Why today is a big day at Avnet

Roy Vallee and crew at Avnet won’t be popping any corks just yet in celebration of the December quarter or the new year.

The distributor has a lot riding on today and this weekend when it comes to its guidance. The electronics supply chain giant doesn’t follow calendar quarters, instead using a fiscal model. As such, Avnet’s fiscal Q2 2008, its current December quarter, has a cut off of Saturday, today being its last business day. But for those companies and Avnet customers that follow calendar-year quarters, Monday will be the very last day to spend any remaining 2007 budgets. 

Avnet Technology Solutions alone shipped some $236 million in product the last business day in December 2006. So if Avnet manages to get its business completed by midnight Saturday, it could exceed its guidance for the current quarter. If not and it holds off until Monday, it’s set up for a good start to next quarter. Either way, you can expect a lot of Avnet execs to be at their desks through January 1.

Avnet’s fiscal Q2 announcement is currently scheduled for Thursday, January 24. Its guidance calls for normal seasonality at both operating groups with sales at Avnet Electronics Marketing to be in the range of $2.4 billion to $2.5 billion and sales for Technology Solutions to be between $2.05 billion and $2.15 billion, putting Avnet’s consolidated sales forecast at between $4.45 billion and $4.65 billion for the December quarter. For more on this, see our coverage of Avnet’s recent analyst day. 

And while we are on the subject of 2008, happy new year to all of our EDN readers in the electronics supply chain community. It’s sincerely been a pleasure working with this unique group of distributors, manufacturers and designers in 2007. Here’s to a bright 2008 full of challenges and opportunity!

Cheers!
Suzanne Deffree