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ScanSource Inc. (SCSC), a technology distribution company, reported its first-quarter fiscal year 2026 earnings, surpassing earnings per share (EPS) forecasts but falling short on revenue expectations. Despite the EPS beat, the company's stock dropped significantly in pre-market trading, reflecting investor concerns over revenue shortfalls and market conditions.
Key Takeaways
- ScanSource's EPS of $1.06 beat the forecast of $0.90, a 17.78% surprise.
- Revenue fell short of expectations, registering $739.65 million against the forecasted $788.77 million.
- The stock price fell 15.98% in pre-market trading, closing at $35.18.
- Gross profits increased by 6% year-over-year, while net sales declined by 5%.
- The company ended the quarter with $125 million in cash and no net debt leverage.
Company Performance
ScanSource demonstrated robust earnings growth in Q1 of fiscal year 2026, with EPS rising 26% year-over-year. However, net sales decreased by 5% compared to the same period last year, indicating challenges in revenue generation. The company's strategic focus on gross profit, which increased by 6%, reflects a shift towards evaluating sales team success through profitability rather than sheer sales volume.
Financial Highlights
- Revenue: $739.65 million, down 5% year-over-year
- Earnings per share: $1.06, up 26% year-over-year
- Gross profit growth: 6% year-over-year
- Adjusted EBITDA margin: 5.2%
- Cash position: $125 million
Earnings vs. Forecast
ScanSource exceeded EPS expectations with a reported $1.06 compared to the forecast of $0.90, representing a 17.78% positive surprise. However, the revenue of $739.65 million missed the forecast by 6.23%, contributing to investor apprehension despite the earnings beat.
Market Reaction
Despite the positive earnings surprise, ScanSource's stock price declined sharply by 15.98% in pre-market trading, closing at $35.18. This movement suggests that investors are concerned about the revenue miss and its implications for future growth. The stock's decline contrasts with its 52-week high of $53.9, highlighting significant market volatility.
Outlook & Guidance
For the full fiscal year, ScanSource projects net sales between $3.1 billion and $3.3 billion, with adjusted EBITDA expected to range from $150 million to $160 million. The company anticipates revenue growth acceleration in the second half of the fiscal year, supported by strategic acquisitions and a focus on profitable growth.
Executive Commentary
CEO Mike Baur emphasized the transformation in technology distribution, stating, "Technology distribution is being transformed with the convergence of hardware, software, and services." CFO Steve Jones highlighted the company's focus on gross profit as a key performance metric, noting, "We are more and more looking at gross profit as a better proxy for the success of our sales teams and our company overall."
Risks and Challenges
- Revenue decline despite EPS growth could impact investor confidence.
- Supply chain disruptions may affect product availability and sales.
- Market competition and technological advancements require continuous innovation.
- Macroeconomic pressures could influence consumer and business spending.
- Execution of strategic acquisitions poses integration risks.
Q&A
During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the impact of supplier price actions on margins and the rationale behind the revenue decline. Executives confirmed their confidence in meeting annual guidance and discussed the strategic potential of recent acquisitions. The allocation strategy for free cash flow was also a topic of interest, with management emphasizing its importance for future growth investments.
Full transcript - ScanSource Inc (SCSC) Q1 2026:
Conference Operator: Welcome to the ScanSource Quarterly Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session. Today's call is being recorded. If anyone has any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the call over to Mary Gentry, Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer. Please go ahead.
Mary Gentry, Senior Vice President, Finance and Treasurer, ScanSource: Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Our call will include prepared remarks from Mike Baur, our Chair and CEO, and Steve Jones, our Chief Financial Officer. We will review our operating results for the quarter and then take your questions. We posted an earnings infographic that accompanies our comments and webcast in the investor relations section of our website. As you know, certain statements in our press release, infographic, and on this call are forward-looking statements and subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. These risks and uncertainties include the factors identified in our earnings release and in our Form 10-K for the year ended June 30, 2025, and in our subsequent reports on Form 10-Q. Forward-looking statements represent our views only as of today, and ScanSource disclaims any duty to update these statements except as required by law.
During our call, we will discuss both GAAP and non-GAAP results and have provided reconciliations on our website and in our Form 8-K filed early today. I'll now turn the call over to Mike.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: Thanks, Mary, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. Technology distribution is being transformed with the convergence of hardware, software, and services. As IT, connectivity, and cloud computing markets continue to converge, we believe that end users will prefer channel partners who can provide integrated converged solutions. With more choices than ever, end user purchasing decisions are getting more complex. That is where solution providers and technology architects add real value. They can help end users make technology decisions that will achieve their expected business outcomes. Because most business outcomes require technology solutions from multiple suppliers, the indirect channel is in the best position to deliver recurring, complex, and high-value solutions. How to win in converging technology markets was the theme at our recent partner events, Partner First in September. Channel Connect earlier this week.
Both events highlighted our strategy, helping our partners change and grow as technology markets continue to converge. We are preparing to assist our channel partners in this transformation. We expect to play an expanded role in supporting our partners' transition from traditional VAR to solution provider and from trusted advisor to technology architect. We'll discuss more about how these business models are evolving as the year progresses. This quarter, in our Intellisys and advisory segment, we are investing to accelerate new order growth. An example of our investment is the growth of our solutions engineering team, who have expertise in advanced technologies including cloud computing, wireless, and IoT. Another way to drive new order growth is to help our partners by providing new and better tools for growth.
For example, our product development team launched a new tool called Tech Checks, which combines AI-powered engineering support with conversational, sales-friendly discovery questions. During the quarter, in our integrated solutions group, our LaunchPoint team has delivered new end-to-end industry solutions called Smart Series, starting with Smart Warehouse and Smart Retail. These solutions consist of products and services from ScanSource's suppliers. One of the new LaunchPoint suppliers we recently signed is a specialist in the next generation of private 5G that adds a managed services offering to our Smart Connectivity Series. Also, in ISG, in October, we completed the acquisition of DataZoom, a leading provider of B2B mobile data connectivity solutions. This transaction builds upon our August 2024 acquisition of Advantix and expands our ability to scale our relationships across all three major US carriers: AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.
ScanSource's deep relationships with the key suppliers of mobile devices, combined with Advantix's and DataZoom's capabilities to integrate carrier data connectivity into these devices, is a great example of a converged solution. Looking ahead, we believe the future of technology distribution lies in helping our channel partners deliver innovative converged solutions. This vision drives our strategic plan. I'll now turn the call over to Steve to take you through our financial results and outlook for fiscal year 2026.
Steve Jones, Chief Financial Officer, ScanSource: Thanks, Mike. We're off to a good start to our new fiscal year. For Q1, we delivered strong profits and free cash flow generation, highlighting the strength of our business model. Gross profits grew 6%, and non-GAAP EPS grew 26% year over year. We delivered 5.2% adjusted EBITDA margins, and our cash conversion of non-GAAP net income was 88%. These results are in line with our annual outlook. Now, turning to our segments, I'll start with our specialty technology solutions segment. Net sales declined 5% year over year and 9% quarter over quarter, including approximately $40 million of large deal pull-ins that benefited our Q4 results. For Q1, many of our larger deals were delayed or broken into smaller orders. With a higher mix of run rate orders, favorable technology mix, and benefits from supplier price actions, gross profits increased 7% year over year and 3% quarter over quarter.
For the segment, the % of gross profits from recurring revenues totaled approximately 13%. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the segment increased 61 basis points to 4.2%. In our Intellisys and advisory segment, net sales increased 4% year over year, in line with our expectations. Annualized net billings increased to approximately $2.78 billion, and we believe we maintain market share. Gross profits increased 2% year over year, while adjusted EBITDA for the segment declined slightly due to increased investments in the SG&A to drive future billings growth and expand our technical capabilities in advanced technologies. Now, going a bit deeper on our balance sheet and cash flow, we ended Q1 with approximately $125 million in cash and a net debt leverage ratio at approximately zero on our trailing 12-month adjusted EBITDA basis. Adjusted ROIC for the quarter was 14.6%, and share repurchases for the quarter totaled $21 million.
We have a strong balance sheet and are well-positioned to execute on our strategic priorities and achieve our three-year goals that you can find in the infographic and our investor presentation in the investor section of our website. We believe with the contributions and are very pleased with the contributions from the acquisitions we announced around this time last year, and we're excited about the most recent acquisition of DataZoom and what they bring to our channel capabilities and our strategic plan. We continue to have an active pipeline of acquisition targets for both segments. These targets would expand our capabilities and help us drive additional value across our partner ecosystem while supporting our strategic goals. We will maintain our discipline in evaluating M&A opportunities and believe there's room for both acquisitions and share repurchases while maintaining a target net debt leverage ratio of one to two times adjusted EBITDA.
In closing, we want to reconfirm our FY26 full-year outlook. We believe the full-year net sales growth will range between $3.1 billion and $3.3 billion. Full-year adjusted EBITDA will range between $150 million and $160 million, and we'll deliver at least $80 million in free cash flow. We still believe that revenue growth will accelerate in the second half of our fiscal year. We'll now open it up for questions.
Conference Operator: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press Star 11 on your telephone. To remove yourself from the queue, you may press Star 11 again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Keith Housem of North Coast Research. Please go ahead, Keith.
Keith Housem, Analyst, North Coast Research: Great. Hey, good morning, guys. Good to see the performance of the bottom line, but of course, the top line probably is a little bit troubling here as we look over the past year, year and a half. I guess, Mike, any thoughts there on, are you guys losing share, do you think, to competitors in this space, or are you guys purposely walking away from some business? Maybe any color on the decline in the revenue? I understand the pull forward that you had in the fourth quarter here, but still, if I look over the past year, year and a half, the trends have been working against you guys on the top line.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: Hey, Keith. From our standpoint, we have always said that we want profitable growth, right, from the top line. I think that's a theme here is there's always business out there that a distributor can take to drive the top line. As we think about what we've consistently been, I think, for the last two years talking about, the measure for our future is our GP growth. I think if you look at that, the 6% growth, we really are pleased with. Would we want more top line growth? Absolutely. I think part of that will come as we add some of the new suppliers that we're talking about through the addition of LaunchPoint and its strategies, as well as this idea of convergence. We believe that will attract more suppliers than we traditionally have. Part of the challenge is.
To answer part of your question, we don't believe we lost market share. As I've said many times before, I think all the manufacturers tell all the distributors they don't lose market share. I don't put a lot of credibility there. That's just a side comment. I believe our teams have executed very well with those key suppliers.
Keith Housem, Analyst, North Coast Research: Great. Thanks. You're right. GP was great, especially in STS. I noticed in the earnings report, you guys mentioning suppliers' rebates or vendor payments. I guess, are those sustainable? Are those one-time? Or has there been a shift here that we should look at going for the rest of the year?
Steve Jones, Chief Financial Officer, ScanSource: Hey, good morning, Keith. It's Steve. I'll take that one. Our supplier programs have definitely evolved over the last few years. The teams are doing a great job tying our supplier programs more to activities and not inventory. We think a lot of that is sustainable. What we did see this quarter is some of the price actions that the suppliers did last year flow through our inventory turns. That was a bit of a help to our margins in that segment and on a consolidated basis.
Keith Housem, Analyst, North Coast Research: Yeah. I know you probably don't want to get too much into details, but any way you can parse out how much of your GP was more to that one-time price actions?
Steve Jones, Chief Financial Officer, ScanSource: I'll give you the number, Keith, because I think it's important. I think if I'm thinking of a consolidated basis, I think it was probably 30 basis points to our gross profit margins on a consolidated basis.
Keith Housem, Analyst, North Coast Research: Great. Thanks. I appreciate that color. Congratulations on the DataZoom acquisition. Sounds like it fits in really well with Advantix. Any more color you can give on that company in terms of, I think it's at 17 employees, but perhaps any revenue or margin profile to kind of think about going forward?
Steve Jones, Chief Financial Officer, ScanSource: Yeah. Keith, when we think about DataZoom and we think about Advantix and what they mean strategically for us. They add capabilities, and DataZoom really helps us scale in this space. As far as size, it's really a tuck-in sized acquisition, and we gave the 17 people to kind of help people size what that would look like for us, but it's a tuck-in sized acquisition. They will have higher margins than our typical business in the STS segment. It will be margin accretive from a percentage.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: Maybe I'll add one more comment to that, Keith, that part of the strategy here is a reminder for us to be able to sell more mobile devices by adding the connectivity to the solution set. We believe our mobile device sales will go up as we are more successful communicating this strategy to our channel.
Keith Housem, Analyst, North Coast Research: Great. Thanks, guys. I'll jump back in the queue.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: Okay.
Conference Operator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Gary Hardwick of Barclays. Please go ahead, Gary.
Gary Hardwick, Analyst, Barclays: Gary Hardwick. Good morning, guys. If 30 basis points of GP margin came from supplier rebates in place, 100 basis points came from mix. First of all, have I got that correct? Maybe it'd be a good time for you to give us a refresher on your inventory valuation method. Bear in mind what you said about supplier price increases last year having impact this year.
Steve Jones, Chief Financial Officer, ScanSource: Yeah. Hi, Guy. Good morning, and thanks for joining us today. Yeah, I would say you're in the right range in terms of what benefited it from mix. Again, when we look at, and Mike talked a little bit about how we're viewing the business, we also have more netted down revenues in that segment than we've historically had. That's why we've been talking more about the percentage of recurring revenues at a segment level because we think that's also an important part of our story as we go forward. From a mix perspective or how we're thinking about our inventory turns, just think of it as a weighted average first-in, first-out inventory. Our inventory would be valued in a first-in, first-out weighted average basis.
Gary Hardwick, Analyst, Barclays: Okay. Just to follow up. Obviously, on the slide, you have, I think it's slide three, the key technologies and growth drivers. That's based on FY25. If you just take those five end markets, which were up and which were down in the quarter?
Steve Jones, Chief Financial Officer, ScanSource: Those charts that we add in there, those really help us guide where we were thinking for the full year. We do use FY25. We validate whether that's going to be some trends that continue, and we use that to help us in our guidance. As far as what segments were up or down, that really kind of gets into a supplier discussion in some ways. We try to steer clear of that.
Gary Hardwick, Analyst, Barclays: Okay. But just your two largest suppliers had revenues up in the quarter year on year. So I'm just a little bit surprised to see you guys down so much year on year.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: Yeah. Guy, this is Mike. Let me just add a comment to that if I can. We came up with these slides to help out because a year ago, we changed segments and we talked less about where the growth was coming from. We really believe this will give an indicator of what we believe will happen throughout this year. Specifically to your comment about suppliers, just as a reminder, their success or not on a quarterly basis is not always in line, remember, with our channel. All of our suppliers, all of them, still sell direct to end users, and that can impact their results. Sometimes they delineate their results as how much grew in the channel or not, but not always. We have to always remind our investors, too. We are a part of their supplier story, but we are not always aligned with their story.
They can have great revenues, and the channel as a group does not. Our measure is typically what we try to lead with, which Steve said was, "We don't believe we lost any market share." Within the channel that we compete in, we didn't lose market share. That is how we separate our results and try to help you guys understand sometimes our results won't mirror the suppliers. Frankly, when we come out sometimes with our results ahead of our suppliers, people try to read that into the suppliers, and generally, it's wrong. I wish I could help you more on the specifics of why those two suppliers would be different than ours, but just remember that we're, as a channel, we're only a part of their success.
Gary Hardwick, Analyst, Barclays: Thank you. I'll pass it on.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: You bet.
Conference Operator: Thank you, Guy. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Tendl of Raymond James. Please go ahead, Adam.
Adam Tendl, Analyst, Raymond James: Okay. Thanks. Good morning. Steve, I wanted to start with a question for you on guidance. Leading into this question, I just want to acknowledge I was glad to see gross profit growth put into the three-year targets. I think that metric makes a lot more sense. For now, for this year, we're basing guidance on net sales. I've got to ask on that. You decided to reaffirm net sales growth for the year, but we're obviously starting with net sales down in Q1. I think you had previously thought maybe low single-digit growth in the first half and accelerating in the back half to get to that full-year net sales growth that you talked about. I wonder if you might, first of all, update the cadence as you're thinking about that.
Secondly, just what gives the confidence to reaffirm the net sales portion after what you saw in Q1? Why not maybe consider lowering expectations at this point? Thanks.
Steve Jones, Chief Financial Officer, ScanSource: Yeah. Good morning, Adam. Thanks for the question. When we looked internally to our plan, Q1 is fairly close to what we thought. That gave us confidence to reconfirm our guidance and our outlook. One of the things that we continue to look at, we talked about netted down revenues, and we are more and more looking at gross profit as a better proxy for the success of our sales teams and our company overall. When we think about whether first half or second half, the other thing I would lead to is we keep seeing these large deals push out or break up. They're not getting canceled. That gives us confidence that this is a timing issue, not necessarily a weakness in overall demand.
Adam Tendl, Analyst, Raymond James: Okay. I mean, maybe just give us a little bit of color on what you're seeing in October or early November and the pipeline for December on those and any quantification of those large deals. I know those are typically deals that can get done at calendar year-end, so it might make sense for that to happen. I'm just wondering what you're seeing early on in calendar Q4, the December quarter.
Steve Jones, Chief Financial Officer, ScanSource: Yeah. Adam, we typically don't talk about the quarter mid-quarter. Because a lot of times what we see is the last month of the quarter is our biggest quarter, and we could make up a lot even in the last two weeks. What we've talked about in the past, even with our working capital, is we would get surprised of how good of sales we have. And so maybe our accounts receivable may have moved up. And so it's dangerous for us to try to predict the quarter midpoint.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: Adam, I'll just chime in as Mike. Good morning. Our enthusiasm for our guidance is reaffirmed as of last week. What we knew last week about the quarter to date is reflected in our reaffirming the annual.
Adam Tendl, Analyst, Raymond James: Okay. That's helpful. Maybe just Mike, one for you. I was glad to see the three-year target updates. I know this is a little bit more of what Steve owns, but the conceptual question here, follow me. The 80+% free cash flow on a consistent on an annual basis was nice to see. I wonder if you guys discussed with the board about maybe outlining a structure on how to allocate that free cash flow. Some companies do sort of X% to acquisitions, X% to returning cash to shareholders, etc. Is that something that you thought about and not to put you on the spot, but if we were to try to set investors' expectations on what the pie chart would look like on that free cash flow in terms of how you're thinking about it, how would you kind of ballpark that for us?
Thanks.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: I think what we said last quarter and what Steve said in his prepared remarks is that we still believe we can do share repurchases and acquisitions without any specific structure or percentile on a chart. It was a very good discussion with our board, the last two board meetings, both the fiscal year-end when we gave our guidance for the year and when we had our meeting a week ago discussing again how do we feel about the acquisition pipeline that we have. Steve indicated we do have a pipeline of acquisitions. At the same time, we believe that especially at these share price levels, that a good use of our cash right now is for share repurchases. We like the fact that we have the capability to do both.
Right now, that's the message we're trying to continue to reemphasize is that we're still doing both, acquisitions and repurchases.
Adam Tendl, Analyst, Raymond James: Okay. Great to hear. Thank you, guys.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: You bet.
Conference Operator: Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone. Again, that's star 11 on your telephone to ask a question. Our next question comes from the line of Greg Burns of Sidoti. Your line is open, Greg.
Greg Burns, Analyst, Sidoti: Morning. The business development investments you're making in Intelisys, are you seeing that translate into pipeline activity? I'm just wondering when we might start to see maybe some of those investments start converting into stronger revenue growth for the segment.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: Hey, Greg. It's Mike. I'll take that. One of the ways that we're talking about the success or not is the new order growth rate. An order doesn't get billed and, if you will, either installed or delivered for anywhere from 6-18 months in the Intelisys model. It is different based on the type of technology being deployed. Because of that, we have put a much bigger emphasis, starting frankly last year, on new order growth. In this quarter, we had double-digit new order growth year over year and quarter over quarter. We believe that's our benchmark as to are the investments working.
Greg Burns, Analyst, Sidoti: Okay. Great. Great. Thanks for the color there. Appreciate it.
Mike Baur, Chair and CEO, ScanSource: You bet.
Conference Operator: Thank you. I would now like to turn the conference back to Steve Jones for closing remarks. Sir?
Steve Jones, Chief Financial Officer, ScanSource: Thank you. Thank you for joining us today. We expect to hold our next conference call to discuss December 31 quarterly results on Thursday, February 5 at approximately 10:30 A.M.
Conference Operator: This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
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