Q3 2025 Flex Ltd Earnings Call
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Speaker Change: Thank you for standing by. Welcome to Flex's third quarter fiscal 2025 earnings conference call. Presently all participants are in listen-only mode.
Speaker Change: After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. If you'd like to withdraw your question, please press star 2. We ask that you please ask one question, one follow-up, and return to the queue.
As a reminder, this call is being recorded.
Speaker Change: I now turn the call over to Mr. David Rubin. You may begin.
David Rubin: Thank you, Kevin. Good morning and welcome to FLEX's third quarter fiscal 2025 earnings conference call. With me today is our Chief Executive Officer, Revathi Advaithi, our new Chief Financial Officer, Kevin Crum, and our recent interim Chief Financial Officer, Jaime Martinez.
David Rubin: We will give brief remarks followed by Q&A. Slides for today's call, as well as a copy of the earnings press release and summary financials are available on the investor relations section at flex.com. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay on our corporate website.
David Rubin: As a reminder, today's call contains forward-looking statements which are based on our current expectations and assumptions.
David Rubin: These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.
David Rubin: For a full discussion of these risks and uncertainties, please see the cautionary statement in our presentation, press release, or in the risk factors section in our most recent filings with the SEC. Note this information is subject to change and we undertake no obligation to update these forward-looking statements.
David Rubin: Please note, unless otherwise stated, all results provided will be non-GAP measures, and all growth metrics will be on a year-on-year basis.
David Rubin: The full non-GAAP to GAAP reconciliations can be found in the appendix slides of today's presentation as well as in the summary financials posted on the investor relations website.
David Rubin: Now, I'd like to turn the call over to our CEO, Revathi. Thank you, David. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today. So, let us begin with results on slide four. We had a very strong Q3, delivering another record quarterly operating margin and EPS.
David Rubin: Revenue came in at $6.6 billion with operating margins at 6.1% and EPS of $0.77.
David Rubin: Now this is the first quarter we achieved operating margin above 6% and not to jump ahead we expect a 6th handle again in Q4. There could still be some fluctuations in the quarters ahead as we work through the current dynamics but clearly we are performing at incrementally higher levels.
David Rubin: It's important to point out this consistent margin improvement comes from strong execution on our strategy to improve mix and efficiency in every business unit across Flex. And that is exactly what drove another quarter of record margin performance.
David Rubin: Pointing out a few other highlights in the quarter, we closed on a previously announced Jet, Cool, and Crown Systems acquisitions, both adding key technologies to our data center portfolio.
David Rubin: JetCool expands our direct-to-chip liquid cooling capabilities, and Crown System adds to our data center critical power capabilities, as well as expanding our opportunities in grid modernization. We're also very excited to join the S&P MidCap 400.
Now turning to slide five.
David Rubin: Before I discuss the trends in the quarter, I want to acknowledge that there has been a lot of noise this week. It's early, and I think there's plenty for people to sift through in the coming days.
David Rubin: In a minute, you'll hear how our data center business grew 45% year-over-year this quarter, and we expect similar growth to continue next quarter.
But the why is important here.
David Rubin: Our opportunity comes from the major underlying technology transition towards increasingly dense compute.
David Rubin: And this is driven by more than just AI. So even if you take the most pessimistic view from this week's headlines, we're still headed down this road.
David Rubin: This transition will still drive increasing power needs from the chip level and echoing throughout the data center.
David Rubin: Also remember, we have consistently said we expect a multi-year data center CAGR closer to 20%.
David Rubin: That's because we have seen these cycles before in the previous data center markets. Lastly, the truth is, there's been a lot of noise over the last five years, and yet we have continued to deliver.
David Rubin: This is because we've improved the mix across our entire portfolio, becoming a more efficient company and executed better through the cycles.
David Rubin: So whatever headlines come tomorrow, we'll continue to focus on this strategy.
David Rubin: Now, moving on, the trends in Q3 were largely as expected, with some additional strength coming from data center, from health solutions, and consumer-related markets.
David Rubin: This quarter, our data center business grew a robust 45% year-over-year, despite increasingly difficult coms. We continue to see sustained demand in our hyperscale cloud integration programs and our power portfolio, resulting from AI-driven cloud expansion.
David Rubin: We're seeing hyperscalers place greater emphasis on tailored solutions and looking for more help from fewer suppliers.
David Rubin: Through our EMS plus products plus services strategy, Flex is the only provider whose cloud offering encompasses fully integrated racks, vertical services,
David Rubin: and a Power Products portfolio that spans all the way from the grid to chip.
David Rubin: This comprehensive offering is a true differentiator and you can see from our growth that's resonating with our customers.
David Rubin: As I mentioned before, we saw very strong medical device demand in Q3.
David Rubin: To give some perspective, we have exceptional capabilities in FDA-regulated medical technology design and advanced manufacturing at scale.
David Rubin: Looking out we see a diverse set of longer-term opportunities in the medtech space.
David Rubin: Of course, this includes medical devices, but also the med equipment markets as well as drug delivery technologies where we had a recent win with our GLP-1 injectors.
David Rubin: Now, MedTech ramps take time, but the contracts tend to be long-lived, so our strategy is about building the pipeline for future growth.
David Rubin: As we previously mentioned, we're seeing softer near-term trends in automotive.
David Rubin: Still, the longer-term trends towards advanced compute and powertrain modernization remains intact and we have demonstrated we have market-leading technology and capabilities in both of these areas.
David Rubin: So as these trends progress, we are confident we will enable our Auto OEM customers to succeed in these important technology transitions.
David Rubin: Now reflecting on the portfolio overall, diversification is an important part of our strategy.
David Rubin: Cycles come and go but we have evolved to better create and capture opportunities in all of our end markets.
David Rubin: I also want to briefly address some of the questions we're getting around tariffs.
David Rubin: We are frequently asked, does more manufacturing shift to the U.S. or does it continue to expand across multiple geographies?
David Rubin: Only time will tell, but the reality is that the global manufacturing environment has been in flux for a few years now.
David Rubin: Remember, we have helped our customers navigate through Tariffs 1.0, and then COVID, then the supply chain crisis, and an ugly list of other major geopolitical events.
David Rubin: Stepping back, Flex is clearly one of the preeminent global manufacturing partners. We have been both a facilitator and beneficiary of regionalization trends set in motion by these previous events.
David Rubin: We have established massive supply chains and a diversified global footprint.
David Rubin: Now for Flex, tariffs are a pass-through cost and that is how it played out in the last round. I just add there can sometimes be a lag in recovery timing but it hasn't been a big issue.
David Rubin: That's not to say there are no risks, such as potential broader macro impact on slowing volumes. It is a very dynamic environment and something that we are monitoring closely.
David Rubin: The resiliency and adaptability are embedded in our core competency and as we have in the past, we're ready to help our customers adapt their manufacturing and supply chain strategies however the landscape evolves.
David Rubin: Lastly, I want to thank Jaime Martinez for stepping in as our interim CFO. Jaime, you did an excellent job managing this transition and I look forward to your future contributions at Flex.
Speaker Change: Along with that I'm excited to welcome our new CFO Kevin Crum. Kevin brings very strong financial expert experience across multiple industries that align with our longer-term strategy. He joined us a few weeks ago but I'm sure he's ready for all the tough questions.
David Rubin: So I will turn the call over to Kevin who will take you through our financial results and guidance.
Kevin Crum: Thank You Revathi and good morning everyone. Before I get started I too would like to thank Jaime. The leadership he has provided throughout this transition has been excellent and I look forward to partner with him as we both help move Flex forward. So thank you Jaime.
Kevin Crum: Starting with our financial performance on slide seven, third quarter revenue was up 2% to 6.6 billion dollars. The above expectations growth was driven primarily by our data center, health solutions, and consumer related end markets.
Kevin Crum: Gross profit totaled a new quarterly record of $610 million and gross margin increased 150 basis points to 9.3% driven by favorable mix improvements across all business units.
Kevin Crum: Adjusted operating income was 399 million dollars with operating margins at 6.1 percent, a substantial year-over-year improvement up 120 basis points. This was driven by strong gross margin performance and continued cost execution.
Kevin Crum: Finally, adjusted earnings per share for the quarter increased 43% year over year to a new flex record of 77 cents per share.
Speaker Change: I'd like to reiterate something Revathi said that's really stood out to me as I've dug into this company.
Kevin Crum: This consistent margin improvement over multiple years now is coming from improving mix and efficiency in every business unit It's not just one or two driving it I think that really speaks to the power of building a diversified portfolio and doing it in the right-hand markets
Kevin Crum: You can see this broad-based improvement again playing out this quarter as we turn to our quarterly segment results on the next slide.
Kevin Crum: In reliability, revenue was flat at $3 billion, driven by continued strength in power and medical devices offsetting auto, which remains challenged by a weak macro environment.
Kevin Crum: Operating income was $198 million and operating margin for the segment improved both sequentially and year-over-year to a quarterly record of 6.7% on favorable mix and strong cost execution in all business units.
Kevin Crum: In Agility, revenue was up 4% to $3.6 billion, driven by strong cloud and consumer-related end markets.
Kevin Crum: Operating income was $227 million with operating margins also improving sequentially and year-over-year to a record 6.3% on continued mixed improvements and strong cost execution.
Moving to cash flow on slide 9.
Kevin Crum: Free cash flow in the quarter was $306 million, driven by strong, continued working capital management. Physical year-to-date, we have delivered $757 million of free cash flow, which firmly positions us to deliver our full-year target of $800 million plus.
Kevin Crum: On the topic of working capital, net inventory continued to improve, down 4% sequentially and 20% year-over-year. Inventory days, net of working capital advances, are now at a normalized level of approximately 56 days.
Kevin Crum: In the third quarter, we repurchased $200 million of stock, totaling approximately 5.5 million shares. In fiscal year to date, we have repurchased over $950 million of stock.
Kevin Crum: Third quarter net capex totaled $107 million as we continue to target 2% of revenue for full year capital expenditures.
Kevin Crum: Having completed the Crown and Jet Cool acquisitions, our cash balance at the end of the third quarter was approximately $2.3 billion.
Kevin Crum: Please turn to slide four for a physical fourth quarter business outlook.
Kevin Crum: For reliability solutions, we expect revenue to be flat to down, mid-single digits, with continued strength and power balanced against a soft automotive landscape.
Kevin Crum: Agili Solutions revenue is expected to be flat to up mid-single digits driven by continued strong cloud demand.
Kevin Crum: I'll now focus on guidance for the physical fourth quarter on slide 11.
Kevin Crum: For Q4, we expect revenue in the range of $6 to $6.4 billion, with adjusted operating income between $360 and $400 million.
Kevin Crum: Interest and other expense is estimated to be around 45 million dollars and we expect the adjusted tax rate to be around 19% for the quarter, which is in line with our full year expectations.
Kevin Crum: Lastly, we anticipate adjusted EPS to be between 65 and 73 cents per share based on approximately 394 million weighted average diluted shares outstanding.
Looking at our full year guidance on the following slide.
Kevin Crum: At this point, we expect physical 2025 to finish as follows.
Kevin Crum: We now expect full-year revenue to be between $25.4 and $25.8 billion.
Kevin Crum: and 5.7% and adjusted EPS to be between $2.57 and $2.65 per share.
Kevin Crum: With that, I will now turn the call back over to the operator to begin Q&A.
Kevin Crum: Thank you. Now we're conducting a question and answer session. As a reminder, if you'd like to be placed in the question queue, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. You may press star 2 if you'd like to remove your question from the queue. And we do ask that you ask one question, one follow-up, then return to the queue.
Kevin Crum: Our first question is coming from Mark Delaney from Goldman Sachs, your line is now live.
Speaker Change: Yes, good morning. Thanks very much for taking the questions. Starting with cloud and recognizing the north of 40% growth from a revenue standpoint that you've had for a few quarters in a row now and expecting good growth again next quarter, I am hoping to better understand the pace of the cloud ramp from here and if Flex has seen any change in the timing or magnitude that customers want to build out AI infrastructure over the near to intermediate term, perhaps due to factors like black well supply chain readiness or to evaluate potential lower cost AI training approaches.
Yeah, Mark, I'll start off. I'd say post-its.
Speaker Change: You know, I think we said in the script that we expect 40 plus percent growth to continue in the next quarter too.
Speaker Change: And in the long term, when we gave the guidance for data centers, you know, we said it was around 20%. And the reason we said that is because we have seen these capacity digestion kind of moments in the data center market, you know, at least through my history of the last 25 years of being in this space.
Speaker Change: and that's why we were giving a longer-term guidance of 20% because that's pretty common in this space. I'd say, most importantly, we haven't heard of anything changing from our customers and our clients.
are suppliers in terms of
Speaker Change: AI Infrastructure, Buildout, and all of that. I would say particularly in all the noise associated with deep seek over the last couple of days.
Speaker Change: We're really hearing nothing new or different in terms of infrastructure build-out other than we expect more applications related to AI as a result of this, lower cost is good for everyone, and so we feel overall pretty bullish about the infrastructure build-out.
Speaker Change: and the continued need for power with dense compute. So feel good about, you know, our next quarter's growth but also our long-term growth that we have given. We think that 20% is a very achievable number for this space.
Speaker Change: Very helpful. My other question was on margins, and congratulations on getting into the 6%.
Speaker Change: So much sooner than you'd previously guided to. I think the prior outlook was to get there by fiscal 27.
Speaker Change: You spoke to some factors that led you to get to the 6% already this year. Maybe you can just expand how much is from mix versus some of these other factors like operational efficiencies. And you recognize it's probably early to get fiscal 26 guidance, but maybe just talk about some of the key variables investors should be considering about whether or not you can sustain the 6% level next year. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Yeah, I think, Mark, I think I said in my opening remarks that, you know, we expect next quarter to be 6%.
Speaker Change: But, you know, I don't want you guys to take it to the bank yet because I'm sure there'll be some fluctuations up and down until we stabilize around this level. In terms of long-term guidance, you know, we've always been prudent about our long-term guidance and how we look at that.
Speaker Change: Our margin improvement has come from two very important stories consistently over the last six years. It's mix and efficiency.
Speaker Change: And I'm not sure I fully want to break out for you exactly how much is from mix and how much is from efficiency, but I'd say almost every business is focused on their portfolio mixing up.
Kevin Crum: give you FY26 and revise anything for full year. In a couple months we'll come back with our FY26 guide and then we'll talk more about kind of longer term margin guide. Kevin, anything to add? No.
Okay. Thanks, Mark.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Our next question today is coming from Rupa Bhattacharya from Bank of America. Your line is now live.
Rupa Bhattacharya: Thank you for taking my questions and Kevin, good to have you on board, look forward to working with you.
Rupa Bhattacharya: Thank you. Revathi, I wanted to start with a high-level question. I mean, you know, with respect to manufacturing, and especially in the U.S., I mean, with the new administration and policies, whether tariffs or otherwise.
Some companies may wish to move manufacturing.
Speaker Change: Can you talk about how much white space does Flex have and how easy is it for you guys to move manufacturing lines around and is there a way to lower the total landed cost in the U.S.? I mean, how is that possible? Is it a matter of installing more automation?
Rupa Bhattacharya: So, I mean, is there a way to drive more manufacturing efficiency in the U.S.?
Rupa Bhattacharya: You know, we've been moving manufacturing footprint around the world as we've gone through all these, you know, rebalancing of supply chains across the world, right? And we've done that very efficiently, as you can see, you know, both in terms of our efficiency and also our metrics of PP&E across the world. So we've been very efficient in how we've managed this.
Rupa Bhattacharya: I see all the conversation about manufacturing moving to the U.S. to be similar to that. We've had manufacturing moving to the U.S. for the last few years.
Rupa Bhattacharya: And space is not a constraint because space is very easily and readily available in the U.S. I think the larger issue will be finding people, which, you know, labor constraints tends to be the bigger issue in the U.S. more than anything else.
Rupa Bhattacharya: But in terms of landed costs, I'd say I'm very optimistic on this, in the amount of work that's going on around efficiency, the use of AI in factories.
Rupa Bhattacharya: It will be all about hiring people at the right place at the right time if we add more manufacturing to the U.S.
Okay, thanks for that.
Speaker Change: Can I ask you about your data center business and if you can dig a little bit deeper into that?
Specifically, on the power business, now with crown technologies.
Speaker Change: How do you see your target audience? And, you know, you've had good growth, you're growing 45% and long-term you said 20%.
Speaker Change: But does that 20% rely on you getting new customers, or can you grow with your existing customers? If you can just give investors a sense for your target.
Speaker Change: Client base on both the power side and on the compute side. Is it still just one hyper scale? Customer or do you have plans to expand any details that would be appreciated?
Speaker Change: Yeah, Rupul, I'd first start by saying is that we have...
Speaker Change: on the kind of system integration side of our business. We've never been one hyperscalers. We work across multiple hyperscalers and I'd say cover most of them.
Speaker Change: So our customer base today is very diversified in terms of data centers. And as you well know, you know, it's a pretty small space, right? There are a few hyperscalers.
Speaker Change: There are a handful of colos and we cover all of them today. So the growth will come from continuing to grow with existing customers and there's a lot of available growth with existing customers.
Speaker Change: So I see, you know, overall the big difference being adding more to our portfolio. So what Crown does is...
Speaker Change: increase our capability to participate in Power Pods in the US that we couldn't do before. It gives us a utility business to connect from the grid to the data center, which we couldn't do before in the US. It gives us medium-voltage capability.
Speaker Change: So, we get some level of growth from adding new portfolio, but all with existing customers because we cover all of them today.
Speaker Change: So, you know, I feel pretty good about how our data center business is.
Speaker Change: It's been set up and we're adding new capabilities like jet cools so the 45% growth you're seeing today and the long-term kind of prudent guidance of 20% is based on portfolio expansion and organic growth in the current space . .
Speaker Change: Thanks for that. I don't know if I can make one more in quick
Speaker Change: Kevin, I know it's early days for you, but how do you think about capital returns to shareholders? You know, a prior CFO of Flex had once said that a dividend is not a matter of if, but just when. I mean, how are you thinking about this? I mean, I know it's early, but any thoughts you have? Thank you so much for taking my question.
Speaker Change: Hey, thanks for the question Rupu. I'll say that I'll have a better answer for you after three months versus three weeks but when I look at
Speaker Change: where we are today and what our capital allocation priorities are, I think, are the right ones for this business.
Speaker Change: Flex has stated that they're balancing and will continue to balance return on capital with investing in the business. We got a lot of opportunities to invest in the business and our priorities of
Securing Organic Growth via CapEx.
Speaker Change: opportunistically looking at shares we think those are still a good long-term return for our shareholders and looking at to add technologies and capabilities via M&A are going to continue to be sort of well will continue to be our priorities as we move forward
Thank you.
Thank you.
Moderator/Host: Thank you. Next question is coming from Simi Chatterjee from JPMorgan Chase. Your line is now live.
Simi Chatterjee: Hi, thanks for taking my question and Kevin, look forward to working with you. I guess maybe if I can start a bit more near term, you did have a...
Speaker Change: strong quarter in terms of revenue, beating your own revenue guide by about $400 million. And you talked about the strength you saw in data centers amongst sort of the drivers, as well as consumer. As we think about F4Q,
Thank you for your time.
Speaker Change: No, Sumita, I'd say our Q4 is very much in line with the seasonality that we expect usually between Q3 and Q4, right, which is usually down like 6% sequentially between the quarters and our guide very much takes that into account. So we think Q4 plays out in terms of mix very much like Q3, right, data centers, health being very strong, but our Q4 guide is very much in line with what
Speaker Change: We see sequentially and then on margins, we've said it's kind of flat to Q3 around 6.1 EPS is down sequentially a little bit 10% but that's mainly due to the tax rate change it'll still be up 20%
Speaker Change: year over year. So the revenue guide for Q4 is, I would say, pretty spot-on compared to our historical levels of seasonality we've seen, even with upside in Q3. So I feel quite good about that guide we're giving you.
Speaker Change: Okay, got it. And then maybe, Revathi, just to dive into the data center piece back again a bit more in detail, I think we are now seeing different sort of growth forecasts for where
Speaker Change: Hyperscalers are spending in relation to sort of traditional GPU clusters versus custom ASICs.
the traditional sort of servers, CPU servers and GPU servers.
But I'd say the larger question, Sumit, would be...
around what I briefly touched with Mark is.
Speaker Change: You know, we don't think that our exposure in data centers...
Speaker Change: both for hyperscalers and colo is impacted in any significant way with all the recent news that you're seeing. And most importantly being because we think that the way DeepSeek is working and driving costs down in such a competitive and high performance type of open source model is a good thing. It's a good thing for the industry as a whole because it's going to generate more applications
Speaker Change: and also accelerates efforts towards AGI. So, in general, you know, that acceleration towards high-density compute, more applications, all that is good. And we have had a lot of conversations with customers even in the last few weeks.
Speaker Change: and we don't see any of that changing. And the same on power, right? Power infrastructure in this country is really weak, the same in Europe.
Speaker Change: So I would say our forecasts are very much in line with what we're hearing from customers. And I don't see any concern with our exposure on GPU versus ASICs and hyperscale. And I'm not sure I want to give the breakout between the two. No, fair. Thank you.
and the first one.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Next question is coming from Stephen Fox from Fox Advisors. The line is now live.
Stephen FOX: Thank you. Good morning. Maybe just following up on that, it makes sense why you wouldn't want to break out, you know, the silicon exposure. But I was wondering, Revathi, you mentioned in the prepared remark
Stephen FOX: how you're doing more tailored solutions with the hyperscale companies. Can you maybe give us some color on how that's maybe helping your growth and margins? And then I had a follow-up.
Stephen FOX: their products are structured, right? Whether it is they're using their own silicon or they're using their own kind of cooling technology in terms of how they're considering their racks, each one is very unique and different.
Stephen FOX: And also the same on power, right? You would think all of power products are the same, but each one configures and customizes their power applications differently. So the ability to configure complex products.
Stephen FOX: for each individual hyperscaler is really important. And we have seen now with the addition of things like JetCool, that that gives us even more engineering capability to customize to what the hyperscalers want.
Stephen FOX: And that's what drives our growth today. If anything, that gets only stronger with the products portfolio we've added with things like Jet Cool and Crown. So I'd say, Steve, I feel quite bullish about our.
Stephen FOX: Not just our integration capability, but our specialty capability to customize for each of our customers.
Speaker Change: Great, that's super helpful. And then I just had a medical question. So you're talking about devices, it sounds like, leading the medical growth right now, but...
Stephen FOX: Can you give us a sense for, you know, sort of the relative strength of that, maybe over the next few quarters, and any kind of view on when maybe equipment piece of that business could come back?
Stephen FOX: Yeah, I would say that first on med device itself, I mean, what's really driving the growth is.
Stephen FOX: Just that you see in that smaller form factors that are a huge part of
Stephen FOX: just disease management in general, right? You know, we talk about diabetes a lot, but I don't see med device growth, you know, I would say going down much moving forward just because we're seeing more increases in terms of chronic devices, more focus on smaller devices.
Stephen FOX: and the complexity of manufacturing those products is what we are very excited about. So devices...
Stephen FOX: I feel pretty strong about. On the drug delivery side, we've had some wins around GLP-1 injectors, but again, longer term to ramp up, so that'll take time. On the med equipment place, we have talked about...
prospects for their business.
Great, thank you.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Next question is coming from George Wang from Park Asia Line is now live.
Speaker Change: cool versus kind of maybe prior, a bit more focused on air-cooled rack integration?
Speaker Change: Yeah, I would say, George, I would say our 45% growth speaks for itself, right, and you can compare that to relatively what the industry is seeing in terms of whether we are gaining share or not. So without commenting directly on the share gain in this space, I would say, you know, our overall growth has been very, very bullish. That being said, I would say, you know, our acquisition with JetCool just closed, so a lot more to come on that.
Thank you for joining us.
Speaker Change: You know, the industry is going to continue to move from air to liquid. I think we've been very clear about that transition. We've talked a lot about that in the past. That's what drove us to make this decision about investing in jet cool. Air will always continue to play a role, but with so much power needs and heat generated directly in the chip itself, it's really important to have liquid cooling as an overall part of the solution of the portfolio. And we don't see a better way to solve that.
Speaker Change: today. So having such a high performance capability from jet cool on liquid cool definitely has changed the conversation in terms of our pipeline and what we're working with our customers but I don't think that's really in our results today so I'd say more to come on that.
Great, and also just follow up Revathi, just on the...
GPU power, you know, flash-embedded power. Can you unpack
Speaker Change: So the accretion you are seeing from the share gain within some of the, you know, GPU rack in terms of PSU, PDU versus kind of an overall pie growing, especially as we head into Blackwell, you know, B200, B300 in the back half, just maybe likely you are seeing increased content per rack in terms of more power shelves and, you know, PSU. And how should we think about, you know, kind of which side should have more weight in the medium term just on the indebted power side?
Speaker Change: Yeah I would say that I don't think it has changed much in the medium term at all George.
Speaker Change: I'd say, yeah, if anything, you know, it's not lower power in terms of these racks. I think it's more content.
Speaker Change: And those are all kind of just improving content, improving density, and all of that as we deal with kind of heat issues.
Speaker Change: and scale issues within the RAC itself. So, George, I'd say no major change. And then the only thing I'd say overall is if you step back and take this noise around.
Speaker Change: kind of AI and what has happened with DeepSeq and see if it changes the industry in a big way. Net-net at the end of the day, you know, compute density is still a big deal.
Speaker Change: We think lower cost in applications like DeepSeek is a good thing for the industry as a whole because it's going to drive a stronger growth in terms of the market itself. There's going to be more applications that will be...
Speaker Change: developed with this lower barrier cost to entry so we'll see a lot of new market entrants.
Speaker Change: And so far, because of how expensive it is and how difficult it is to lay your hands on those products, we haven't seen enough growth from non-MAG-7 companies, and we'll start to see a lot more of that.
Speaker Change: So we see net-net, this is all good for the industry as a whole. It actually accelerates the move towards AI. The infrastructure spend both on data centers and power associated with data centers we feel will continue to be very bullish.
Speaker Change: both in the near term and the long term. And so we feel good about kind of our growth projections for this space.
Speaker Change: Hey, congrats again on the quarter, I'll go back to the queue.
Thanks George.
Speaker Change: Thank you. Next question is coming from Steve Barger from KeyBank Capital Markets. Your line is now live.
Steve Barger: Thanks, appreciate all the great detail you've given. I just want to go back to a high-level question thinking about cyclicality across the portfolio. What percentage of the business has clear lines of sight to sustainable growth?
Speaker Change: versus the percentage where you have less confidence. And I'm just trying to understand how long it takes before you see a path to both segments consistently showing positive growth.
Speaker Change: I'd say Steve Pustis, that's a very good question. I think we have clear lines of growth for both segments, both agility and reliability.
Speaker Change: Where we haven't grown, particularly on some consumer-related end markets, we have chosen not to grow, right? We have made decisions around our portfolio and our makeshift.
Speaker Change: and we are choosing where to grow and where not to grow. And that's a very important part of the makeshift you've seen in our overall portfolio.
Speaker Change: So I've always said growth in this space is not hard to achieve, but the right kind of growth is very, very important. So we pick and choose where we want to grow. The other thing, Steve, I'll point out is...
Speaker Change: Think about all the volatility that's happened over the last five years. So where I want to tell you that every business has a clear line of sight to growth,
Speaker Change: You see all this new noise that gets introduced that really is hard to project and forecast. I would say a perfect example is automotive, right? They've had really fantastic share growth, good technology that has really driven our growth directly with OEMs, but there's a lot of product transitions and noise in the automotive space.
Speaker Change: You know, which will make the next few years interesting in terms of projecting what kind of growth to get. So I'd say I feel very good about our pipeline and where we want to grow and a clear line of sight for growth. What I can't really commit to is how the macros will impact things.
Speaker Change: And that's been the hardest, I would say, for us more than anything else. And you know better than me that that's really hard to forecast at this point in time.
Speaker Change: Yes, it's been a very tough cycle. My second question is kind of related to what you were saying about where you want to choose to grow. I understand not wanting to talk about FY26 margin yet.
Speaker Change: But with a lot of margin progress already accomplished, I'm just curious about next steps, meaning are there still large pools of dollars with less favorable margins, so there's big opportunities, or is the incremental benefit from here going to come from trimming or fixing smaller lines of business with less favorable unit economics? I'm just trying to...
Speaker Change: to get a sense of where this can go from here.
Yeah, I would say
Speaker Change: The same question was asked three years ago when we improved our margins from like 3% to 4.5%, 5% if there's more to grow. And then we talked about 6%, and obviously we've gotten there a little faster. This year we'll be around between 5.6% and 5.7% overall, our overall operating margin.
Speaker Change: I feel very bullish there's lots more opportunities both in terms of mix and efficiency in this business.
Speaker Change: It has been all about selling value to customers to make sure how you run towards complexity and gain value on those is our focus on all our portfolio.
Speaker Change: And then we've clearly focused on a few things. One is adding more products to key end markets like data centers and automotive. So that drives more margin improvement. And we're in the beginning stages of that. The second is focusing more on makeshift using our services business, value-added services business.
That is also a margin improvement for us.
Speaker Change: I would say the margin story is yet to be written, and there's a lot more to be done, I would say, not just in terms of mix driven by value-added services and products.
Speaker Change: continued efficiency in our factories with all the robotics and automation so yeah we are ahead of what we told you guys but you know we'll come back with some revised estimates and here in a few months for FY 26 so
Kevin, you would add anything to that? Understood.
Thank you.
Thanks very much
Speaker Change: Thank you. We've reached the end of our question and answer session. I'd like to turn the floor back over for any further or closing comments.
Speaker Change: I just say thank you and I just wanted to close and thank the Flex team for all their hard work and contributions and also to our customers and our suppliers and then most importantly our shareholders for all your support. So thank you everyone. Have a nice day.
Speaker Change: Thank you. That does conclude today's teleconference webcast. You may disconnect your line at this time and have a wonderful day. We thank you for your participation today.