Interview mit Phil Gallagher, Avnet: „Europa ist für uns nach wie vor ein Sweetspot“

Yeah, so it's good to see you again, and we're here at the beautiful Electronica trade show. I guess it's what a difference a year makes. Let me first start off by saying Europe is still a sweet spot for us and is critical to Avnet's success in the long haul. We've been around for 103 years as a corporation, and Europe is critical to us. We see these cycles and these ups and downs. If you go back a couple years ago, we were having all-time record numbers in Europe, all-time record numbers here in Munich, and now we've got a little bit of a softness. Some of the industrial markets got a little soft, the automotive market's gotten a little soft, there's a little too much inventory out there that has to be burned off. We're not in it for the short term; we're in it for the long term, and we're still as committed to Europe and committed to Germany as we've ever been. No change of plans.

Yeah, so let me first go back to here at Electronica. We've been here the last three days, and for your audience's information, it's an all-time record turnout. You wouldn't think it'd be an all-time record turnout in a pretty slow market around the world, but it is. We've had hundreds literally of meetings with customers, suppliers, folks like yourself, and there's a lot of optimism. A little short-term toughness, yeah, it's okay. The optimism, the meetings have been great, the energy's just been phenomenal. As far as from an Avnet perspective, what we're seeing around the world again, for your audience, we're a global company; we ship into 143 countries around the world. If I start with Asia real quick, Asia we think the bottom was the March quarter, and we've grown in Asia. September over June, in September we crossed over year-on-year growth. That's a really great milestone because typically, not always, but typically the market starts to turn or slow down starting in Asia, then works its way across the West. Here in Europe, we just talked about it, it's pretty soft, particularly here in Germany, and Germany does drive a lot of the European marketplace for semiconductors and growth. So we're kind of close to the bottom in Europe, which is good news. We think that's what we guided for December, about flat. And the Americas somewhere in between, they're kind of bouncing along the bottom. We believe we're not seeing tremendous growth again. Industrial there is soft as well, automotive is a little soft. Unfortunately, with what's going on in the world, defense and aerospace is actually going pretty well. But that's how we see it. So I believe we're going to bounce along the bottom, little soft, flat, and then the end of March quarter into June, think we'll start seeing it turn around a little bit.

I think again, I'm not forward-looking here too far, but I believe 2025, you get into the second half, mid-year to second half, we'll start to see it turn around. I don't think it'll be a rocket ship, but I think we'll start to see it coming up.

We appreciate your interest.