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

Mark Mondello: I don’t want to answer this. I think I will waive the Jabil flag a little bit. I believe, in my opinion and I have had lots and lots and lots of debates with sell-side, buy-side folks. I think from June of 2016 through today, we never get it right, we never get it perfect and we will never be exactly aligned with the sell-side, buy-side partners. But I think we have done an exceptional job with our capital allocation strategy both strategically, tactically and financially. And it is a lot of about a lot of data, a lot of data analytics and we have come at that all the time with an eye on what do we truly believe is best for the long-term health of the business and then, of course, shareholders and customers and we will continue to behave in that exact manner.

Shannon Cross: Great. Thank you so much.

Mark Mondello: You are welcome.

Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from Matt Sheerin from Stifel. Your line is now live.

Matt Sheerin: Yeah. Thanks and good morning. A couple of questions from me, first, on your wireless and cloud segment, just looking for more color what you are seeing in demand there. I know you are guiding that segment down for fiscal 2023, but part of that is due to the incremental consigned inventory at your cloud customers. We are hearing, obviously, from some competitors and suppliers that, that business has been weakening and pretty lumpy. So any color there would be great?

Mark Mondello: We — so if you think about the business and again we combine 5G wireless, infrastructure and cloud together, as you know, from what we thought it was going to be 90 days ago in December. I actually think we guided it up by, I think, roughly $100 million relative to December and we are getting back to levels that actually we thought it would be back in September. So there’s pockets of that where we are seeing a little bit of weakening. Overall, though, a reminder, our 5G wireless business is very global in nature. So to the extent that there’s any and I am not suggesting there is or isn’t, but to the extent there’s any type of pockets of weakening in North America, we are really fortunate to have that business well diversified and our overall cloud solution, cloud business today is continuing to execute and operate slightly above the plan.

Matt Sheerin: Okay. Thank you for that. And then on the supply constraints that you are seeing in automotive, I know in previous quarters you have had supply issues across other businesses, including healthcare and some other markets. Could you comment on the availability of parts in those areas, and on the automotive side, are you getting a sense that that supply will improve over the next few quarters?

Mark Mondello: Yeah. This is a recurring topic and rightfully so because it’s been awful the last 18 months. We started tapping the drum and then maybe pounding the drum as we exited the summer of 2022, moved into fall of 2023 with opinions that the supply chain would probably get better sooner relative to maybe some other projections. It also, I think, is illustrative of advantage point we have with our scale cutting across so many different end markets. That’s played out to be true. And I would say, in general terms, I believe we talked about maybe during the September Investor Day, that we thought the supply chain, although, maybe not fully back to normal, would normalize by late winter, spring time of 2023 and that’s shown to be true. So, all in all, as we continue to move into the summertime of calendar 2023 and into the fall we see the supply chain getting better and better.

Matt Sheerin: Okay. Thanks very much.

Mark Mondello: You are very welcome.

Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now live.