Jabil Reports Q4 2026 Results: Full Earnings Call Transcript

On Wednesday, Jabil (NYSE:JBL) discussed fourth-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below.

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Summary

Jabil Inc reported a strong finish to fiscal 2026 with Q4 revenue of $10.6 billion, up 29% YoY, driven by intelligent infrastructure and regulated industries.

For fiscal 2027, the company expects to generate $44.5 billion in revenue, a 24% increase, with significant growth anticipated in AI infrastructure, automotive, defense, and aerospace.

Jabil is adding 4 million square feet of capacity to support customer growth and remains committed to an asset-light model with net capex at 1.5-2% of revenue.

The firm plans to return 80% or more of adjusted free cash flow to shareholders, with a strong focus on share repurchases and maintaining an investment-grade credit profile.

CEO Mike Dastoor emphasized the company's evolution into an engineering-led, supply chain-enabled manufacturing solutions provider, with a focus on expanding margins and improving returns on invested capital.

Full Transcript

Adam Berry, SVP Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs

Good morning and welcome to Jabil's fourth quarter earnings call and ninth Annual Investor Briefing. My name is Adam Berry. I'm Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs. Thank you for joining us today. Each September, this call is an opportunity for us to both report the quarter as well as give you a deeper look at our business and the opportunities that lie ahead. And as you'll hear throughout today's presentation, we have a lot to feel good about as the momentum we've seen in fiscal 2026 continues into fiscal 2027.

Before we begin, it's worth noting that today's presentation is being live streamed. The slides are available in the Investor Relations section of Jabil and a recording will be available after this event. In addition, we will be making forward looking statements during this presentation, including, among other things, those regarding the anticipated outlook process such as our currently expected first quarter and full fiscal year 2027 net revenue and earnings.

These statements are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions involving risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially. An extensive list of these risks and uncertainties is identified in our annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended August 31, 2025 and in other filings with the SEC. Jabil disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

Now let me set the stage for what we'll cover today. We'll begin with Greg Hebert, our Chief Financial Officer, who will review our fourth quarter and fiscal year results, cash flow and balance sheet capital returns as well as our first quarter outlook. We will then move to Steve Borges who will cover our regulated industry segment including transportation, healthcare and renewable and energy infrastructure. Next, Matt Crowley will follow with intelligent infrastructure and how we're expanding our role across AI infrastructure as customer demand continues to accelerate.

Following Matt will be Rafael Rena who will discuss newly renamed segment Intelligent Devices and Robotics, or IDR, which will take the place of connectivity and digital commerce. We feel this name change better reflects where the segment is heading in terms of automation and robotics capabilities. As the mix of business continues to shift towards more highly complex engineered solutions upon these three leaders, it will become further evident that the business remains strong and in good shape with growth coming in many key areas.

In fact, when you put all of this diversified growth together, we're anticipating adding in excess of $8.5 billion of revenue in fiscal 27 after having added over 6 billion in fiscal 26. That's an unprecedented amount of growth for Jabil. Hence, we felt it was critically important for Frank Mckay, our Chief Supply Chain Officer, and Andrew Priestley, our Chief Operations Officer, to discuss how we're preparing to deliver this growth as well as our unique model for working with both customers and suppliers to secure the necessary components to ensure customer success.

And finally, our CEO Mike Dastoor will bring it all together, starting with how Jabil has evolved as an engineering led supply chain enabled manufacturing solutions company, followed by our fiscal 2027 outlook by end market, our capital allocation priorities and how we're thinking about the business beyond fiscal 2027. We'll then open the call for your questions. As you will hear from the team, there are three key messages today. First, we're positioned for growth in fiscal 27.

Our strong customer relationships and capabilities are expanding what we can deliver while committed customer demand is filling the additional capacity we have added. Second, our commitment to product, end market and customer diversification continues to create meaningful value. AI remains strong with a broadening customer base complemented by growth in automotive, defense and aerospace, healthcare, energy infrastructure and warehouse and retail automation.

These businesses broaden our customer base and allow us to apply capabilities across markets. Finally, we're focused on converting this growth into earnings, cash flow and shareholder returns through disciplined execution, investment and capital allocation. With that, let's get started. It's my pleasure to introduce Chief Financial Officer Greg Hebert.

Greg Hebert, Chief Financial Officer

Thank you Adam. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us. I am very excited with our strong finish to fiscal 26. Fourth quarter revenue and core earnings per share both exceeded the high end of our guidance, reflecting solid execution across the business. Revenue was approximately $10.6 billion, up 29% year over year and more than $1 billion above the midpoint of our June outlook. The upside was driven from intelligent infrastructure and regulated industries.

I'll provide additional detail on both segments later in my remarks. Turning to profitability, GAAP operating income was $602 million, or 5.7% of revenue. Core operating income was $675 million, representing a core operating margin of 6.4%. GAAP diluted earnings per share were $3.76 while core diluted earnings per share were $4.40, up 34% year over year. Net interest expense for the quarter was $87 million. Turning now to our performance by segment regulated industries revenue was $3.4 billion, up 9% year over year and above our outlook for the quarter.

Auto and transportation was the largest contributor to that upside, with demand stronger than we expected. Renewable and energy infrastructure also finished ahead of our outlook. Together, those businesses more than offset lower than expected revenue in healthcare and packaging, where results were impacted by delays in automation equipment and the timing shift of a customer program. Core operating margin for the segment was 5.8%. In Intelligent Infrastructure, revenue was approximately $5.8 billion, up 56% year over year and roughly $900 million above our June outlook.

The upside was driven by two factors. First, AI related demand remained very strong and continued to accelerate, exceeding the significant growth we had already incorporated in our June outlook. Second, capacity came online sooner than planned and customer ramps progressed better than anticipated, allowing us to support that higher level of demand. That growth was supported by the ramp of our second hyperscaler in Mexico and continued strength in our networking programs in India.

Our power business also performed better than expected, contributing to the upside for the quarter. After being capacity constrained for much of the year, we're beginning to see our capacity investments drive growth. Core operating margin for the segment was 6.5%, up 60 basis points year over year, reflecting an improvement including the contribution of our margin accretive Hanley Energy acquisition. In Connected Living and Digital Commerce, revenue was approximately $1.4 billion, roughly flat year over year.

Core operating margin was 7.1%. As Adam mentioned, we will refer to this business as Intelligent Devices and Robotics in our outlook. Turning to cash flow in our balance sheet, let me begin with inventory. We made solid progress in the fourth quarter, reducing net inventory days by approximately four days sequentially to 64, including inventory deposits. Gross inventory days ended the year at approximately 82. While net inventory days remain above our target range of 55 to 60 days, we expect continued improvement and return to that range as we move through fiscal 2027.

Cash from operations was $733 million in the quarter and approximately $2 billion for the full year. Net capital expenditures were $192 million in Q4 and $470 million for the year, or 1.3% of revenue. As a result, strong adjusted free cash flow was $541 million in the quarter and more than $1.5 billion for the year, exceeding our initial FY26 outlook of 1.3 billion plus dollars. Looking ahead, we continue to expect net capital expenditures of 1.5% to 2% of revenue.

The asset light nature of intelligent infrastructure enables us to support strong growth while continuing to invest across our diversified portfolio. We exited fiscal 2026 with a strong balance sheet with debt to core EBITDA of 1.3x and cash balances of approximately $1.7 billion. Turning to our capital structure, we ended fiscal 2026 with approximately $6.1 billion of total available liquidity, including $4.4 billion of unused borrowing capacity.

Balance sheet debt was approximately $3.4 billion. Our strong financial position provides the flexibility to support customer growth, continue returning capital to shareholders while maintaining commitment to an investment grade credit profile. Turning to shareholder returns, we repurchased approximately $169 million of shares in the fourth quarter and approximately $1.1 billion for the full year. That builds on our consistent track record of returning capital to shareholders.

Since fiscal 2013, we've reduced shares outstanding from approximately 203 million to approximately 104 million, a reduction of 49% over that period. We've repurchased shares at an average price of $58 and returned $8.8 billion to shareholders through repurchases and dividends. During the fourth quarter, we completed our prior repurchase authorization and began repurchasing shares under the new $1.5 billion program authorized by our board in July.

Approximately $1.4 billion remained available at year end. Our long term framework remains unchanged. Return 80% or more of adjusted free cash flow to shareholders over time while continuing to invest for growth. With that, let's turn to our first quarter guidance with revenue by segment for Q1, we anticipate regulated industries revenue of approximately $3.5 billion, up about 12% year over year. The growth is expected to be led by auto and transportation, driven by programs in defense and aerospace and automotive, along with continued momentum in renewable and energy infrastructure.

For intelligent infrastructure, we expect strong growth to continue with revenue of approximately $6.3 billion, up about 63% year over year. AI related demand remains very strong and continues to accelerate we expect customer ramps and additional capacity coming online to support that growth. In intelligent devices and robotics, we expect revenue of approximately $1.2 billion, down about 10% year over year. Putting it all together at the enterprise level, total company revenue for Q1 is expected to be in the range of $10.6 billion to $11.4 billion.

GAAP operating income is expected to be in the range of $481 million to $541 million. Core operating income is estimated to be in the range of $592 million to $652 million. GAAP diluted earnings per share is expected to be in the range of $2.78 to $3.18. Core diluted earnings per share is estimated in the range of $3.8 to $4.2. Net interest expense is estimated to be approximately $95 million for Q1 and in the range of $390 to $400 million for the year.

Tax rate for Q1 and for the fiscal year is expected to be 20%. Let me close with our full year results and the longer term progress shown on the next two slides. Since fiscal 2020, core operating margin has increased from 3.2% to 5.8% and together with our share repurchase program has driven core earnings per share at a compound annual rate of approximately 29%. Our asset light model has also enabled stronger cash generation with less capital, reducing net capital expenditures from 2.9% of revenue to 1.3% while more than tripling annual free cash flow.

That's a strong track record and one we are proud of. Our business has evolved considerably over that period, but our focus has remained consistent, strengthening the portfolio, expanding margins and converting earnings into cash. We saw the value of that approach again this year. Intelligent infrastructure led our growth and automotive energy infrastructure and digital commerce also contributed. The strength of our diversified portfolio gives us multiple opportunities to grow and we'll continue to allocate capital toward the market.

That and capabilities where we see the most attractive long term returns. We enter fiscal 2027 with strong momentum and broader participation across our end markets. Our focus remains on delivering that growth with the same financial discipline that has driven our progress to date. Our business leaders will now discuss those opportunities in more detail before Mike takes you through our strategy and full year outlook. Steve, let me turn it over to you.

To begin with, Regulated Industries

Steve Borges, EVP, Regulated Industries

Thanks Greg. Good morning everyone. I lead Jabil's regulated industry segment which brings together automotive and transportation, defense and aerospace, healthcare and packaging and renewable energy infrastructure. These businesses share an important characteristic. They compete in markets where trust is earned over years, not quarters. Qualification cycles are lengthy, certification requirements are rigorous and customers depend on consistent execution throughout programs that often remain in production for a decade or longer.

That creates durable customer relationships and gives us the opportunity to expand our role over time. We often begin by supporting a specific product and as confidence and performance increase, we broaden our engagement into adjacent technologies, additional manufacturing processes, and increasingly complex system level solutions. Deepening these relationships remains one of the strongest drivers of value creation across the segment. Looking ahead to fiscal 2027, we remain optimistic about the outlook across regulated industries.

Automotive is benefiting from a more balanced technology mix. Defense and aerospace is gaining momentum as new programs move into production. Healthcare is expected to return to growth while renewable and energy infrastructure is benefiting from improving markets and overall demand. Although we remain mindful of the broader demand environment, the long term trends supporting these businesses remain compelling. Let me start with automotive and transportation.

This business returned to growth faster than we anticipated, driven by strong operational execution, improved win rates with strategic customers, and disciplined portfolio management. Over the past several years, we have intentionally repositioned the automotive business towards higher value opportunities including software defined vehicles, advanced driver assistance systems, vehicle compute and powertrain agnostic technologies that support internal combustion, hybrid and battery electric platforms.

That strategy is working. We have reduced the share of electrification and powertrain programs in our portfolio from approximately 80% in fiscal 2023 to about 40% in fiscal 2026. Software defined vehicle compute and advanced driver assistance programs represent much of the balance. This more balanced mix positions us to perform across multiple technology pathways as the market evolves. While regional dynamics vary, we continue to see strong momentum across the board.

In the US our growth is increasingly tied to to powertrain agnostic technology. In Europe and in China, we are seeing increased adoption of advanced technologies across battery electric platforms. Our European pipeline continues to expand as existing customers extend these architectures across global vehicle platforms and respond to ongoing localization requirements. Approximately 90% of fiscal 2026 automotive revenue came directly from original equipment manufacturing manufacturers.

As OEMs rethink their strategies, outsourcing is becoming more prevalent. Jabil is well positioned to benefit from these trends. Our customer relationships, engineering expertise, advanced manufacturing know how and resilient global supply chain enable us to participate in the highest value, most complex areas of the autonomous, connected, electrified and software defined vehicle market. Beyond automotive, we see attractive potential across the broader portfolio.

Defense and aerospace is expected to become an increasingly meaningful contributor in fiscal 2027 as new programs move into production across both established industry leaders and emerging technology companies. Customers need partners that can move complex products from design to high volume production while meeting demanding quality, security and scale requirements. This is where Jabil's breadth of capabilities becomes a competitive advantage. By bringing together engineering systems integration and supply chain expertise from across Jabil, we can support increasingly complex products and expand our role from electronic assemblies to complete integrated systems. Our immediate focus is executing today's program ramps while preparing the business for its next phase of expansion. Turning to healthcare, this remains a stable business with an attractive long term growth profile. As I mentioned earlier, these customer relationships are built over many years creating durable partnerships and strong visibility. We expect the business to return to growth in fiscal 2027 as customers launch new products and increasingly rely on Jabil for complex manufacturing solutions solutions.

Medical technology companies increasingly need partners that can integrate engineering, global supply chain expertise and regulated manufacturing at scale. That combination differentiates Jabil and enables us to capture additional share as outsourcing expands. We are investing in high value areas including minimally invasive technologies, sterilization, medical device reprocessing and pharmaceutical solutions. These investments broaden our addressable market, deepen existing relationships and support long term value creation with attractive margin opportunities.

Drug delivery is a good example of that strategy in action. Across insulin delivery, biologics and weight loss therapies, customers need partners that can manufacture highly reliable devices at scale. We combine precision manufacturing with deep process expertise to help our customers bring these next generation therapies to market efficiently. To illustrate the scale of that opportunity, we expect to manufacture more than 700 million injectors and delivery pens in fiscal 2027.

This reflects both the breadth of our participation in drug delivery market and our growing role in several of the first fastest expanding therapeutic categories. Our pharmaceutical solutions business, which we expanded through the acquisition of pii, is a natural extension of that strategy. As we move through fiscal 2027, our focus is on executing customer product launches, expanding capacity where demand supports it, and investing selectively in the technologies that will sustain growth in the years ahead.

Finally, let's turn to renewable and energy infrastructure infrastructure. Where market conditions improved throughout fiscal 2026, we're seeing emerging signs across our energy related business with solar remaining an important part of the portfolio. More importantly, customer investment is broadening into energy storage, electrical infrastructure and thermal management solutions. Electricity demand continues to accelerate driven by electrification, industrial expansion and the rapid growth of data centers.

That demand is increasing investment across the energy value chain from power generation and storage to grid modernization, distribution equipment and power management. While the pace of customer investment will vary by end market, our strategies focus on the areas with the strongest long term potential energy storage, grid power solutions, HVAC and data center cooling, commercial power and the broader energy infrastructure. To strengthen our position, we are investing in engineering capabilities, vertical integration, strategic partnerships and targeted inorganic growth in power electronics and low voltage switchgear.

In closing, trust remains the common thread across regulated industries. Long standing customer relationships, differentiated technical expertise and disciplined investment provide a strong foundation for sustainable growth and attractive long term returns. I'll now turn it over to Matt to discuss Intelligent Infrastructure.

Ed Bailey, CTO SVP - Intelligent Infrastructure Business

Thanks, Steve. Good morning, everyone. I lead Jabil's Intelligent Infrastructure segment. We continue to feel very good about intelligent infrastructure. Demand for AI infrastructure remains strong and continues to accelerate. As customers expand their infrastructure, the systems they need are becoming more complex. That creates more opportunities for Jabil. Fiscal 26 reflected that sentiment. Revenue grew more than 40% and AI revenue was up 60% year over year, and we ended the year with four customers with AI-related revenue above a billion dollars annually, up from one $1 billion customer two years ago.

Additionally, we added a third hyperscale customer in the third quarter of this year. All proof points that our strategic focus on capability is resonating with customers and the market. Behind those results is how we think about the data center. It's one complete system, and we've built the capabilities required across the entire system. Compute, storage and networking need to work with the power and cooling around them. A change in one area affects the others.

A simple example of this is putting more compute and GPUs into a rack requires more power and generates more heat. This changes both the cooling design and the way power is delivered, while the network and optical connections have to keep pace. Working through those choices with the customer is where our engineering is making a difference. We're investing in those capabilities and getting involved earlier, often before a program reaches the quotation stage.

Four of our six largest data center wins this year began that way as design engagements. That early involvement is what we mean by engineering-led and silicon-to-solutions. We can engage around the silicon, help design and integrate the rack, and support the infrastructure around it. With that strategic concept in mind, let me walk you through our three end markets in the order we report them. Capital equipment comes first because it's where we participate earliest in the investment cycle.

AI complexity and custom silicon are raising the demands on semiconductor test and wafer fab. Investment is creating opportunities in the tools that make chips. In both areas, we're taking on more of the tool, moving from components into modules and subsystems. This year we brought a new site in Vietnam into production, and we're building complete subsystems for a new generation of memory testers using thermal control that came out of our data center work.

Capital equipment revenue grew about 20% in fiscal 26, and we expect fiscal 27 to be an even stronger year with growth of 40% as the wafer fab equipment cycle recovers and AI demand remains strong. Cloud and data center infrastructure is our largest end market. Liquid cooling is a good example of how we grow there. A customer may come to us with a thermal process problem. As we work through it, the discussion expands to the design and integration of the rack.

We solve the initial problem, demonstrate what we can do, and earn the opportunity to take on more. That's how our largest account developed from a server and rack program into servers, racks, power, cooling and services. Our second hyperscale customer started with a single capability and has grown into a storage program above a billion dollars in annual revenue. That expansion doesn't stop at the rack. The power and cooling infrastructure around it also has to be ready.

Customers increasingly want that equipment built and tested before it reaches the site. In Guadalajara and Salt Lake City, we're building modular data centers: power and cooling modules built and tested in the factory so customers power months sooner. Prefabricated modules aren't tied to the critical path of the construction site, and customers can line up revenue much more closely with their costs. Hanley takes that one step further. It adds power, engineering, deployment and services to our manufacturing capabilities so we can help customers commission equipment and maintain it after installation.

That services capability is the highest margin business in the segment. We're seeing the same pattern in networking, which is one of the opportunities we're most excited about. As AI workloads grow, more of the network is moving into dedicated racks with higher-capacity systems to address more complex topologies for neural networks. When a switch customer needed capacity for a new generation of AI switches, we brought production in India online at record pace.

Those lines now build liquid-cooled network racks. Our photonics team supplies the silicon photonics transceivers and co-packaged optics. Optics move the optics onto the switch silicon. It also grows with how much AI is used, not with the size of any single model. I'll come back to that. Across all three markets, we've built the business around capabilities that work across different customer platforms. Customers can choose different silicon and networking architectures, and we help them bring the system together.

That's a deliberate choice. Others in the industry are building product companies around their own power and cooling platforms and asking customers to standardize on them. That's a legitimate model. Ours is different. We help customers build the system they've designed with their silicon, their architecture and whichever suppliers they choose. And we bring our own technology where it fills a gap in cold plates, chillers and power distribution. That matters in two ways.

It widens the programs we can win because we are competing with the customer's other choices, and our position doesn't depend on any single product surviving the next architecture change. The engineering, integration and test carry forward. Turning to fiscal 27, we expect Intelligent Infrastructure revenue to grow 43% year over year, with all three end markets growing double digits. We expect AI-related revenue to grow 50-plus percent year on year, and five customers with revenue above a billion dollars.

The business should also continue to be asset-light because the capacity we're adding is tied to programs already booked. That is central to our strategy, and it shows up in return on invested capital, which we believe is a clear advantage of our model over our competitors. And now it looks like that raises a fiction about volatility AI trade. So let me be direct about how we think about it. To me, it all starts with where our demand comes from. The AI spending that makes headlines is at the frontier: small number of apps, trackable models on the largest clusters ever built.

Most of our business is not there. It is in deployed AI models that already exist, running at scale for the world's largest cloud platforms and the enterprises they serve. That's inference. It grows with usage. It needs storage, networking, power and cooling as much as accelerators. And much of what we build is needed, whether a customer is adding capacity or upgrading what's already installed. I also said I'd come back to networking because it's the clearest example.

Our direct exposure to frontier model developers is a small fraction of our AI-related revenue. And then something else worth highlighting is the diversification across the segment. Capital equipment follows the semiconductor cycle, while cloud infrastructure and networking follow data center deployment. Within the data center, racks, power and cooling, service and test have different buyers and different timing. And a large share of Jabil's revenue and operating profit sits outside this segment, where the same thermal, power and test capabilities are increasingly relevant as AI reaches energy, healthcare, automotive and automation.

That helps to lower the volatility of our earnings and lets us keep investing through a downturn. Our immediate focus is to turn that capacity into reliable production. We're working with operations and supply chain to have people, processes and materials ready as programs ramp. The combination of a broader role with customers and disciplined investment gives us confidence in the business we're building. Rafael, I'll turn it over to you.

Rafael Renno, Vice President, Global Business Units

Thank you, Matt. Good morning everyone. My name is Rafael Renno and I'm pleased to be here with you today. Over the past 21 years at Jabil, I've held a variety of leadership roles building and managing strategic customer relationships across the company. Today, I lead Jabil's Intelligent Devices and Robotics segment. As Adam mentioned briefly, we renamed the segment to better reflect our strategy and the ongoing evolution of the business. Today, our portfolio spans intelligent devices, automation platforms and robotics that bring AI into the physical world, from warehouses to industrial environments to public spaces and our homes.

Over the past several years we've been reshaping the segment around opportunities that deliver stronger margins, better returns and deeper customer relationships. That strategy continues to guide both end markets: Connected Living and Commerce and Robotics. To accomplish the ongoing transition from consumer-based products to robotics and automation, we leverage our strong capabilities in optics, robotics and advanced precision mechanics to enable the design, industrialization and delivery of our customers' complex engineered products.

This expertise also forms the foundation of our physical AI stack and will remain an important investment area within Connected Living. We continue to prioritize profitability over volume, exiting or de-emphasizing programs that did not meet our return requirements. As a result, the business is more focused, more disciplined and better positioned for long-term success. Today, Connected Living serves customers across public safety and vision systems, home automation and lifestyle devices, as well as other complex consumer and commercial systems.

We are increasingly concentrating the portfolio on higher-value products where engineering complexity, supply chain execution and regional manufacturing create meaningful differentiation. Regional manufacturing has become especially important as customers respond to evolving geopolitical dynamics and new regulatory requirements, particularly for products such as foreign-produced drones and communication devices. Within Commerce and Robotics, we continue to evolve the portfolio with an even greater emphasis on robotics and automation and the physical AI stack across warehouses, retail environments, fulfillment networks and other industrial settings.

Customers are investing in automation to improve efficiency, address labor constraints and increase productivity. These are long-term secular trends that continue to gain momentum. Jabil supports a broad range of automation platforms including ASRs, warehouse systems, mobile robots, retail technologies and autonomous last mile delivery solutions. Our ability to help customers industrialize and scale complex products globally positions us well to benefit from continued adoption.

One of our customers described the value of this partnership well.

Michael Trueblood, Vice President of Procurement at Symbotic

Hello, my name is Michael Trueblood, Vice President of Procurement at Symbotic. Since 2023, Jabil has been a trusted partner in scaling Symbotic's bot production. Their engineering rigor, manufacturing expertise, global sourcing capabilities and commitment to world-class quality enable us to move quickly while maintaining disciplined execution. Since entering mass production in early 2024, we reached 10,000 bots in June of 2025 and are now approaching 20,000 in total.

Jabil's collaborative approach helps us address challenges early, supporting our continued growth and next-generation of innovation.

Rafael Renno, Vice President, Global Business Units

That reflects exactly how we're building across this business. Long-term customer relationships grounded in engineering, manufacturing excellence and disciplined operational execution. Those capabilities also give us the foundation to participate in emerging markets. For example, our experience in complex automation and high-volume manufacturing allows us to engage early with customers developing humanoid robots and the precision mechanical systems that enable them, including actuators and robotic hands.

We help move these products from design into repeatable, reliable, high-volume manufacturing. Over time, we expect these capabilities to extend further into physical AI as more intelligence moves into machines, warehouses, retail environments, public spaces and industrial settings. As we enter fiscal 27, we have a stronger business. Connected Living is more focused. Commerce and Robotics is a credible growth engine today. The capabilities we've built create additional avenues for expansion, while physical AI represents a significant long-term opportunity as the market develops.

That is how we intend to build the business behind the new name. Andy will now explain how our global operations team prepares new programs for production and supports them as they scale. Andy, over to you.

Andrew Priestley, EVP, Chief Operations Officer

Thanks, Rafael. Good morning everyone. I lead Jabil's global operations across more than 120 facilities. We spent much of the past year preparing those factories for our customers' growth. We're now beginning to fill the additional capacity with the committed business. For our operations team, that means flawlessly bringing programs into production and increasing output, all while maintaining the highest standards for safety, quality and delivery.

As production moves closer to the end customers, we're expanding our footprint across the United States in places like Mississippi and Virginia, as well as internationally in India, Mexico, Brazil and Vietnam. Our expansion gives us more room to grow in regions where our customers need us most. The equipment, people, processes and supply chain all have to come together before a facility can deliver its scale. That work becomes even more demanding as products become more complex.

Liquid-cooled systems, for example, require specialized assembly and test capabilities alongside space to build them. We're preparing our people and manufacturing processes around those requirements so customer programs can move seamlessly into mass production. To handle that combination of greater volume and greater complexity, we're continuing to invest in physical AI and automation on the factory floor. We're expanding automation in areas such as material movement and inspection.

These investments improve consistency and productivity while allowing our people to focus on the higher-value work that requires their expertise. This is particularly important as we support customers closer to their end markets, including in high-cost regions. We're also focused on making those investments more fungible. Flexible automation allows us to adapt and reuse equipment as products change, helping us respond faster to new customer requirements while improving returns on deployed capital.

Alongside that automation, we're investing in computer vision to support automated operations inspection with the goal of using what we learn …to prevent defects before they occur. The opportunity also extends outside of the production line. AI tools that simplify workflows and automate transactions give our teams more time to resolve issues and support launches. All these capabilities help us ramp programs faster, identify issues earlier, and use equipment more effectively and efficiently. Once a solution has proven effective, we want other sites and businesses to benefit from it. Our regulated customers in healthcare and automotive, for example, require validated processes, consistent quality, and traceability.

Commerce and robotics customers need help bringing complex, large form factor automation products into production. The requirements often differ, but experiences developed in one part of Jabil can improve how we serve customers elsewhere. This is one practical benefit of our diversified portfolio, and our focus for the coming years is to put it to work. As new programs ramp, we want customers to know that they can grow with Jabil. We want that growth to come with better productivity and disciplined investment.

Material availability has to keep pace with that production. However, Frank and his team are working alongside us to make that happen. Frank, over to you.

Frank Mckay, Chief Supply Chain & Procurement Officer

Thanks, Andy, and good morning, everyone. As Andy said, being ready to manufacture is only part of being ready to deliver. Customers also need confidence that components will be available when production needs them. That confidence starts with supply chain resilience, which for Jabil is an operating discipline that directly affects continuity, cost, and growth for our customers. We're seeing real constraints today. Memory, in particular, is being reallocated towards AI and hyperscale demand, tightening supply across many of the diversified end markets that we serve.

We view this as a structural shift in global capacity compounded by ongoing geopolitical disruption. And we work with customers and suppliers to understand where those pressures could affect a launch or production schedule so that we can act early. Our supply relationships are central to that work. We've identified about 120 strategic partners that we engage. Like customers, we share roadmaps and executive-level relationships. In constrained markets, allocation follows trust as much as order size does.

That's where those relationships pay off directly for our customers, helping us work through allocation, qualify alternate sources, and coordinate commitments needed to support a ramp. We bring Jabil's purchasing scale to those discussions alongside our customers' own procurement capabilities. In cloud and data center infrastructure, for example, large customers play a key role in securing supply, and coordinating their requirements with our supplier relationships and production plans helps us get material to the factories where needed.

Structurally, what we do works in part because procurement reports into supply chain. Sourcing, execution, and tailor-made customer supply chain architecture decisions are not made in silos. We're building on that foundation by improving visibility across suppliers and our logistics networks, evaluating regional production and nearshoring strategies, and developing AI tools to identify constraints much earlier than we could have in the past. The goal is simple: know which customer programs are affected when demand shifts or a supplier falls behind, and have options ready before issues reach the production line.

For the year ahead, our focus is on delivering reliably as customers scale, managing cost and keeping material commitments aligned with demand, helping customers maintain continuity while protecting the capital needed to fund their growth. As we do this, Jabil becomes a more strategic partner in an increasingly uncertain environment. I'll now pass it off to Mike Dastoor.

Michael Dastoor, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Frank. Good morning, everyone. Before I get into the outlook, I want to thank our teams around the world. We asked a great deal of them this year, bringing capacity online, supporting demanding customer ramps, and delivering a much stronger finish than we expected in June. I'm extremely pleased with what they accomplished and grateful for their commitment to our customers and each other. As you heard from Greg today, fiscal 2026 was yet another exceptional year for Jabil.

Year on year we grew revenue by 21%, expanded core operating margin by 40 bps, delivered 34% growth in core earnings per share, and expanded free cash flow by more than $200 million. Our AI-related business drove much of that growth, but automotive, energy infrastructure, and digital commerce performed very well too. And we accomplished all of this while progressing extremely well on a number of customer ramps and bringing critical capacity online in Southeast Asia, the U.S., Mexico, and India, which sets us up to deliver even more growth in fiscal 2027 and beyond.

But before we get to fiscal 2027, I want to spend a few minutes on how this company has evolved over the last several years because it explains why we're so confident in what comes next. Let's start with gross margin. The mix shift toward higher-value markets has lifted it more than 200 basis points since fiscal 2020 to 9.2%. We exited lower-margin business with the mobility divestiture, and more of our revenue now comes from regulated industries, intelligent infrastructure, and digital commerce, where the work is more complex and the relationships run deeper.

Put simply, we're moving up the value chain, taking on more of the engineering, supply chain integration, and complexity that increases our value proposition to customers. And we did that in a year when revenue grew 21% and we were building out significant new capacity for the growth ahead. At the same time, we've become structurally less capital intensive. Net capex is down to 1.3% of revenue from 2.9% in fiscal 2020. Our AI business is growing rapidly with lower capital intensity.

We structure programs with customers so the investment matches the commitment, and we prioritize organic investment toward the higher-returning parts of the portfolio. Last year we supported $36 billion of revenue on about $470 million of net capex. Not everyone in our space can say that. And looking ahead, we expect that asset-light model to continue, with net capex in the range of 1.5% to 2% of revenue. Higher margins and lower capex show up in cash flow.

Adjusted free cash flow has more than tripled since fiscal 2020 to $1.5 billion. And we converted approximately 110% of core net earnings into cash last year, even as revenue grew 21%. That cash gives us the flexibility to invest in the business and return capital to shareholders at the same time. And with the growth ahead, I expect it to keep building. The higher margins and asset-light model, and strong free cash flow, have resulted in strong return on invested capital even as we continue to grow.

Our core ROIC has nearly tripled since fiscal 2020 to 59%. I like that a lot. It tells me the quality of the business is improving, not just the size. Over the years we've evolved from a contract manufacturer to an end-to-end complex manufacturing solutions service provider. We've been deliberate about building an engineering-led, supply chain–enabled manufacturing solutions company. That's more than a tagline. It says something important about what we are and what we are not.

We are not a contract manufacturer competing with low-cost EMS companies. Nor are we a product company competing with our customers. We build a diverse set of capabilities and deploy them in whatever combination the customer needs to deliver complex solutions for their products and services. That's why they trust us with their most important programs. And it's why our vision is to be the world's most technologically advanced and trusted manufacturing solutions service provider.

That vision rests on three core strengths. Let me take each in turn. First, engineering. We have more than 9,000 engineers helping customers solve technical problems and develop products that can be built efficiently and at scale. Being engineering-led means we get involved earlier in the customer's decision cycle, often before the product design is locked. That's where design for manufacturing matters most. Our engineers shape the design so it can be built reliably at the right cost and at volume, followed by industrialization—the work of taking a product from prototype to a stable, scaled production line.

And we use value engineering to take cost out along the way. We do that faster than most, and it's one of the reasons customers bring us their most demanding ramps. Once we're embedded that early, we're very hard to displace. Design wins become long-term relationships, and we take on more of the customer's challenge from development through production. Second, supply chain. This is a capability people tend to underestimate. We manage approximately $35 billion of global spend, 40,000 suppliers, and 1 million parts, with roughly 3,500 procurement and supply chain professionals.

Our supply chain expertise is even more valuable in today's increasingly complex global environment, where geopolitical uncertainty, regional conflicts, and structural component constraints continue to challenge our customers. Our continued investment in supply chain capabilities, systems, and long-term supplier relationships enables us to help customers mitigate risk, enhance resilience, and maintain continuity. Third, manufacturing. And this is where the diversity of our capabilities really shows up.

While each customer has its own unique requirements, our advantage lies in combining the full breadth of Jabil's capabilities under one roof, enabling every customer to benefit from expertise developed across the enterprise. Thermal management developed for data centers helps in semiconductor test, automotive, and energy storage. Precision manufacturing built for healthcare helps in other regulated markets. Very few manufacturing companies can bring that breadth to a customer.

And I like that combination—deep domain expertise with the resources of the broader company behind it. Behind those strengths is a leadership team with more than 200 years of Jabil tenure. They know our customers, they know our factories, and they've worked together through several up and down economic cycles. That continuity matters when you're ramping the kind of capacity we are. And this team runs a footprint of more than 120 sites in 30 countries around the world, which lets us build where our customers need us.

The capacity we added this year in Southeast Asia, the U.S., Mexico, and India is the latest example. It's worth highlighting that we now have more than 40 sites in the U.S. as we continue to support our customers' reshoring activities. Jabil manages a balanced portfolio of long-term strategic partnerships across three focus segments with many of the world's most respected companies. These aren't transactional relationships. Many of them go back a decade or more, and they've grown as our capabilities have grown.

Let me now walk through our fiscal 2027 outlook for each segment, beginning with Regulated Industries. The outlook for Regulated Industries has improved considerably from where we started fiscal 2026. We now have several end markets contributing to growth. In automotive and transport, we expect approximately $5 billion in revenue, up about 9%. We finished fiscal 2026 at approximately $4.6 billion in revenue and now expect another year of growth. Within automotive, we continue to feel very good about our position with some of the world's best makers of electric and ICE vehicles, and we broaden those relationships through vehicle compute, advanced driver assistance, and the high-performance electronics behind increasing adoption of FSD and autonomous vehicles. We believe defense and aerospace, which sits within this end market, will be an important growth driver in fiscal 2027 and beyond. Governments are modernizing platforms and replenishing inventories of critical systems, increasing the role played by Jabil, a U.S.-based ITAR-compliant manufacturing solutions provider. That's a market with real barriers to entry—registered facilities, security-cleared personnel, and a qualified quality system.

We have all three in place. Our faster production lead times are critical here as efforts to replenish inventories gain momentum. Healthcare is another end market I feel very good about. For healthcare and packaging, we expect approximately $5.6 billion in revenue, up about 6%. Outsourcing in healthcare continues to be relatively immature, and customers are increasingly looking for a partner that brings engineering, supply chain scale, and regulated manufacturing.

That plays directly to what we do. Our healthcare pipeline for FY28 particularly looks robust, with booked business coming online towards the end of FY27. In renewable and energy infrastructure, we expect approximately $3 billion in revenue, up about 7%. Here, the business we're building has broadened beyond residential solar. Commercial projects and energy storage are increasingly important as data center power demand continues to create opportunity in this end market.

Putting those markets together, we expect Regulated Industries revenue of approximately $13.6 billion, up about 7%. Defense and aerospace, automotive, healthcare, and energy infrastructure each bring different customer programs and different growth drivers. That breadth is invaluable. Turning to Intelligent Infrastructure, AI demand remains strong and our outlook continues to accelerate. In fiscal 2026, the team delivered approximately $14.4 billion of AI-related revenue, up $5.4 billion year over year.

In fiscal 2027, we expect that to grow to approximately $22.1 billion, up 54%. What is really impressive about this is that's another $7.7 billion at a higher growth rate on top of a much larger base, even from our expectations in June. As Matt said earlier, most of our AI business supports everyday AI usage rather than frontier model training, which makes our demand less exposed to swings in the AI spending boom. Our holistic approach of focusing on various engineering capabilities across semicap equipment and data center buildouts is clearly resonating with customers.

Starting with capital equipment, for fiscal 2027 we expect approximately $4.2 billion in revenue, up approximately 40%. Demand for automated test equipment remains strong as customers introduce more complex silicon and memory. At the same time, the wafer fabrication equipment market is inflecting higher, providing another driver of growth. I like both the improving demand outlook and the durable customer relationships we're building in this business.

In cloud and data center infrastructure, we expect approximately $17.5 billion in revenue, up approximately 52%. As the capacity we've invested in throughout the year ramps, we're filling that capacity with committed business. We've expanded the relationships with our second hyperscaler by executing well and bringing them additional capabilities, and that ramp in Mexico is contributing to growth. I expect the second hyperscaler to be a 10%+ customer in FY27.

We also discussed our third hyperscaler win in June. We continue to expect modest contribution in fiscal 2027 with a greater opportunity beyond that. Our role is also broadening beyond the rack. Higher-density systems need more sophisticated power distribution and liquid cooling. Our Hanley Energy acquisition adds modular power and energy management together with deployment and service expertise. In networking and communications, in spite of a subdued 5G market, we expect to be up approximately 15% at approximately $3.9 billion in revenue, with our advanced AI networking programs in India being a major contributor.

The investments we made back in 2023 with the Intel acquisition, along with our investments in high-speed interconnects and optics, position us well to support co-packaged optics and co-packaged copper technologies as they start to scale. For the Intelligent Infrastructure segment overall, we expect approximately $25.6 billion in revenue, up about 43%. Not only do we have a diverse set of capabilities, we have a diversified customer portfolio. In fiscal 2027, we expect six customers in the segment to each generate more than $1 billion of revenue.

That breadth and the capabilities behind it are why I feel so good about this outlook. Turning to Intelligent Devices and Robotics—the new name reflects where we're taking the business—led by Digital Commerce and Robotics, which we expect to generate approximately $3 billion in revenue, up approximately 11%. Retailers, warehouses, and distribution centers continue to invest in automation, whether that's behind the scene, in the aisle, or at checkout.

We have the engineering, robotics, and system integration capabilities to support those investments. And I continue to like the opportunity here as early participants; we continue to make good headway in building out our engineering capabilities around physical AI. Our forecast for physical AI continues to be modest and conservative. I expect that to grow substantially in the mid to longer term beyond FY27. In Connected Living, we expect revenue to decline about 15% to approximately $2.3 billion.

Here we remain committed to competing on capability, complexity, and value creation—not on being the lowest-cost provider. We also remain conservative around memory constraints in this market. The decline in Connected Living more than offsets the growth in Digital Commerce and Robotics, bringing our IDR outlook to approximately $5.3 billion in revenue, down about 2%. So when I add up all three segments, we expect fiscal 2027 revenue of approximately $44.5 billion, up about 24%.

AI is clearly our largest growth driver. At the same time, we expect robust growth in warehouse and retail automation, defense and aerospace, automotive, healthcare, and energy infrastructure. Those areas serve different customers on different timelines. There's no single point of dependence, and I like that breadth. So what does that growth mean for the bottom line? On that revenue base, we expect core operating margin of 6.1%, an improvement of 30 basis points, and core diluted earnings per share of $17.55, up about 34%.

The margin expansion comes from strong revenue growth, better utilization of the capacity we've invested in, and an improving mix of business. As volumes scale, we leverage our fixed costs more effectively, and that's a more durable foundation for earnings and cash flow. We expect that earnings growth to support another year of strong adjusted free cash flow generation of approximately $1.6 billion. On capital allocation, our priorities haven't changed.

Our strong balance sheet and low leverage provide us with optionality. We'll invest organically where we see attractive returns—AI infrastructure and warehouse and retail automation. We have substantial opportunities within this business, and we intend to continue building out our capabilities with one eye on the rapid pace of technology evolution and another eye on line-of-sight capacity requirements, while staying disciplined about returns. We'll also consider acquisitions that add capabilities and enable us to offer end-to-end solutions to our customers.

Micros Technologies and Hanley Energy are good examples—specialized expertise in liquid cooling that we can apply in semicap equipment, networking, servers and racks, and data center power, combined with our data center infrastructure business. And we remain committed to returning 80% or more of adjusted free cash flow to shareholders over time. Share repurchases remain top priority, as is evidenced by our continued aggressive buybacks. We fully utilized the prior authorization in Q4 and have begun buying shares under the new $1.5 billion program our Board authorized in July.

We'll do all of that while maintaining our investment-grade credit profile and the flexibility to support our customers. I feel good about our ability to invest for growth and return capital to shareholders for fiscal 2028 and beyond. Here's how I'm thinking about the business: I don't see AI growth slowing down anytime soon. Inference workloads keep expanding, and that drives demand for the infrastructure we build. And the capacity we're ramping for fiscal 27 exits the year at a meaningfully higher level, which sets us up well for FY28.

At the same time, the rest of the portfolio is growing too—rising defense spending; data center power demand pulling through energy storage; a healthcare pipeline that includes Croatia. I also remain extremely bullish on the India data center buildout through our strategic alliance with the Adani Group. And I'm excited about the opportunity that co-packaged optics proliferation presents for us in networking, along with physical AI moving to the next stage of commercial deployment.

So while AI is leading the way, we expect all three segments to contribute. And as we continue to move up the value chain, we expect that mix to keep pushing core operating margin higher over time. When you put that kind of revenue growth and margin expansion together and add the buybacks on top of it, that's what gets core earnings per share growing well above revenue. And because we run an asset-light model with net capex in that 1.5% to 2% range, it also drives strong free cash flow.

We continue to expect free cash flow conversion above 100% over time. That's what allows us to keep returning 80% or more of it to shareholders, primarily through buybacks, while maintaining our investment-grade credit profile and sustaining strong returns on invested capital. So when I step back, I'm confident in where Jabil sits today: strong customer demand across multiple end markets; committed business filling the capacity we've invested in; a model that turns that growth into strong returns and cash flows, with further growth opportunities beyond FY27. And we have the people to bring it all together. To our teams around the world, thank you for the integrity, ingenuity, and inspiration you bring to our customers, our communities, and each other every day. You are the foundation of this business and the reason we can look ahead with confidence. With that, I'll turn it back to Adam.

Adam Berry, SVP Investor Relations and Corporate Affairs

Thanks, Mike. Before we open the call for questions, let me come back to the three messages we started with. First, we're entering fiscal 2027 with strong demand, committed customer business and added capacity. Second, diversification is creating value across AI infrastructure, defense and aerospace, automotive, healthcare, energy infrastructure, and automation. In AI infrastructure alone, five customers are expected to exceed $1 billion in fiscal 2027.

Finally, disciplined execution, capital allocation and Intelligent Infrastructure's asset-light model are helping convert this growth into earnings, cash flow and shareholder returns. Thank you for joining us today. Operator, we're now ready for questions.

OPERATOR

Questions. If you would like to register a question, please press Star one on your telephone keypad at this time. A confirmation tone will indicate that your line is in the question queue. You may press Star two if you would like to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. Again, that's Star one to register a question at this time. Today's first question is coming from Steven Fox of Fox Advisors.

Please go ahead.

Steven Fox, Analyst at Fox Advisors

Hi, good morning and thanks for all the great detail this morning. I guess for my first question, kind of big picture, Mike, but maybe you, you just gave a ton of detail on how you guys are executing. But as we think out to sort of this what have you done for us lately question now that you're looking at like eight and a half billion dollars of growth, I guess how do we think about the challenges to execute to that number in this year and how they're different from last year?

And then along those lines, how that gets you to the 6.1% operating margin. In other words, how much is just sheer operating leverage from volume versus things that you control? And then I had a follow up.

Michael Dastoor, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Steve. I actually feel really good about the 6.1% for the year. I think that's 30 bps up year on year. The $8.4 billion of revenue. I think we're growing capacity by about 4 million square feet, and that's quite a big task. Obviously involves a lot of execution. We've been on that journey for a while, so it's not something we're doing now. I feel really good about the team executing to that 8.4 billion. There might be some upside on that as well if the execution comes in better than expected.

I think the capacity is something we always watch. We have a line of sight to all the capacity that we're adding. We have booked orders, we have customers ready to go, so it comes on through the year. And that's one of the reasons you'll find the revenue through the year is relatively well balanced. I think it's 45% to 55%, first half to second half. The margins though are a little bit back-end loaded because of the initial ramp that you get when you put up that much capacity.

And when I say ramp, it's not just revenue, it's yields, it's additional expenses, it's training. There's a whole bunch of things that go into bringing capacity online. So feel really good about that, and that 6.1% number there. We're going to try and outperform that as well.

Steven Fox, Analyst at Fox Advisors

Great, that's helpful. And just as a follow up, I'm sure there'll be a lot of other AI questions. I was wondering if you could focus on what could be an emerging market for you in terms of physical AI. You mentioned how you're using it internally and then obviously driving new customer wins and it sounds like a longer term benefit, but it's also driving some growth this year. So like how confident are you that these markets develop and where is Jabil going to play, say beyond this year and into next year and the year after?

Michael Dastoor, Chief Financial Officer

Thanks. So Steve, I think if you look at physical AI, it's still very, very early commercialization stage. Real-world deployment is negligible, especially in the West. I think China