strength and momentum of our business, and the opportunities that lay ahead. I'd like to thank our employees for all their outstanding efforts in the quarter, and our suppliers and customers for their continued commitment to ScanSource. Now, I'll turn it over to Steve, who will take you through our financial results.
Thanks, John. Our strong first quarter results demonstrates our team's successful execution of our strategic plan. It was an outstanding quarter for delivering growth and higher returns. Our business is built on top line growth, and we realized operational leverage in Q1 in our bottom line results. Non-GAAP EPS for the quarter was $0.99 and represents the fifth consecutive quarter of improvement. As Mike noted in his opening statements, we made changes to our reporting segments to align technologies with our go-to-market strategy. Our new segments better reflect how we manage the business today and in the future. In the first quarter, we achieved strong top line growth, up 13% year-over-year, and expanded our margins. Our gross profit margins increased to 11.8%. Adjusted EBITDA margins increased to 4.83%, and non-GAAP operating income margin increased to 4.07%.
In both segments, gross profit, adjusted EBITDA, and non-GAAP operating income grew faster than sales, demonstrating our increasing operating leverage. Q1 net sales of $857 million reflects strong demand from our customers. Our gross profits grew 25% year-over-year to $101 million. Favorable sales mix and higher supplier sales incentives contributed to our gross profit margin of 11.8%, an increase from 10.7% in the prior year's quarter. Our non-GAAP SG&A expense for the quarter of $63.5 million increased $1.9 million, or 3% year-over-year, which includes investment in strategic headcount for Intelisys, Brazil, and other growth areas, including IT investments to expand our capabilities. We are shifting to adjusted EBITDA as our key profitability metrics.
First quarter adjusted EBITDA, which now excludes share-based compensation, totaled $41.4 million, up 98% year over year. Our first quarter income tax rate of 25% reflects an increase in forecasted tax-exempt income, primarily from Brazil. For fiscal year 2022, we estimate the effective tax rate, excluding discrete items, to range from 24.5%-25.5%. Now turning to the balance sheet and cash flow. Negative operating cash flow of $57 million for the quarter and $11 million for the trailing twelve months reflects working capital investment to support our sales growth. Year over year, working capital increased $93 million, a 24% year over year increase. Q1 DSO came in at 62 days, in line with our expected range.
Our Q1 inventory turns of 6.3x were up modestly from our typical range. On September 30, 2021, we had cash and cash equivalents of $55 million and debt of $197 million. Our balance sheet remains strong. From a net debt leverage perspective, we ended Q1 at approximately 1x trailing twelve-month adjusted EBITDA, demonstrating our financial flexibility to support growth opportunities and create long-term value. During the quarter, we had no repurchases under our $100 million share repurchase authorization. Finally, first quarter fiscal year 2022 return on invested capital increased to 17.5%, the highest quarterly ROIC in over 5 years. Our Q1 ROIC includes the change in our adjusted EBITDA calculation to exclude share-based compensation. With our Q4 earnings announcement in August, we provided an annual outlook for the first time.
We are reaffirming our full year outlook. For fiscal year 2022, we expect our year-over-year net sales growth to be at least 5.5%, and we expect adjusted EBITDA to be at least $135 million. We'll now open it up for questions.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star then one. If your question has been answered and you'd like to remove yourself from the queue, press the pound key. Our first question comes from Adam Tindle with Raymond James. Your line is open.
Hi, this is Catherine on for Adam. Thank you so much for taking our questions today. It looks like your new segment for Modern Communications and Cloud beat massively this quarter, sequentially and year over year. Was this attributable to the reshuffling in segments or increased activity and spend in this channel?
Well, I don't think from a year-over-year perspective, if you look at the comp, we've restated our year-over-year performance. This would be the strong demand driving our growth.
Okay. Can you dig a little bit into backlog? Are you seeing elevated backlog and in lead times? Could you go into the composition of this backlog, please?
Yeah. Hi, this is John Eldh. Thanks for the question. You know, when we think about backlogs, quite frankly, it wasn't material coming out of Q1, and we aren't anticipating it to be material in Q2.
Okay. Last one for me. It looks like inventory could be putting a little bit of pressure on operating cash flow. As you mentioned, turns are up year over year. When should we expect this metric to normalize?
Well, when we look at our inventory turns, we're kind of in the middle of where we think we should be at 6.2x-6.3x . It's a little bit faster than what we've historically seen, but right kind of in the middle. We're comfortable with where our inventory levels are right now.
Okay. Thank you so much, and congrats.
Thank you.
Our next question comes from Keith Housum with Northcoast Research. Your line is open.
Hey, guys. Congratulations on the quarter. Great to see. If we look at your gross margins, obviously gross margins were very impressive and vendor rebates were a big part of that. As you kind of look at it and analyze the activity there, how sustainable is that level of achievement? Was it really just an outperformance for the quarter, but we ought to kind of take things into measured doses here?
Yeah, let me take that one, Keith. This is Steve. When we look at our gross margins, you know, we believe that we'll be able to sustain these. The reason why, let me go into a little detail. We see higher growth rates in our recurring business, and that has a higher margin for us. We think that will be sustainable for us for sure. The one thing that we look at on the gross margin side is our mix of large deals. As we see larger deals, we can see some fluctuation in the margins.
Gotcha. Makes sense. In terms of the supply chain challenges that you guys are seeing, I'd love to get your guys' perspective just because you guys see a cross-section of industries there. Do you see the supply chain challenges getting worse for you guys, getting better? I guess, how would you guys kind of look at them right now?
Yeah. Hey, Keith. It's John Eldh. Thanks for the question. You know, as it relates to the supply chain constraints, clearly, like everybody else, we're seeing supply chain challenges this quarter, and we see them continuing as we move forward. Lead times have extended, as you would imagine. Overall, as you heard in my prepared comments, our team is doing a fantastic job and working through it very well.
Gotcha. Okay. Appreciate it. Then in terms of the guidance, you know, first quarter is generally, you know, not one of your strongest quarters to begin with, but you guys had an exceptional quarter, especially on the adjusted EBITDA line. Why not raise your guidance, at least a little bit? Or is there any thought process you have for the rest of the year that things may slow down?
Well, Keith, this is Steve Jones again. Let me start off by saying, you know, we just gave guidance for the first time ever in the company's history from an annual perspective. You know, we stopped giving guidance and from a quarterly perspective and we started the annual guidance. We're wanting to make sure that we're very comfortable. Q1 definitely gives us confidence in our annual guidance for sure. There's still, you know, there are still challenges out there with the supply chain, and we historically see our seasonality impacted in Q3. With those things out there, we really don't have any new news other than Q1 performance to update the guidance.
All right, guys, I'll jump back with you. Thanks, guys.
Our next question comes from Chris McGinnis with Sidoti & Company. Your line is open.
Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions, and nice quarter. I guess just to follow up, to piggyback on the guidance question. I guess when you think about the performance in Q1 with the big deals, I know those fluctuate. Can you just talk a little bit about how much that played into maybe the margin performance? I thought typically the larger deals were a little bit lower margin at times. Can you just walk through, you know, how that impacted the margin and where you could have ended up without those, I guess?
Yeah, Chris, John talked about, you know, double-digit growth in our big deals and our run rate business. We were really pleased with the mix of business that we saw in Q1. As far as the margins, you know, with the supply chain the way it is and the supply constraints, we actually had, you know, some pricing performance that we historically don't see in those big deals. That was a help to us for the quarter.
That makes sense. Okay. John, I think you mentioned just some investment for some growth ahead. I don't know if it was specifically around Intelisys, but are you seeing a greater growth opportunity at this point, given the strong performance, you know, Intelisys has had? Thanks.
Yeah. Hey, Chris. Thanks for the question. Yeah, absolutely. As I said in my prepared remarks, you know, we had a strong quarter. Once again, 13% growth, and absolutely we see further growth opportunities across Intelisys, and so we're investing ahead of revenue, and we're doing so across customer-facing roles, expanding our inside sales capabilities, and also technical sales and technical capabilities, so across the board.
Chris, it's Mike. John, if I can just add to that. I think the other big story that John talked about and we've been talking about for a few quarters is we've expanded dramatically our customer opportunities in Intelisys with the real rush by the VAR channel to be part of our Intelisys story. We've now got a lot more companies to go visit and cover, and a lot of those VARs are at early stages of selling. A lot of John's team have to do a lot of education and development. This is a multi-year return kind of plan. We're adding investments to really help these VARs. They're contributing so much to our growth.
This is what I talked about five years ago that we really wanted to happen, is we'd have this great Intelisys master agency that would one day attract VARs at a level nobody else is doing. I think that's the real story as to where that investment's going.
Okay. Great. I appreciate that color. Maybe just, if you could just touch on Brazil, what's happening in that market. You know, it seems like they're in and out of flux with the pandemic, and are you gaining considerable share in that marketplace? Can you just maybe describe a little bit about what's happened there? Thank you.
Yeah, Chris, we're really excited about Brazil. They continue to deliver, you know, consistent performance. We got a great leadership team, as we've talked about before. Real strength in the overall team. I think there's a couple things also going on there. You know, our volumes there are at a real positive level, which is helping us to get greater leverage on our SG&A. We're seeing real strong recurring revenue growth, which is contributing positively, not only on the top line, but really to the gross profit and the margin.
Great. I don't know if you give this number. Do you have a growth rate of the recurring revenue itself? I don't know if you bucket it out. I don't think I've ever heard you discuss it that way, but I was wondering if you can give us that color.
Yeah. Hi, Chris. This is Steve Jones. We don't aggregate our recurring revenues and report them out. You know, it is something that we're focused on for sure is growing that recurring revenue base. On both sides of our-
Um-
Our segments now as well, what you'll see recurring revenue.
Okay. Yeah, thanks for all the data on the realignment. It was very helpful. Just last question, just given the strength of the balance sheet, I know you have the share repurchase that you put in last quarter, but when you look at, you know, is there possible M&A, you know, where you would like to add to, you know, the team at this point?
Yeah. Well, first, you know, if you look at our quarter, we added about $93 million to our working capital, and we're in our sweet spot, low end of our capital leverage range. I would tell you that we have an active M&A pipeline, and we are looking to acquire, especially to expand our capabilities. That is, you know, more to come on that one. Stay tuned, but that is something that we're focused on.
Great. Thanks for taking my questions, and congrats on the quarter and good luck in Q2.
Thank you.
Again, to ask a question, please press star then one. There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the call back over to Mr. Baur for any closing remarks.
This is Steve Jones again. I'd just like to thank everyone for joining us. We expect to hold our next conference call to discuss December 31 quarterly results on Tuesday, February 8.
This does conclude the conference. You may now disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.