The investor's website SeekingAlpha has posted a transcript of Molex (NASDAQ: MOLX) CEO's Martin Slark's comments discussing the connector industry giant's Q4 2011 results. "Fiscal year '11 was a good year for Molex," said Slark. "We established new records for orders, revenue and earnings per share." Slark said that "for the year, the company's revenue grew 19% from fiscal year 2010." He added that "the broad-based [economic] recovery continued" for Molex in the last fiscal year, "with all markets realizing double-digit growth on a year-on-year basis for revenue."
Specifying in terms of Molex's growth by connector industry segment for the fiscal year, Slark said the following:
"Tablets were a major contributor to the increase in the infotech market. But we also saw a good sales growth into service and storage equipment, as companies upgraded their data centers."
"Our industrial [connectivity] market grew 23% from fiscal year '10 as the recovery in global GDP drove the need for factory automation equipment and spending on industrial equipment. We were very pleased with the contribution from our Woodhead [business unit's] fiscal year '11. After a few years of struggling with this acquisition, it is now making a very positive contribution to both our sales and profitability growth."
"The drivers for the growth in telecom last fiscal include the ongoing penetration of smartphones, which have better connector content than mid-range phones and increased spending on network equipment, primarily due to the rise in video Internet traffic."
Rouding up, Slark noted, "This was an exceptional year for Molex in terms of overall growth when we've clearly rode the overall economic recovery. And we obviously do not expect to continue growth at this pace in the years ahead. Revenue now exceeds the precrisis levels, and we seem to be returning to a more normal demand environment. Moving forward, we'll continue to work to change our end market mix, trying to increase our exposure to areas of business that have higher margins."
Source: Molex's CEO Discusses Q4 2011 Results - Earnings Call Transcript (seekingalpha.com)
