Arrow Electronics Misses Analysts' Q1 Earnings Projection

The Englewood, Colo.-based distributor earned $113.6 million, or $1.00 per diluted share, on sales of $4.89 billion in the quarter ended March 31. The results include several restructuring and other charges. Excluding those one-time charges, Arrow would have earned $119.8 million, or $1.05 per share.

Analysts had predicted that Arrow would earn $1.08 per share, excluding charges, on $4.91 billion in sales for the first quarter. In the year-ago period, Arrow earned $136.3 million, or $1.16 per share, on $5.22 billion in sales.

Arrow's chief competitor, Avnet, also saw earnings and sales declines in the first fiscal quarter, as many channel observers believe the year-ago period was a peak quarter for IT spending coming out of the recession.

Arrow's Enterprise Computing Solutions unit, which services solution providers, saw sales increase 15 percent to $1.54 billion in the quarter.

"We had very impressive results in the first quarter with sales well above normal seasonality, especially in our North American value-added distribution business. Globally, we saw robust product line performance in storage, software and services, which each grew in excess of 20 percent year over year," said Mike Long, Arrow's chairman, president and CEO, in a statement.

Meanwhile, the distributor's Global Components business fell 14 percent to $3.35 billion year over year, due in large part to macroeconomic conditions in Asia and Europe, Long said.

Looking ahead, Arrow expects earnings of between $1.08 and $1.20 in the current quarter on sales of between $5.04 billion and $5.44 billion. For the current quarter, analysts project earnings of $1.23 per share on sales of $5.21 billion.

Arrow shares were trading at $38.40 Tuesday morning after releasing its first-quarter financials, down $3.65, or 8.7 percent.