Avnet, Inc. (AVT) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

August 10, 2022

NASDAQ US Information Technology Electronic Equipment, Instruments and Components earnings 52 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

operator
#1

Welcome to the Avnet Fourth Quarter Fiscal Year 2022 Earnings Call. I would now like to turn the floor over to Joe Burke, Vice President, Treasury and Investor Relations for Avnet.

Joseph Burke

executive
#2

Thank you, Paul. Earlier this afternoon, Avnet released financial results for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 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 of Avnet's website. 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. Such forward-looking statements are not a 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, 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. Today's call will be led by Phil Gallagher, Avnet's CEO; Tom Liguori, Avnet's CFO; and Ken Jacobson, Avnet's Corporate Controller and incoming CFO this September. With that, let me turn the call over to Phil Gallagher. Phil?

Philip Gallagher

executive
#3

Thank you, Joe, and thank you, everyone, for joining our fourth quarter and fiscal year 2022 earnings conference call. What a year has been for Avnet? On the heels of our centennial anniversary, we built on the prior year's momentum to deliver robust financial results, including a record EPS year, nearly reaching $7 for the fiscal year. Our sales for the fiscal year were up nearly 25% year-over-year. This was supported by a strong year for Electronic Components and notably, a record revenue year for Farnell. We had a great performance from both operating groups and we're really excited about the revenue synergies we are seeing between the 2 as well. As announced earlier in the year, we also achieved and surpassed our near-term operating margin targets, and we're pleased to cap off the fiscal year with operating income margins of 4.5% this recently ended quarter and 3.9% for the fiscal year. Beyond the numbers, we were excited to host our Investor Day in June, where we had the opportunity to see many of our stakeholders in person in New York. We also announced a couple of key executive succession this fiscal year, including the appointment of Dayna Badhorn, a 24-year veteran of Avnet as the new Americas leader for Electronic Components. And more recently, the appointment of Ken Jacobson who has been a key contributor in our finance organization for 9 years to CFO effective in September. These moves are part of our succession planning process, which ensures continuity in executing our strategic plan. We've continued to make investments in inventory, including SKU additions at Farnell and in field application engineers and online design tools that have delivered meaningful value and growth. Additionally, we continue to make investments in our employees and are kicking off fiscal 2023, with a compensation increase across our employee base and merit-based rewards to acknowledge strong performers and remain competitive in a challenging labor market. As I've mentioned throughout the year, we've been immensely proud of our team's commitment to executing on our strategy amid an increasingly complex macro environment. Their contributions have enabled us to grow share and secure exciting new business opportunities, enhance the value proposition of our supply chain engagements and high-service Farnell offerings. Provide uninterrupted support to our customers and suppliers looking to decrease risk in their supply chains. And lastly, to surpass our near-term operating margin targets sooner than anticipated. Our teams are unmatched in terms of experience, expertise and diligence and their efforts are instrumental to Avnet's success and role at the center of the global technology supply chain. We have a strong foundation to build upon in the coming fiscal year and are well positioned to deliver value and adapt even if market conditions change in the future. From a demand perspective, this past quarter, we saw continued strength in the industrial, automotive, transportation and aerospace and defense segments. Additionally, we expect some applications like EV charging and other alternative energy applications to pick up based on current energy supply concerns. Lingering COVID-19 impacts, inflation and impacts from the conflict in Ukraine continue to have some ripple effects on supply chains. While supply some of the parts has modestly improved, we expect supply chain challenges to persist throughout the remainder of this calendar year. It's in these types of environments that our role as a distributor is particularly critical. As we've proven over the years, the value of Avnet in a complex operating environment is our ability to serve as a control tower for our customers, helping them proactively manage their supply chains. We expect customers and suppliers to leverage these solutions more fully in the coming years. Now turning to our Electronic Components and Farnell highlights. Electronic Components had a strong year, reaching nearly $23 billion in sales. We were pleased to maintain robust sales this quarter following a very strong third quarter. These results were primarily driven by another record quarter of demand creation engagements, expanded sales in Asia and solid sales in the Americas and EMEA regions. Notably, this was our fifth consecutive quarter of growth in Asia, which enabled us to reach a near-term milestone of $10 billion in sales for the region for the fiscal year. And we saw year-over-year growth this quarter of over 34% in both the Americas and EMEA on a constant currency basis. Our book-to-bill ratios at the end of the quarter remained above parity. Lead times are mixed. Some remain extended, particularly for controllers, while some lead times of other products have been moderating. We continue to effectively manage our backlog. We brought our inventory levels up this quarter to support the ramp-up of sales in Asia into the seasonally strong first fiscal quarter. As a distributor, we pride ourselves on our ability to meet and support strong customer demand, and I am proud of the success we have had in managing key relationships with customers and supplier partners to get the right parts in the right place at the right time. From a demand creation standpoint, we again had a solid quarter of design and engineering activity across all regions. High levels of design registrations and wins in prior quarters resulted in yet another quarter of record demand creation sales and gross profit. Demand creation revenue as a percentage of total electronic components increased to 31.2% for the year. Now moving on to Farnell. As I mentioned earlier, it was a record revenue year for Farnell with full year revenues increasing 20.2% year-over-year with demand indicators remaining fairly consistent. We continue to make investments in Farnell, adding over 18,000 new inventory SKUs in the quarter. Our investment in Farnell's e-commerce platform and improving the user experience continues to yield meaningful results. Nearly 56% of Farnell's total sales and 72% of total orders transacted were placed through Farnell's e-commerce platform this quarter. We expect to continue to see increased traffic and new customer acquisitions in quarters to come. As we continue to improve our digital capabilities, we expect Farnell's value proposition to increase and enhance the synergistic collaboration between Farnell and Electronic Components. This collaboration allows us to serve our customers from new product introduction to mass production and is a key differentiator for Avnet. As we head into fiscal year 2023, we see opportunity for Avnet to leverage and build upon the value of its demand creation capabilities, supply chain services, embedded products and Farnell offerings. We're a different and much more resilient company today due to the durable changes we've made to our business. There has never been a greater need for global distributors, and we remain confident in our ability to meet those opportunities. Before I turn it over to Tom to dig deeper into the financials, I'd like to take a moment to thank Tom for his immense contributions to Avnet. Over the past 4.5 years, Tom has been a big part of our transition into a stronger, more profitable and resilient company. Our balance sheet hasn't been this strong in decades. Tom and his team have built a high-quality finance organization, and importantly, he has served as an invaluable partner to me since my transition into the CEO role. I'm going to miss working alongside Tom and having him join me on these calls. But I'm absolutely confident we are in excellent hands with our incoming CFO, Ken Jacobson. Ken is a seasoned Avnet executive, who many of you have already met. He has served as our Corporate Controller and has been a critical leader in our financial organization for the past 9 years. So with that, let me pass it over to Tom.

Thomas Liguori

executive
#4

Thank you, Phil. It's been a pleasure working alongside you and the entire Avnet team. I want to personally thank the finance team at Avnet for their support and friendship during my time here. They are a talented group of professionals and enjoy to work with. And to echo your point, Phil, Avnet will be in very capable hands with Ken as CFO. I look forward to seeing Avnet's continued success under your leadership. We are very pleased with both our fourth quarter results and the record earnings year we've just completed. I will share some of the highlights from the quarter and full year before turning it over to Ken, who will discuss first quarter 2023 guidance. In the fourth quarter, our revenues were $6.4 billion, up 21.9% year-over-year and at the top end of our guidance range. Adjusted EPS exceeded guidance coming in at $2.07 compared with $1.12 in the prior year quarter. For the fiscal year, we achieved sales of $24.3 billion, up 24.5% year-over-year. A record GAAP EPS of $6.94 and a record adjusted EPS of $6.93. Job well done to the entire Avnet team. Throughout the year, our teams continue to improve execution and efficiency while also managing expenses. We achieved and surpassed our near-term operating margin targets, resulting in fiscal year '22 operating margins of 3.9% for total Avnet. This was supported by operating margins of 3.9% for Electronic Components and 13.4% for Farnell. Turning to the income statement. Our revenue comparisons are affected by changes in foreign currency rates. Our reported revenues for the fourth quarter are $6.4 billion. Changes in foreign currencies had a negative impact on our sales of $150 million sequentially and $326 million year-over-year. Gross margin of 12.2% was down just slightly on a sequential basis. For the total year, gross margin of 12.2% was up by 73 basis points from the prior year. Both evidence that we are effectively managing pricing in the supply-constrained market. In the fourth quarter, we continued to process many price increases. Adjusted operating expenses of $492 million for the quarter were down 3.4% sequentially. Adjusted operating expenses as a percentage of gross profit dollars was 63% in the fourth quarter. This is a substantial improvement from the 76% in the prior year fourth quarter, illustrating the disciplined expense management of our global teams. On the nonoperating front, interest expense in the quarter was $30 million, up $4 million sequentially due to higher levels of debt within the quarter as well as a slight increase in short-term borrowing rates. We booked a 20.5% adjusted tax rate in the fourth quarter and ended the total year with a 21.9% adjusted tax rate. Farnell achieved revenues of $442 million in the fourth quarter and operating margins of 14.2%. Revenues declined sequentially due to product shortages of semiconductors, single board computing and test equipment. As a result, Farnell ended the fourth quarter with a record customer order backlog. On a total year basis, Farnell achieved record revenues of $1.8 billion. Farnell's fourth quarter operating margin of 14.2% benefited favorably from higher year-over-year pricing, which contributed 180 basis points of margin. Without the pricing benefit, Farnell operating margins would have been 12.4%, consistent with the 10% to 15% range through the cycle that we discussed during Investor Day. We are very pleased with Farnell's results and expect to build upon this momentum as we continue to make investments in SKUs, analytical tools and the e-commerce platform. Farnell is a large part of our plan to target upward of 50% of gross profit dollars from higher-margin business. Electronic Components achieved revenues of $5.9 billion in the fourth quarter, up 23.9% year-over-year and down 1.5% sequentially. The sequential decline was mainly EMEA due to currency rates. However, Avnet EMEA fourth quarter revenues were 34% higher in constant currency than the year ago quarter. Operating margins were 4.3%, a 122 basis point improvement from last year. Our Electronic Components Group's performance this quarter was driven by another record quarter of demand creation engagements as well as very strong sales in Asia and Americas. Turning to cash, liquidity and the balance sheet. Our liquidity position remains strong. We ended the quarter with cash and equivalents of $153.7 million and $1.4 billion of available lines of credit. We are seeing an improvement in our ability to bring in inventory, which increased this past quarter. This was primarily to support strong sales and bookings in Asia and was accompanied by a corresponding increase in accounts payable. Sales in Asia have grown sequentially for 5 quarters, and we require the right inventory to support current demand. Our total Avnet inventory is 64 days on hand, which is still slightly below our normal 65. Total net working capital days at year-end were 69, down from 74 in the prior year. We remain committed to disciplined working capital management and to maintain our strengthened balance sheet. We are pleased with our debt position with debt coming in at $1.6 billion and net debt at $1.5 billion. Our gross debt leverage was 1.4x and net debt leverage was 1.3x. Moving on to capital allocation. In the fourth quarter, we returned $25 million to shareholders in dividends, representing an 18% increase in the per share dividend payment year-over-year. As we said at Investor Day, share repurchases remain a meaningful part of our capital allocation strategy. This quarter, we repurchased $102 million of shares, up from $45 million last quarter. Moving forward, we remain committed to increasing shareholder value by delivering a reliable, increasing dividend and continued share repurchases. With that, I'll now turn it over to Ken to discuss outlook for the first quarter of 2023. Ken?

Ken Jacobson

executive
#5

Thank you, Tom. I will provide some color about our expectations for the next quarter. But before I begin, I'd like to thank Tom for his leadership over the past several years and on a personal note for his mentorship and coaching that has allowed me to succeed him as CFO. I look forward to getting to know some of you on this call in the weeks to come. Turning to guidance. For our fiscal Q1, we are guiding revenue in the range of $6.2 billion to $6.5 billion and adjusted diluted EPS in the range of $1.85 to $1.95. Our first quarter guidance today is based on current market conditions, including a $100 million negative impact on sales guidance at the midpoint from the recent strengthening of the U.S. dollar as compared to the fourth quarter. This guidance implies a sequential growth rate range of down 1% to up 4% and in constant currency and assumes a typical seasonal shift in sales to Asia from the Western regions. This guidance assumes an effective tax rate of between 21% and 25% and 96 million outstanding shares on a diluted basis. We have spent the last couple of years making Avnet a stronger company. One that is not only able to operate effectively in today's complex environment, but also one that can provide even greater value for our customers by proactively managing their supply chain. With the synergies we're seeing between Electronic Components and Farnell. Our investments to support future organic growth and steady progress toward our operating margin goals. We are confident in our ability to continue delivering value to our customers, suppliers and shareholders in fiscal year 2023 and beyond. With that, I will turn it back over to Paul to open it up for Q&A.

Operator

operator
#6

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Nik Todorov with Longbow Research.

Nikolay Todorov

analyst
#7

Congrats on great results. And Tom, thank you for -- it was a pleasure working with you and good luck on your new endeavors. First question, I guess, is on inventory. I guess you guys spoke about preparing for seasonal volume in Asia. But I guess, at the same time, you mentioned still some shortages impacting the Farnell business. Maybe can you talk about the composition of inventory. Where are you guys being able to build that inventory in what sections of the component business? And are you starting to see some loosening of maybe the components that were kind of mostly tied kind of the golden screw call it. That's kind of the first question I have.

Philip Gallagher

executive
#8

Yes, Nik, this is Phil. Let me take a first crack at that. First of all, definitely very confident and comfortable with the inventory levels and the mix as well, by the way. And to meet the sales for the coming quarter, as we noted in the script, and overall days are still at 64%, which is below typical. So we're really comfortable. The quality of the inventory is good, very good, as a matter of fact. Some of the -- it's a mixed bag on the commodities and what's coming in and what's going out. So if you look at overall lead times, still in the analog discretes, MCUs, et cetera. We're 20, 24 weeks, 30 weeks plus, respectively, moderating for sure, but still above levels pre-COVID, if you will, right? So we are seeing some moderation. In some of the passive area, we're definitely starting to see some -- based on mostly due to the consumer side of the equation, starting to see some areas in the MLCC, for example, coming in on lead time. But it's really complex. It's really by product, by commodity. But overall, a lot of the inventory that did come in, come in near the end of the quarter, and we'll be looking to turn at this quarter.

Nikolay Todorov

analyst
#9

Great. And the second question just around demand. I was wondering if you can provide us a little bit more color. There's obviously well-known weakness in the consumer electronics market. But recently, there's been some signs of at least in some areas of the semiconductor market that areas like data center, automotive and industrials are also starting to see signs of softening. Just what are you seeing from a booking standpoint, particularly in areas where lead times you mentioned they're starting to kind of come down?

Philip Gallagher

executive
#10

Yes. So well, let's start with the latter part of the question. Overall, book-to-bills are, like I said, moderating, okay? They're not where they were 6 months or a year ago, but still above 1 okay, which I see is a good thing, that book-to-bill coming down a bit to began with you. So maybe back closer to a reality. As far as the -- yes, we already mentioned consumer. We don't play a whole lot there. That doesn't mean some capacity can't move from consumer products into other applications. But right now, as we sit here today, the aerospace defense still very strong, the industrial space that we see as our backlog and was booked on us, and we're taking in, as you know, quite a few MRPs and our supply chain engagements still strong in transportation. I always call automotive/transportation because the applications are so broad outside of the automotive. It's e-bikes to dump trucks, right? I mean they're all using more and more electronic components. So still seeing that. As we see it today, is still pretty steady in the backlog, okay.

Operator

operator
#11

Our next question is from Toshiya Hari with Goldman Sachs.

Toshiya Hari

analyst
#12

A big thank you to Tom as well for all the help over the years. I had 2 questions as well. First, on the guide, again, I just wanted to follow-up. So inventory grew, I think, 15% sequentially, and you talked about supporting growth in Asia. I get the FX headwinds in the quarter. But even the FX headwinds, you're guiding September quarter revenue up 1.5% or 2% at the midpoint. So I guess, what's the disconnect there? Should we expect further growth into December? Any color around that would be helpful.

Ken Jacobson

executive
#13

This is Ken. I think part of that increase is the timing of sales came in later in the quarter. But if you think about EMEA and Asia, in particular, right, July is a pretty big month. If you kind of look at the prior year, I think our inventory grew like 17%, comparable level and then kind of moderated. So we feel the sales demand is there, and there is a cyclicality within the underlying quarter that we see that drive some of the higher levels at the end. And again, our net inventory days is really flattish when you take the inventory days less the AP days. So you can see a lot of that came in and it supports the near-term sales.

Philip Gallagher

executive
#14

Yes. Toshiya, and Asia typically in the September, December quarter does accelerate from a growth standpoint. And we're seeing that, as we sit here today, we're still seeing that.

Toshiya Hari

analyst
#15

Got it. Very helpful. And then as my follow-up, just wanted to get some context around what you're seeing from a pricing standpoint versus what you're seeing on the volume side of the equation for June, for example, your EC business grew, I think, 23%, 24% year-over-year, ex some of the foreign exchange dynamics, what was kind of the mix between volume growth versus pricing growth? And what's the outlook for the back half of the calendar year?

Philip Gallagher

executive
#16

Yes. No, thanks. I'll take the first crack at that. This is Phil. So the bulk of the growth was still volume growth, okay? There's no question about it. And we're estimating from ASP inflation, if you will, somewhere between 7% and 8% of that was pricing inflation. And we track that by commodity and by ASP. So you say maybe take 7%, 8% on 24%. So 25%, 30% of the growth might have been due to ASP inflation. And we're still -- by the way, we still saw many price increases from the suppliers this past quarter, and we're foreseeing more coming, which is interesting.

Operator

operator
#17

Our next question is from Jim Suva with Citigroup.

Jim Suva

analyst
#18

Tom, I'm not sure you're allowed to leave. Sorry about that. But if you coach football, you might be right back just like [ Phil ]. But anyway, I'm going to miss you. I have one question, and I might just be because I'm not the smartest analyst out there, but it was asked a little bit on the prior question. But your sales outlook, again, is kind of flattish quarter-over-quarter. And if you include FX up a smidge, but your inventory. And I'm not saying inventory is bad, but your inventory is up materially, both year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter above sales. So I guess I don't understand the disconnect around why the inventory build isn't translating into a similar or even closer sales growth rate unless maybe people will say you're holding the wrong inventory or it's in the wrong place, and then it's going to hurt you. So if you can just help us bridge the gap between the inventory build and the sales outlook. Again, I know it was asked a little bit earlier, but help some of us just really conceptual and grasp the bridge there.

Philip Gallagher

executive
#19

Yes, I'll go -- I'll take that one, Jim. This is Phil. Yes. As Ken said earlier, a similar scenario last year, right? So as we build and bring in the inventory, some of it was for, as we said, the Asia growth. Others were strategic customer opportunities that we've won in the past quarter and had to bring some inventory in. And then it was really the timing as you see the AP offset it. So as we look at the next -- we're only guiding 3 months. If we look at the next 3 to 6 months, we feel the inventory is positioned correctly for the growth that we're seeing in the marketplace through December. The quality of the inventory, let me get on that one, that is extremely good. It's our -- what we call nonmoving inventory that we calculate is at an all-time low. So the inventory that we have is the right inventory and the quality inventory. And most of the inventory, we have 2 or more and more versus even many, many years ago that we've been around -- I've been around is for customer contracts, right? We have customer contracts. We have firm supply chain engagements. So there's either backlog or contracts backed up with NCNR on top of that, we pass them through from the suppliers, and that gives us the confidence that we're in a good position and going to be just fine.

Operator

operator
#20

Our next question is from Ruplu Bhattacharya with Bank of America.

Ruplu Bhattacharya

analyst
#21

I'll echo the sentiment, Tom, we're going to miss you and Ken, congrats on the new role. For my first question, I'm going to ask the margin question again in a different way. So on the core side, margins were up 120 bps year-on-year. How much of that was because of ASPs going up. And you said 180 bps on the Farnell side, I guess, Phil, my question to you would be, if you're seeing prices still going up from vendors, how should we think about margins in both of these segments over the next couple of quarters? And when do you think the margins start to normalize back down to more of the levels that you've talked about on a through cycle basis. What are some of the things that can keep these margins high over the next couple of quarters?

Philip Gallagher

executive
#22

Yes. So on the price, I'll go first and let Ken jump in or Tom. But on the ASP and the cost increases from the suppliers [indiscernible], that doesn't as much impact our margin as it does our growth, right, that we just talked about on the previous question or 2. Because we have contracts with customers. We get a price increase. We're passing that cost and increase to the customers, but it doesn't necessarily positively impact the margin, okay? So just that [indiscernible]. The balance of most of the margin [ influx ] whether it was sequentially up or moderated down is more of a mix issue, okay, more of a regional mix issue with the West being stronger in the June quarter and a little bit less in the September quarter as Asia as we forecast we'll outpace the West, and that has a different margin model. And Tom's point out before some of the appreciation we've gotten on Farnell, we have seen some positive margin impact based on the way they price things in a market that we've been in, it's been 180 bps, we think we're getting a margin impact there to the positive.

Ruplu Bhattacharya

analyst
#23

And then maybe. Go ahead.

Thomas Liguori

executive
#24

I was just going to say, when we say Farnell, 180 basis points and that they're 14.2% would be 12.4% without the pricing that's an extreme, that's saying if all of the pricing went away, and that was to alleviate concerns that all of your margin -- all of our margins were based on pricing they're not. So we don't anticipate that happening. And I think we had -- the current volumes, there's no reason that margins would not stay at current or similar levels.

Ruplu Bhattacharya

analyst
#25

Okay. Maybe for my follow-up, if you can talk about CapEx expectations for the year and also your capital allocation priorities. I know you've been investing right now and you've had good e-commerce sales there. I mean how much more investment is needed in that business to get to your long-term target revenue goals for Farnell. And so if you can just talk about your investment areas and thoughts on capital allocation.

Ken Jacobson

executive
#26

Yes, this is Ken, Ruplu. I would say, as we kind of communicated at our Investor Day, the CapEx will go up. We've been at pretty low levels in the past couple of years, part of that pandemic related. And so I think the guidance we gave there was around $100 million or kind of double where we've been. But a lot of that is focused on Farnell, right? Systems, warehouses, getting the right digital tools in place. From the rest of the capital allocation priorities, I think the thing we talked about was the $600 million of buybacks the Board authorized. And we did a fair amount in the quarter, about $100 million. And if pricing in the market continues to be favorable, we expect to continue to put some capital towards buybacks.

Philip Gallagher

executive
#27

Yes. Ruplu, on the balance of investments we're making outside of CapEx, and we're continuing to -- which really ties your margin, right? The higher value businesses, Farnell, we're seeing terrific success and will continue to invest in the e-commerce or continue to invest in inventory there. I mean back to Jim's question on inventory, we're continuing to publicly disclose the amount of SKUs that we're adding. And we frankly, we'd like to have even more inventory at Farnell. We're doubling down our interconnect pass, electromechanical business. Much of this we talked about at the Investor Day because it's higher-margin business. Our digital offerings for not only demand creation, but supply chain and then demand creation in general, right? The field application engineers, all those things we're continuing to invest in because they drive a higher margin business and the last of which was, again, talked about Investor Day, the embedded business, which is a higher-margin business. So just to reiterate, we're still in that investment mode to drive growth and profitability to maintain those margins that we talked about.

Operator

operator
#28

Our next question is from Matt Sheerin with Stifel.

Matthew Sheerin

analyst
#29

Phil, I'm hoping to ask another question regarding inventories in the outlook and really not just your inventories, but inventories across the supply chain. There are record levels within the EMS customer base as well as OEMs. Mike Ryan earlier this week talked about seeing an inventory correction not just in consumer, but also auto and industrial, and I know the memory market is sort of a different animal cyclically than the business that you're in. But at some point, we are going to see inventories start to come down. And I'm just wondering, are you seeing any signs at all of that? Any rescheduling? And when we do see that happen, are you likely to be the first guy to see it? Or with the direct OEM will they start to see the cancellations first?

Philip Gallagher

executive
#30

Yes. Thanks, Matt. It's a great question because we are tracking the publicly held companies. I'm looking at the data now and you aggregate them, for sure, their inventories are up Q-on-Q and up year-on-year, whether it's EMS, OEM or in our supplier set, right? So you're absolutely right. We continue to post that with our customers and the OEM and the EMS set. As you know, we know them well, and we do most of them we're doing supply chain engagements with. And much of that inventory is being held up. I think Nicolaus mentioned what's called the golden screw. So as we post that, I was out this week with a major EMS guy and he say, the yes -- the inventory is up. It's good. I mean it's industrial, it's defense, they've got contracts for it. So we're doing the best we can to make sure that we're validating, okay, the demand. And as far as who will be first to see, that's a great question, too. We track our cancellations, okay, and our pushouts, right? So there's -- what gets canceled, what gets pushed out. We're not seeing an increase of any significance, maybe slightly in some cancellations and very little in cancellations, I'm sorry, and slightly in some pushouts. We're not -- maybe that's surprising to many, but we're not seeing that backlog to support disappear. We've got to work with our end customers to help them too. If they can't take the product right now, how do we help them with that and some of the smaller customers, et cetera. So it's very complicated as you guys can imagine, that's the questions. But we're just giving you the visibility that we see based on the data that we watch daily, multiple times per day on a global basis on what's happening. And we're not seeing those early indicators, but we're watching it very closely.

Matthew Sheerin

analyst
#31

Okay. That's very helpful. And on the gross margin question earlier. You talked about really not seeing any positive impact from ASP increases in the core business. But on the other hand, you could argue that the competitive environment is less severe now because supply has been constrained and very -- still strong demand. So we're in an environment when maybe there's weaker demand, would you see at least a return to more competitive pricing, which would put pressure on your margins?

Philip Gallagher

executive
#32

It's possible. We didn't see that much appreciation as we talked about. I mean, again, I believe ASPs are going to more firm up, Matt, as my take on it. I know historically, we could look at ASPs as an average in the industry, I think it's going to depend on the technology and the products. If it's commodity standard products, multiple sources, Yes, that might get a little bit more pricing pressure. But it might just be ASP pressure, not margin pressure, right? Because you still might be able to hold the margins, just might be an average selling price pressure. In the higher end, which we're not seeing a lot of movement on from a lead time standpoint, high-end micros and don't get any specific suppliers, I don't know. I mean there's still price increases. This is what's kind of strange about what's happening, right? You just called out inventory days going up and these different mixed signals in the marketplace, yet we have north of 25 suppliers elevating prices in the last 30 to 45 days, and some talking about more. So it's really going to be -- I think, Matt, it's going to come down to by commodity. Okay. And then and where it sits in the -- from a technology standpoint.

Matthew Sheerin

analyst
#33

Okay. Great. And just my last question, a modeling question for the incoming and outgoing CFO, if I may, just on the mix of margin. You talked about some OpEx increases, some salary increases. So what should we expect for OpEx? And imagining that gross margin should be down a little bit sequentially just on the seasonality issues you talked about with the strength in Asia. Does that make sense?

Ken Jacobson

executive
#34

Yes, Matt, that makes sense. I would say the mix shift is going to cause the gross margin impact. OpEx flattish, maybe up a little bit from these investments, but we've done some offsetting things as well. So we're making investments in our people, but there's still things that we can improve upon on the OpEx side of things.

Operator

operator
#35

Our next question is from William Stein with Truist Securities.

William Stein

analyst
#36

I want to add my congratulations to everyone. I was hoping to ask about the book-to-bill trends. I think you highlighted, Phil, that the book-to-bill faded a little bit in the quarter, but still nicely above 1. Is that true of both segments? And can you give us any color in terms of both the difference [indiscernible] and trends in that ratio from last quarter to this quarter?

Philip Gallagher

executive
#37

You broke up a little bit, but I think I got it. Thanks, Will. So for both operating groups, the components and Farnell were both positive book-to-bill through the quarter and are as of today as well, by the way. But as I pointed out, but it moderated a bit, which, again, I think is a good thing. So it wasn't off the charts, just still came in at a good positive book-to-bill. Remember, we look at book-to-bill has -- and then we got the supply chain engagements. So they're kind of outside the booking. So we got to look at that as well. And as -- through the quarter, it's -- at a global level, it's similar. The mix by region is a little bit different in the book-to-bill. But at the global level, it's still positive, close to where it closed out, frankly, at the end of the June quarter for both Farnell and the Electronic Components.

William Stein

analyst
#38

And then a follow-up, if I can. At the Analyst Day, you discussed some new tools and services that you're providing to customers, I think even in your prepared remarks, you mentioned this control tower concept. Can you maybe talk about that. Maybe just help us understand the effect on your business. Is it a direct revenue effect? And is it here and now? Is it more of a future thing? Or is it less of a revenue or margin impact and more of a matter of increasing your stickiness with customers?

Philip Gallagher

executive
#39

Yes. Thanks, Will. We did talk about both of those. So let me start with the -- and they're both under what, I would call, the digital category. The one was the -- our design tool. It's an online design tool, we call, AVAIL and that is live. And effectively, it has thousands of block diagrams in it, and we're pushing that out directly to customers in an API or a cloud-based accessibility, it really helps our demand creation, okay? It helps us not just with demand creation, but more and more customers and it was covered at the Investor Day with our panel as well, more and more customers are looking for solutions and more of our suppliers are looking for us to sell solutions. So that tool helps us design in -- influence design and win more of the design on the whole board. So that's the tool we talked about, it's called, AVAIL. And that's -- again, that's been rolled out internally for our field application engineers. Now we're kind of turning that around to give direct accessibility to our customers, and that's in process pretty much as we speak. And on that demand creation in general was over 30%, almost 31% of our total revenues last quarter, which is a record number for us, again, important because of the -- when designed a big chip, it helps us pull through and helps us with the stickiness down the line and still critical for our suppliers. I mean they lean on us for demand creation, and we respond. The other one, you're right, we call it a control tower. It's around supply chain orchestration. We've had -- it's already roughly 50% of our business where we're actually managing a customer's [ MIP ]. We're taking in feed, whether it's an EDI and API, a fax, whatever they -- however they want to give it to us, we're managing their pipelines for us. And what's happened in the last couple of years is, more and more customers are coming to us because they need more assistance. And some of these are maybe Tier 1s, large OEMs that weren't doing business with us directly and they're asking us to help them rebuild their supply chains when it comes to technology and semiconductors. And yes, we've called out the control tower, and we've had some big wins and one, it helps revenue. Some of this is Supply-Chain-as-a-Service as we talked about, where it's low working capital or no working capital and really gross profit kind of building. And then third is, yes, it does integrate us more with those customers. And really, the partnerships just go to a new level where we're integrated and it does create more stickiness. So hopefully, that answers the question.

Operator

operator
#40

Our next question is from Joe Quatrochi with Wells Fargo.

Joseph Quatrochi

analyst
#41

Congrats to Tom and Ken. I just kind of wanted another question on the book-to-bill and the change that you're seeing there. Can you maybe just help us understand. Is this a change in maybe the breadth of orders in terms of the number of customers or maybe the quantity that your customers are ordering in terms of like the amount at one time or just the maybe months of visibility they're giving you in their order book? Any help there would be great.

Philip Gallagher

executive
#42

Yes. Thanks, Joe. It's not customer count. That I can tell you. There are going to be some customers, as you guys, know are slowing down and others that are picking up. [indiscernible] has to do with the lead time. So as if lead times in some areas do come in, a lot of the MRPs that drive the bookings or supply chain engagements, they'll adjust those MRPs based on quoted lead time, publish lead time or actual lead time. So more of it is that than it is anything else. And then I said, some customers is lower than others. I mean you're going to always have some verticals that are up or some that are down.

Operator

operator
#43

Our next question is from Joe Cardoso with JPMorgan.

Joseph Cardoso

analyst
#44

Just 2 quick ones for me. First, you modestly narrowed the revenue guidance range for the quarter. So just curious to see what's driving the better visibility heading into the September quarter, if anything. And then second, you mentioned the supply shortages with Farnell. Has that improved at all in the first quarter to date? And are you baking in a continued headwind from the shortages in the first quarter guide?

Philip Gallagher

executive
#45

Let me work on the side. Joe, could you repeat the first part of that question, you broke up. I got the Farnell one, but I didn't catch the first one.

Joseph Cardoso

analyst
#46

Yes, sure. So just the first one is simple, just in the revenue guidance, you narrowed the range that you typically give at least for the prior 2 to 3 quarters. Just curious what's driving the more narrowed range there? Is it better visibility? Just curious to hear if there's anything behind that? And then the second one is just the Farnell.

Ken Jacobson

executive
#47

Yes. For the guidance question, Joe, I'd say this is Ken. I would say there's not really anything that's changed. We -- I think maybe the prior quarter, we expanded a little bit with some maybe more uncertainties. But this would be a typical kind of plus or minus $150 million on the midpoint. So I think you'd see that going forward.

Philip Gallagher

executive
#48

Yes. And thanks, Ken. And on the Farnell, yes, what would we say with Farnell, they've got quite a bit of backlog. We've been increasing -- or working to increase the SKUs to 200-plus thousand and we're just about 70%, 80% there. So it's not -- yes, we can get more inventory. It always helps their growth, but it's not really built into a negative guide or anything all on that. Anything around Farnell would be more just seasonality. They're also heavy in Europe, right? That's where -- and Europe tends to be a little bit slower in the summer. And we're probing to see a more normal seasonality in Europe than we had the last 2 years because last 2 years were somewhat anomalies in the Europe market. So I think we're going to go back to more of a bit of a slower seasonality quarter in Europe. But no, it's not -- it's not having a heavy impact.

Operator

operator
#49

Our next question is from William Stein with Truist Securities.

William Stein

analyst
#50

I apologize if I missed this. But I'm just -- as I look at the segments, I'm realizing that Farnell is about flat year-over-year and the traditional components distribution business is still growing at a healthy clip. Can you comment on the difference between these 2? I've noted that in times of sort of desperate demand relative to limited supply that you might see this bump in Farnell that could then feed. Is that the dynamic we're seeing now? Are customers getting filled slightly better through more traditional methods and therefore, backing off of Farnell? Or is there another dynamic there?

Philip Gallagher

executive
#51

Well, yes, no problem. Did you talk about the guide to September.

Ken Jacobson

executive
#52

I think the Q4 versus Q4.

Philip Gallagher

executive
#53

Q4 versus Q4.

Ken Jacobson

executive
#54

Yes. I mean -- well, I guess, this is Ken, I would say some of that is FX driven. They've got a lot of our business as Phil mentioned. So -- but they have had some, I'll call it, shortages of some parts that they could, including single border computing and things of that nature. So I feel like in the market, demand is still pretty strong. And the pricing is still relatively good. So I don't see anything indicating there that would signal anything more different than what we're seeing in the components business in the broader electronic components business.

Philip Gallagher

executive
#55

Yes. I think there's anything to read there. It's the long and short of it, Will. But they do -- all the catalog guys do pick up maybe a bit. And we've talked about that when there's shortages out there, they definitely see a little bit more action than they typically would. But we've not seen anything dramatically changed there.

Operator

operator
#56

There are no further questions at this time. I'd like to turn the floor back over to Phil Gallagher for any closing comments.

Philip Gallagher

executive
#57

All right. Thank you very much, and thanks for the questions, and thanks for participating in today's earnings call. I look forward to speaking to you again in our first -- following our first fiscal quarter earnings report in October. And at that point, I wish Ken all the best of luck. And Tom, thanks for everything, and I hope everybody has a good rest of the day.

Thomas Liguori

executive
#58

Thank you, everyone.

Operator

operator
#59

Thank you. This concludes today's conference. You may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.

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