Jabil Inc. (NYSE:JBL) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

So, again, the nice thing is, is our consumer business is well diversified. In terms of the sector or end market as a whole, I don’t know if I would have enough insight to suggest it’s bottomed or not, I would say that, we have taken a very significant hit in consumer. I think our outlook for the back half of the year is rational and with that we are taking the year up in terms of margins by 10 bps and we feel really, really good about that. And again, I think, it’s illustrative of the composition of the overall company today.

Paul Chung: Great. Thank you.

Mark Mondello: You are welcome.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question is coming from Shannon Cross from Credit Suisse. Your line is now live.

Shannon Cross: Hi. Thank you very much. Speaking of turmoil in the banking system we are still here.

Mark Mondello: Congratulations.

Shannon Cross: Thank you. Yes. To all the clients out there we are alive and kicking. So with — just a couple of questions. On the EMS margin you attributed the improvement to scale leverage. Can you elaborate more on that and then maybe just talk about how you see scale versus mix versus cost optimization playing through as you look forward on operating margin? And I have a follow-up.

Mark Mondello: Let me clarify, you are talking about the margin expansion in EMS?

Shannon Cross: Yes.

Mark Mondello: Yeah. I don’t think I — maybe I said it and maybe I forgot already, but I don’t think I suggested that, it’s solely around scale and leverage. It’s — I think it’s mainly around the fact — I think it’s composition of the business and I think it’s about the experience and the execution of. In terms of our overall company I feel this way. Our — there’s no team in the industry, in our industry that has the experience and just the overall approach that our EMS team does. So I think leadership matters, I think the team matters. I am giving you mixed thoughts, because the results are very good, but it’s not like a coincidence. I think it’s a combination of the leadership team. We have restructured that organization a bit.

We took some costs out at the beginning of the year that Mike talked about back in December. The composition, the overall diversification, our opportunity to continue to gain share in areas that we want to gain share in. We have also made some very tough decisions on maybe some relationships that weren’t performing as well. And by the way, in general, I think that, in our industry, scale gives us a huge competitive advantage for lots of different reasons and not just scale for the sake of scale, but add to that our geographic reach, our geographic knowhow and then weave into that the sophistication of our IT systems, the investments we have made on the manufacturing floor, which is hundreds of millions of dollars over the last three years or four years in automation, AI, robotics, data analytics, I think, all that plays, Shannon.

Shannon Cross: Okay. Thanks. And then, I guess, as you think about capital allocation, obviously, shareholder, sorry, share repurchase remains a key focus. How are you balancing the opportunity, say, in auto where, obviously, there’s significant growth potential versus returning cash to shareholders? What’s — I know you go through probably just a returns based analysis, but how are you sort of thinking about it holistically and potential for, I don’t know, small acquisitions as well?