- Avnet announced that it reported second quarter fiscal 2022 revenue of $5.4 billion, up 24.9 percent year-over-year and 5.8 percent quarter-over-quarter.
Avnet, a specialist in the distribution of technology products and solutions for systems design, production, maintenance and repair, said its revenue growth in the second quarter ended Jan. 1, 2022, was driven by the strong performance of Farnell’s business with sales up 35.3 percent year over year to $441 million. Farnell is Avnet’s sales entity for distribution in the European market.
Farnell’s operating margin increased to 13.7 percent in the second quarter, reflecting outstanding global performance, compared to 10.9 percent in the first quarter and 8.3 percent in the final quarter of fiscal 2021.
Farnell’s growth was largely driven by continued investments in product line development. The company planned to add 250,000 new SKUs through fiscal 2022, and has so far delivered 55% of that total, with the existing global portfolio now approaching 1 million products. Additional investments in e-commerce capabilities, new product launches and continued support for the online engineering community have also been key growth drivers.
Farnell continues to strengthen its e-commerce offering, which accounted for more than 71% of transactional orders placed online during the quarter, exceeding 85% in some European countries. Having already seen a 15% increase in orders and a 30% increase in traffic, additional investments in the digital offering over the next several quarters will continue to drive traffic growth and new customer acquisitions.
The breadth of Farnell’s inventory remains a key priority for the Avnet Group, and was a key driver of Avnet’s adjusted operating margin of 3.7 percent in the quarter, as well as Avnet’s gross margin increase from 11.8 percent to 12.2 percent.
New suppliers to Farnell’s product offering include Omega, Torex Semiconductor, Excelsys, Delta Electronics and CTS Corporation, as well as extensions to the existing Omron, Amphenol, TE Connectivity and CUI Inc. product lines. New products were also introduced from Raspberry Pi, Broadcom and Nexperia.