Avnet Q3 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
April 30, 2025
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Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Avnet Third Quarter Fiscal Year twenty twenty five Earnings Conference Call. At this time, participants are in a listen only mode. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Joe Burke, Vice President, Investor Relations.

Joe Burke
Joe Burke
VP - Investor Relations at Avnet

Joe, please go ahead. Thank you, operator. I'd like to welcome everyone to Avnet's third quarter fiscal year twenty twenty five earnings conference call. This morning, Avnet released financial results for the third quarter fiscal year twenty twenty five and the release is available on the Investor Relations section of Avnet's website along with a slide presentation, which you may access at your convenience. As a reminder, some of the information contained in the news release and on this conference call contain forward looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict.

Joe Burke
Joe Burke
VP - Investor Relations at Avnet

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 ks and subsequent filings with the SEC. These forward looking statements speak only as of the date of this presentation and the company undertakes no obligation to publicly update any forward looking statements or supply new information regarding the circumstances after the date of this presentation. Please note, unless otherwise stated, all results provided will be non GAAP measures. The full non GAAP to GAAP reconciliation can be found in the press release issued today as well as in the appendix slides of today's presentation and posted on the Investor Relations website.

Joe Burke
Joe Burke
VP - Investor Relations at Avnet

Today's call will be led by Phil Gallagher, Avnet's CEO and Ken Jacobson, Avnet's CFO. With that, let me turn the call over to Phil Gallagher. Phil?

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Thank you, Joe, and thank you everyone for joining us on our third quarter fiscal year twenty twenty five earnings call. I am pleased we delivered financial results ahead of our expectations for the third quarter. We achieved sales of $5,300,000,000 near the high end of our guidance and adjusted EPS of $0.84 above guidance. We also generated $141,000,000 of cash flow from operations in the quarter. Our results were driven by slightly better than expected performance in Asia and Farnell offset by expected ongoing weaknesses in the West with Europe presenting the most challenging market conditions.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Semiconductor and IP and E lead times and pricing continue to be stable for most technologies. Our global book to bill ratio continues to improve with the Asia region achieving parity in the quarter and with The Americas and EMEA approaching parity. I would note that the IP and E book to bill ratio across the company continues to improve above parity. Our backlog continues to be lower due to a combination of shorter lead times and customers still in the destocking mode. Cancellations have remained at normal levels.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Customers continue to work through their elevated inventories. And while our inventory is down marginally after accounting for foreign currency, I want to emphasize that inventory on hand, which is comprised of a diverse supplier mix is a strategic asset and an important part of the value proposition we bring to our customers. And we stand at the ready to provide our customers with the product they need as the destocking process runs its course. At the same time, we expect to continue to optimize our inventory composition and reduce core inventory levels where needed in the coming quarters. Turning to our Electronic Components results.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

At the top line, our Electronic Components sales declined on a sequential basis and on a year on year basis due to the economic backdrop and certain geopolitical factors. On the other hand, Asia was the only region with year on year sales growth. In EMEA, we continue to experience weak demand across the region. In the quarter, the industrial end market increased slightly, while other verticals were down sequentially. The aerospace and defense end market was the only vertical that showed growth on a year on year basis.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

In The Americas, we saw sequential growth Transportation and Compute end markets, while other verticals were down sequentially. All verticals with the exception of Compute were down on a year on year basis. We did not see any meaningful increase in shipments in advance of the anticipated tariff increases. Results for our Asia region were better than expected, even after allowing for the seasonal declines attributed to the Lunar New Year. Sales for Asia were down 8.5% sequentially.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

However, sales increased 13% year on year, representing the third consecutive quarter of year on year growth. While sales for all verticals were down sequentially as expected, we saw year on year growth in the industrial, communication and transportation end markets. Similar to last quarter, we experienced a slight benefit in Asia from customers ordering due to the uncertainty of potential regulatory changes in The U. S. Demand creation revenues as a percentage of total revenues remained stable.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Our demand creation wins increased as our field application engineers continue to find ways to create solutions for our customers even in these challenging markets. One bright spot to mention is Abacus. Our specialty IP and E business in EMEA recorded solid increases in demand creation revenues and gross profit dollars. Now turning to Farnell. We are encouraged by the progress Farnell is making as sales increased 6% sequentially and operating income increased to 3% for the quarter.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

We continue to be challenged given the macro environment in Europe where a large portion of their sales are derived. While our team still has a lot of work to do, I expect that we will see steady improvements at Farnell. We will continue to execute against our strategy and focus on those growth opportunities we can control, including leveraging existing Avnet core customer and supplier relationships, thus our branding of the Power of One. Now regarding recently announced tariffs, we understand that this topic is front and center for all Avnet stakeholders. I want to take a moment to talk about what we are doing to mitigate the impact of tariffs on our customers and our own financials.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

First, I will start by saying the current environment regarding tariffs is dynamic and our remarks today are based on what we know at this time. As we've mentioned before, when tariffs on goods originating from China went into the effect in 2018, we implemented changes to our systems and processes to minimize the impact of tariffs where we could and pass through tariffs to our customers as seamlessly as possible. In response to recently enacted tariffs earlier this month, our team has been making the necessary adjustments to our systems and processes to capture and mitigate the widening scope of those that are currently applicable. Some of our solutions to minimize the impact include leveraging our global logistics and services footprint, collaborating with suppliers so we can minimize impact on our customers and offering alternative country of origin products and solutions that are not subject to tariffs. To conclude, we are experiencing one of the most challenging uncertain times that I've witnessed in my forty plus years in distribution.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Supply chains today are very complex. And as I like to say, complexity is our friend. At Avnet, our job and a big part of our value proposition is to minimize the complexity so our suppliers and customers can achieve their goals in the most cost effective way possible. We at Avnet have a long history of adapting to evolving technologies, market cycles, geopolitics and shifts in regulations. I'm confident we will weather these current challenges and emerge stronger.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

I want to thank our team for their dedication and perseverance in helping us to achieve our goals. It is during times like these that our efforts demonstrate to all of our stakeholders the value that we provide at the center of the technology supply chain. With that, I'll turn it over to Ken to dive deeper into our third quarter results. Ken?

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Thank you, Phil, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate your interest in Avnet and for joining our third quarter earnings call. Our sales for the third quarter were approximately $5,300,000,000 near the high end of our guidance range and down 6% both year over year and on a sequential basis. Relative to expectations, sales in Asia and Farnell were higher than expected, while The Americas and EMEA sales were slightly lower than expected. Regionally, on a year over year basis, sales increased 13% in Asia, but declined 24% in EMEA and 9% in The Americas.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

From an operating group perspective, Electronic Components sales declined 6% year over year and decreased 7% sequentially. Farnell sales declined 10% year over year, but increased 6% sequentially. For the third quarter, gross margin of 11.1% was 78 basis points lower year over year, but 54 basis points higher sequentially in part due to a seasonal mix shift to the West. The same seasonal mix shift impacted EC gross margin, was higher sequentially, but down year over year. Gross margins for each EC region remained relatively consistent on a sequential basis.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Farnell gross margin was also down year over year, but up sequentially largely due to an increased mix of on the board components. Farnell gross margin at the product category level including on the board components continues to be stable. Turning to operating expenses, we continue to manage expenses well and take costs out where necessary. SG and A expenses were $435,000,000 in the quarter, down $32,000,000 or 7% year over year and down $1,000,000 sequentially. Operating expenses for the quarter included a $9,000,000 benefit from the gain on the sale and leaseback of the facility.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

As a percentage of gross profit dollars, SG and A expenses were slightly higher sequentially at 74%. Foreign currency positively impacted operating expenses by approximately $4,000,000 sequentially and $7,000,000 year over year. For the third quarter, we reported adjusted operating income of $153,000,000 and our adjusted operating margin was 2.9%. By operating group, Electronic Components operating income was $172,000,000 and EC operating margin was 3.5%. The year over year decline in EC operating margin was primarily due to the sales mix shift to Asia.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Farnell operating margin was 3%, up approximately 200 basis points quarter over quarter, reflecting improved sales and gross margin. It is early days, but we are encouraged by this improvement. We believe the Farnell business has stabilized and seeing modest improvement in the number and size of customer orders. Farnell operating expenses were down $12,000,000 year over year, but up $3,000,000 sequentially on higher sales. Farnell continues to execute against its reduction program, but a majority of the planned actions have been completed exiting the third quarter.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Turning to expenses below operating income, third quarter interest expense of $61,000,000 decreased by $12,000,000 year over year and decreased $1,000,000 sequentially due to lower average borrowings. This lower interest expense positively impacted adjusted diluted earnings per share by $0.11 year over year. Our adjusted effective income tax rate was 23% in the quarter as expected. Adjusted diluted earnings per share of $0.84 exceeded the high end of our guidance for the quarter and included an approximately $08 benefit from the gain on sale and leaseback of the facility during the quarter. Turning to the balance sheet and liquidity.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

During the quarter, capital remained flat sequentially and included a slight increase in reported inventories of $18,000,000 a $326,000,000 decrease in receivables and a $3.00 $7,000,000 decrease in payables. Sequential increases in foreign currency exchange rates added $93,000,000 to working capital, including $75,000,000 to reported inventories. Excluding the impact of changes in foreign currency exchange rates, inventories decreased by $57,000,000 compared to last quarter. We remain focused on reducing inventory levels were elevated noting that we also want to make investments where needed. Our return on working capital is stable with last quarter.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

We generated $141,000,000 of cash from operations in the quarter, dollars $585,000,000 fiscal year to date and $859,000,000 over the past four quarters. We expect to generate positive operating cash flows next quarter. Year to date, our debt is lower by $260,000,000 We ended the quarter with a gross leverage of 3.2 times and we had approximately $1,200,000,000 of available committed borrowing capacity. During the quarter, net cash used for CapEx was $27,000,000 within our expected quarterly levels of approximately $25,000,000 to $35,000,000 CapEx is expected to be between $55,000,000 to $65,000,000 next quarter due to the planned purchase of an office building. In the third quarter, we paid our quarterly dividends of $0.33 per share or $28,000,000 We also repurchased approximately $101,000,000 of the shares bringing the year to date repurchase total to two fifty one million dollars We are ahead of our goal to reduce shares outstanding by at least 5% this fiscal year.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Additionally, we have more than $400,000,000 less on our current share repurchase authorization. Book value per share increased to approximately $56 a share or sequential increase of $1 per share, primarily due to changes in foreign currency exchange rates. With regard to our capital allocation, we continue to prioritize our existing business needs, including working capital and CapEx. We remain committed to our roadmap of delivering a reliable and increasing dividend and balancing debt pay down with share repurchases as our shares continue to be undervalued by the market. Turning to guidance.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

For the fourth quarter of fiscal twenty twenty five, we are guiding sales in the range of $5,150,000,000 to $5,450,000,000 and diluted earnings per share in the range of $0.65 to $0.75 Our fourth quarter guidance assumes flat sales compared to last quarter at the midpoint driven in part by favorable foreign exchange rates primarily in EMEA. Our overall sales guidance in constant currency assumes lower sales in EMEA and flattish sales in Asia and The Americas. This guidance also assumes similar interest expense compared to the third quarter on effective tax rate of between twenty one percent and twenty five percent and eighty six million shares outstanding on a diluted basis. Our team has made a significant effort to adjust our processes for this latest round of tariffs. For additional context, we currently estimate that between 7% to 10% of our annual Americas sales is from products that originate from China.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

We continue to work with our suppliers and customers to mitigate the impact of tariffs where possible. In summary, our third quarter performance was better than expected despite the challenging market conditions. Our team continues to focus on generating operating cash flow and over the past year we have been able to balance the pay down of debt with returning cash to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends. Before turning to questions, I want to echo Phil's comments in thanking our team for continuing to focus on the things that we can control. We will continue to work closely with our suppliers and customers to mitigate the impact of current and any future tariffs to the extent possible.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Our global scale and the diversification of our distribution center locations, the supplier technologies we provide and the vertical markets we serve gives us the ability to reduce complexities and better serve our customers. With that, I will turn it over to the operator to open up for questions. Operator?

Operator

Thank you. We'll now be conducting a question and answer session. Our first question today is coming from Joe Cortacci from Wells Fargo. Your line is now live.

Joe Quatrochi
Joe Quatrochi
Director & Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

Yes. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to kind of understand the puts and takes on the revenue guide for the June. It's a bit weaker than some of your suppliers that have already guided for the quarter implying that their revenue would be up low or mid or even in some cases high single digits sequentially. So I wanted to kind of understand the difference there.

Joe Quatrochi
Joe Quatrochi
Director & Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

And then maybe on as a follow-up to that, how do we think about your inventory expectations given that you're guiding for flattish growth and some of your suppliers are guiding for growth?

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Yes, Joe, thanks. I guess what I would say is I think we've taken the same approach that we have over the past several quarters to kind of come up with a guide. So I don't think we view it as conservative. We don't view it as necessarily aggressive as well.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

And I think the real story is the West in Europe in particular, I think in kind of Europe looking at a sequential down 5% plus. So I think if you look at the guidance range, if you look at the high end of that guidance range, you could get to those low single digit growth sequentially. But really that's all going be probably coming from Asia, right. Asia is where we have the strength now and the West is kind of weak. And so when you get the upside in sales in Asia, it's lower calorie sales.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

And so that's kind of how we're thinking about things. I know we'll get into some questions on tariffs and things like that. Hey, I think we're going to make some more progress, dollars 57,000,000 reduction in inventory in constant currency. We'll make some more progress this quarter. I would say $100,000,000 kind of plus is what we're looking at.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Need to kind of work that side of things and think there's more opportunity there to relieve the inventory. So, that's kind of what we're seeing right now. Okay. And then as a follow-up on tariffs, I mean you kind of touched upon it in the prepared remarks, opportunities for your supply chain services for your customers and can you talk about that? And what does that look like?

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

And can you remind us of any just kind the details from the financial profiles of that business? Yes. I mean, I think it's an opportunity to continue to help our customers across all of our service offerings including Supply Chain and Service. I wouldn't say it's unique to that. I guess how we look at it is, this is where our global scale and geographic footprint helps us.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Again, we talked about 7% to 10% of our Americas business being country of origin China and even some of that goes to Mexico or Canada which wouldn't be subject to tariffs. So look it's complicated but I think our footprint is going to serve us well to help customers reduce that complexity. But at the end of the day stuff coming from China into The U. S. Is going to be subject to tariffs, right.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

We can't stop that. We can try to get different country origins and mitigate the best we and we're working through that right now. So we do see this is another example I think we've referred to it as just more complexity which serves us better to help our customers deal with that. But it's challenging right now in terms of everyone's run route, their heads cut off, but the team is doing a great job trying to adjust real time to what's coming out. And we don't listen to the news, we're more focused on what the government actually issues, but it's coming at us pretty fast, but we think we're lockstep with what the changes are and we're implementing things as quickly as we can.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Yes, Joe, this is Phil. I'll just jump in on that. Thanks, Ken. We're super proud of

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

the team here. We've got tremendous amount of

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

experience with this. It's not new. I think we reemphasized that in the script. It's going back to what 2017, '20 '18. So it's just a little bit more complex than that obviously with what's going on.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

But we have the processes in place. We've got the logistics centers options. We've the FTZ set up. And the word really because everybody have you are you going pass it on? That's going to be the next question.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

The answer is yes. And we are doing that and have done that in the past. But the real thing we try to do is mitigate upfront altogether, right? So the key is mitigation. So that's why we very intentionally put the complexity in the script that complexity is fine.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

That's what we deal with, okay? And that's our job is to make things simpler, if you will, or streamline for our customers and suppliers. On the guidance, I'm going reemphasize what Ken mentioned is, look, we stress the team, we don't make up numbers, we roll it up bottoms up. We have some conversations with the field regional presidents that is what we believe is our best estimate. And I think the guidance this quarter is particularly complex given the tariffs, given the geopolitical uncertainty that there was no reason to go and stretch that out.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

If we do better, we do better, great. But we're very confident with the guide, okay, as we have been in the past and it's what we're seeing today and that's what we're reporting.

Joe Quatrochi
Joe Quatrochi
Director & Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo

Thanks for the details.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

You got it, Joe.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is coming from William Stein from Truisty.

William Stein
William Stein
Managing Director/Senior Research Analyst - Technology at Truist Securities

Hi, can you all hear me?

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Sure can, Will.

William Stein
William Stein
Managing Director/Senior Research Analyst - Technology at Truist Securities

Great. Cut out for a minute there. Thanks for taking my questions. First on Farnell, you did a bit better there than we expected in the quarter, both revenue, but especially in margins. Can you elaborate a little bit on what went on in the quarter and what your longer term expectations are for that business, please?

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Sure, Ken, Will. Yes. So the word I would use and we're not celebrating by any stretch, but the word I would use on Farnell is we're encouraged, okay. We put a plan in place with the new leader Rebecca and team and are executing to the plan both in OpEx reductions as well as SKU expansion and streaming the processes and becoming more driving more efficiency. What happened what's encouraging, you're right, in the operating margin, we our goal there, Will, as we say this is, I want to see continuous improvement quarter on quarter, work our way back into double digit.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Okay, over what period of time exactly, tough to call, but we definitely want to see that we went from where we were to one to three, let's get to five to six right on down the line. And that's the charter for now and it really moves our needle as you know from an EPS standpoint when, not if, when we do that. I'll give you let me give you some encouraging comments here, Will, that happened throughout the quarter. Across the board, we saw customer line items continue to increase in shipments in all three regions, okay. So that's a I don't know that's canary in a coal mine or what as we talk about, but it was a good sign.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

It wasn't any one region, but in Asia Pac, we're up close to double digit. In Europe in line items, the activity is up in the teens and almost 10% in The Americas. So across the board, we saw increased line item activity. The order values maybe not be tracking quite at the same rate, but the volume is going up and we continue to see that as we get into April and the book to bill is positive. So it's kind of steady as she goes with Farnell.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

We believe, as you know, passionately in the success for Farnell and the impact it can have on Avnet Inc. And we'll continue to leverage Avnet and Farnell is that PowerOne theme we continue to market out to the suppliers and customers.

William Stein
William Stein
Managing Director/Senior Research Analyst - Technology at Truist Securities

Thanks for that. The next thing I'd like to linger on for a minute is inventory. There's always this sort of push and pull at least in the discussion. I think you tend to always cite that investors push you to keep that number low. I think that's fair.

William Stein
William Stein
Managing Director/Senior Research Analyst - Technology at Truist Securities

But you today and in the past have talked about this as being sort of strategic, and highly valuable to both customers and suppliers. So I wonder first, would you consider establishing a higher, sort of go forward target level for inventories, like maybe this is the right level for longer term level. And if not, if you're trying to get them down, I am sort of surprised that even on the FX adjusted or constant currency basis, you had revenue down 6% in the quarter. You talked about trying to get this number down, yet it was only down about 1% on constant currency. So sort of which approach is right?

William Stein
William Stein
Managing Director/Senior Research Analyst - Technology at Truist Securities

Are you targeting higher levels longer term? If not, why didn't it come down faster? Thank you.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

So you're talking in total Avnet then, okay. First, I'd like to talk about Farnell. Okay. Let me take a shot at that and pass it over to Ken. As we stated in the past, we'll we've suppliers obviously into this as well as our customers.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Inventory is not a bad thing, okay, so in distribution. And what we shoot for, we're going to we are going continue to shoot to bring inventory down more. We have to do that. But I want to emphasize that the inventory is not up across the board. We've mentioned this before.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

There's most of our inventory in SKUs by commodity are fine and actually we need to invest more, okay. But there's a handful, let's just say, wine that we have more inventory than we probably had anticipated and we need to work that down. And some of that was also strategic. We called that out a few earnings calls ago, a couple of calls in a row that we had a few strategic opportunities to increase our inventory and get some better returns for that and we did it. And it's good inventory.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

And again, we got the returns on it. So I think there's a it's a constant balancing act. I mean, the end of the day what we shoot for is the right returns, okay. And we need to get the right return on working capital and ROCE number. That's ultimately the metric, okay.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

And if we get more inventory and we get higher margins and then we get a greater return, that's fine, okay. But right now we're just a little bit over inventory. We want to bring it continue to bring it down and that's what we're going to track to do. But we don't want to bring our inventory down to where we're not competitive, okay, or where we're not helping the suppliers and customers meet their goals, okay?

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Yes. I would just say, I think it's as the sales go down, it's more challenging, right, to continue to turn the inventory, but we have made a lot of progress in certain areas. Inventory is not one thing, it's lots of things and there is some progress behind the scenes. So even though you could say optically the $57,000,000 is not a big number relative to the base, We'd say but there was a lot of churn within that that was helpful for the future quarters to come. So I think I would echo Phil's comments.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

There's opportunity here. It doesn't mean we're going to just necessarily bring inventory levels down to a target number just for the target number, right. We want to have it within the context of the business. Think it's a fair statement to say perhaps in some supplier lines or in some opportunities we may need to hold more than historical levels, but maybe there's others we have more opportunity. So we continue to drive that with the team and again we think we'll make additional progress this quarter clearly slower than we would have anticipated a year ago and not where we wanted to be but we do think we're making progress even if it's modest.

William Stein
William Stein
Managing Director/Senior Research Analyst - Technology at Truist Securities

Thank you.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Thanks Will.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Wamsi Mohan from Bank of America. Your line is now live.

Wamsi Mohan
Wamsi Mohan
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Yes, thank you. It's Wamsi filling in for Ruplu today. Few questions around tariffs for me. Have you seen any activity around order patterns and linearity change at all based on the tariff news? And in particular, has there been anything that you can see relative to Poland or maybe activity jumping up in Asia ahead of end products getting shipped into The U.

Wamsi Mohan
Wamsi Mohan
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

S?

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Yes. Hey, Wamsi. How are doing? I'll go first and let Ken jump in. The overriding answer is not much, okay.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

And maybe that's surprising.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Kind of is to us a little bit.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

We thought we would see more and we're just talking about pull ins ahead of tariffs and things along those lines. We didn't see it. We thought we would actually see Wamsi in the December before all this started and that didn't happen either. I mean modestly, but not much and we didn't see much in the March. We'll see how that plays out.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

We as we caught out in the script, we saw some modest pull ins in Asia Pac, but again in the grand scheme of things not that much really. So and as I said, it kind of surprises a little bit. We thought we would have seen more. But at the same time, it's as Ken pointed out in the script, the impact to us today coming out of China is 7% to 10%. So it's not I think sometimes the perception that everything we have is getting hit and it's really not.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

It's still a big still sizable number, but as a percentage of our, I'll call it, disposable sales to tariffs, it's relatively low.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Ken?

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Yes. Think in Asia, in particular, in the December quarter, maybe we saw five-zero $50,000,000 kind of let's say attributed to pull in benefit and maybe this quarter it was closer to 100,000,000 I think in the guidance we assume something similar. So it's we're seeing a little bit uptick that's contributing to the overall demand, but we're not seeing it to be massive swings in demand there. But we continue to monitor it, definitely some uncertainty and definitely some currency movement in Asia as well as of late.

Wamsi Mohan
Wamsi Mohan
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Yes, that's helpful, Phil. Thanks Ken too. Maybe just to think through this quantifying that you've done, 7% to 10%. As we think about that, I think you said that some of that also goes via Canada and Mexico. So what is the ability for you to kind of shift maybe geographical exposure there in working with your customers?

Wamsi Mohan
Wamsi Mohan
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

That's question one. And two, as you think through, are you expecting cash flow timing issues relative to when these tariffs go into effect on that exposable piece. Can you just walk us through the dynamic there based on when maybe payments are being made versus what you might be able to recoup?

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

Yes. So maybe I'll start. I mean again we think our flexibility on our footprint, our distribution center footprint in particular is helpful. So we do have not only warehouse in The U. S.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

But also warehouses in Mexico. The warehouses in The U. S. Are designated as foreign trade zones, means until the product moves out of there, it's not subject to tariffs. So it acts as a buffer there.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

So high level numbers that 7% to 10% that originates from China, Thirty Percent of that probably ultimately goes to Mexico or Canada. So it's not subject to tariffs. We've done certain things with our suppliers to become importer of record. So we can control the drawbacks and things like that. So I'd say, right now not a significant heavy lift on working capital or cash flow.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

I think as the tariffs start to multiply, we got to monitor, right. Again, our goal is to mitigate or minimize the tariffs, but we're going to have to pass it through if we have to pay them. Customers don't want to pay tariffs. They're already paying what they perceive as high prices. So there's always that dynamic, but again, that's not new to us.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

We'll continue to work through it. And so we don't see as of this date with the tariffs we were kind of commenting on the script of any meaningful working capital drag or cash flow drag beyond what we deal with in terms of sometimes receivables come past due, we work with our customers to collect them. The inventory is still probably the biggest opportunity much more than the tariff kind of draw on working capital in terms of cash flow.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

And Wamsi, we're talking that's why

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

we focus mostly on the China.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

I mean, for Mexico, it's going to we think at the end of the day it's going to be less than 1%, maybe 1.5% of revenues because of products coming in from Mexico in The Americas into The Americas, yes.

Wamsi Mohan
Wamsi Mohan
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Okay. That's super helpful. If I could just one quick last one. This might be a little unusual, but in terms of your visibility into looking into, AI driven components, or components that end up in AI based systems, How much visibility do you have into that? And would you say that anything has changed either for the better or worse, in that if to the extent that you have visibility there?

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Yes. We do have some visibility to that predominantly in Asia Pac and within Asia Pac Taiwan. So we are seeing some benefit. It's not monstrous for us, Wamsi, a lot of that goes direct and a lot of some and there's some like the number one line out there. We don't happen to have that line and that goes direct.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

But we're seeing ancillary products, if you will, around the AI that we're seeing some benefit. And we do have visibility to that and it's I could call that it's 3% to 7% of our 3% to 5% of our business probably in Asia Pac, somewhere along those lines.

Wamsi Mohan
Wamsi Mohan
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Okay, great. Thanks a lot.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

But we do, do, that's fine. I'll just you can hang up. Thanks, Pawel. But we do believe there's going be a tail of opportunity coming out of AI on the edge that it's going to for sure benefit what we do, okay, on a more global basis over time.

Ken Jacobson
Ken Jacobson
CFO at Avnet

And I'd also add that the supply chain services, large OEMs there's opportunity to participate. We're seeing more and more opportunities to get our foot in the door there in that kind of area with supply chain services.

Operator

Thank you. We reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd to turn the floor back over to Phil for any further or closing comments.

Phil Gallagher
Phil Gallagher
CEO & Member of Board of Directors at Avnet

Yes. Thanks for I want to thank everybody for attending today's earnings call And I look forward to speaking to you again at our full fiscal year 2025 earnings report in August. Have a great day. Thanks.

Operator

Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference and webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.

Executives
    • Joe Burke
      Joe Burke
      VP - Investor Relations
    • Phil Gallagher
      Phil Gallagher
      CEO & Member of Board of Directors
    • Ken Jacobson
      Ken Jacobson
      CFO
Analysts
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Key Takeaways

  • Avnet reported Q3 sales of $5.3 billion near the high end of guidance, adjusted EPS of $0.84 above forecasts, and generated $141 million in operating cash flow with a continuing improvement in book-to-bill ratios, particularly in IP&E.
  • Asia region delivered 13% year-over-year sales growth (third consecutive quarter of growth), while the Americas and EMEA saw declines, and Farnell recorded 6% sequential sales growth with operating margin rising to 3%.
  • Inventory remains a strategic asset amid customer destocking, with marginal reductions in the quarter and plans to optimize core inventory levels to balance service levels against working capital efficiency.
  • To mitigate the impact of newly enacted tariffs, Avnet is leveraging global logistics and FTZs, collaborating with suppliers for alternative country-of-origin sourcing, and estimating that 7–10% of Americas sales originate from tariff-affected China products.
  • For Q4, Avnet guides sales of $5.15–5.45 billion and EPS of $0.65–0.75, assuming flat currency effects and controlled tariff impacts, and will continue prioritizing cash flow generation, debt reduction, dividends, and share repurchases.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Avnet Q3 2025
00:00 / 00:00

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