Jabil Inc. (NYSE:JBL) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

And that’s why you’ll see when we look at the end markets that we’re focused on, we think it’s end markets where the range of capabilities that we have in our company and the global presence that we have can really help our customers grow and develop. So, yeah, we’ll be focusing much more on automotive, healthcare, just the renewables that we’ve mentioned previously, so for sure — and AI and cloud, for sure that’s going to give us the opportunity to do that. From a use of capital perspective, it helps us here also. So yeah, certainly from a management bandwidth, it’s going to free up some of our time to go double down in these strong secular growth areas.

Mark Delaney: Okay. Thanks for that, Kenny. Speaking of AI, you spoke about some of the nice growth you’re seeing and opportunities. Could you clarify how much of your cloud and 5G business is tied to AI at this stage? And how do you see that progressing in your ’24 and ’25 outlook?

Kenny Wilson: Yeah, so at ’24, it’s roughly 20% to 25%, and we think that that’s going to grow in the longer term and going to become a much bigger part of our cloud business.

Mark Delaney: That’s very helpful. And just a clarification on the data center business. I think this is the third year you’re seeing this transition to the consignment model, which has the revenue impact but helps the profit margin. With the shift you’re expecting this year away from some of the consignment, do you think you’re fully done now and is it the last year of that transition, or could this continue beyond fiscal ’24? Thanks.

Kenny Wilson: I think it’s going to be really dependent on the mix of the businesses. So, we are expanding the space there to allow us to do more cloud. Mike mentioned that we’re up 20% year-over-year. And we don’t see any slowdown in terms of the cloud rollout. So, I think it depends, but certainly for sure, we think that our volumes are going to grow, but it will grow in the AI space. So, probably our revenues would probably be relatively consistent at that level, I would think, in the next year or two.

Mike Dastoor: Hey, Mark, I feel the consignment levels that we are at today will be consistent going forward. I think we’ve done — we’ve doubled our consignment. So, even though volumes are up by 20%, we’ve actually doubled our consignment levels over this period. And that’s impacting our total revenue number. But this is all good news, right? So, I don’t think this is something that is negative. It’s actually a big positive for us because it helps with our balance sheet, it helps with our margins, it helps flow through, it helps the customer, it helps Jabil, it’s a win-win for everyone. But now that we’ve doubled our consignment levels, there might be another 5%, 10% that might come through, but I think we’re at a decent stage currently with the indicators we provided.

Mark Delaney: Thank you.

Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from David Vogt from UBS. Your line is now live.

David Vogt: Great. Thanks guys for taking my questions. And I appreciate all the detail. It’s incredibly helpful. I have a couple of questions, and maybe one for Kenny and a couple for Mike. So, Kenny, just on the Mobility transaction, I know you’re probably limited in terms of what you can say. But what gives you confidence? We’re just trying to think through, what gives you confidence that this deal could close, let’s say, within two quarters? Because I’m sure you’re aware there’s other deals that have been pending earlier in the year that are taking upwards of 12 months, if not longer. So, kind of what’s going on there and kind of what are the steps that we should be looking at following sort of the purchase agreement data that you published last night? And then, I’ll just hold off and ask Mike my follow-ups, if that’s okay.

Kenny Wilson: Yeah, thanks for the question, David. So, yeah, we are really, really deep in this right now. I mentioned previously about the — how effectively we’re working together with BYDE. And that is really, really pleasing, especially for people that are going to go work in that organization and the leadership team is outstanding. Yeah, we’ve — it’s really detailed. We’ve spoken to all of the stakeholders. We think we’ve got a really good plan, detailed plan, and we’re very, very confident that we’ll close this in the timeline that we covered in our prepared remarks. We’re actually focused on trying to close it as soon as possible, obviously. If we could do that in this calendar year, it would be wonderful. But yeah, with BYD’s support in Asia and our support in North America, we think that we’re very confident that it’s going to be closed in the timeline that we mentioned.

David Vogt: Great. And then maybe for Mike, I appreciate the color on the margins and the mix shift embedded in sort of the outlook for fiscal ’24. But can you kind of touch on 1Q to start? It looks like at the high end, operating margins are closing in on 6%. And I would imagine that includes Mobility for at least the full quarter, to Kenny’s point. And — but when we look at the full year of ’24, I would imagine the base case in the projections are Mobility exiting the business by the end of, let’s say, fiscal 2Q and margins kind of trend lower in, I would imagine, 2Q and the back half of the year. So kind of what’s going on in the first quarter? I know mix, you mentioned earlier, it’s a faster growing business. This helps margins in the full year, but specifically in 1Q, why are margins so strong and what does that imply for Mobility margins?

And then, maybe just as a quick follow up, I’ll give them to you both at the same time, I think you made a comment that your fiscal ’25 outlook only contemplates growth of about 3%. I would assume that’s based off of a ’24 number that is pro forma excluding Mobility. Is that maybe the right way to think about it? And I’ll just stop there.