Avnet Inc. Achieves US$1 Billion Milestone in Asia; New Office Opens in Taiwan as Year-on-Year Growth Exceeds 40 Percent.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

TAIPEI, Taiwan--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 7, 2003

Avnet Inc. (NYSE:AVT), the leading global distributor of electronic components and enterprise computing products, has reached the milestone of US$1 billion in sales for fiscal year 2003 as the company sees demand grow for its services and support throughout Asia.

Andy Bryant, a senior vice president of Avnet Inc., made the announcement at the opening of the company's new office in Taipei today. Bryant, who is also the president of the largest of Avnet Inc.'s two operating groups, Avnet Electronics Marketing, outlined how the company was strengthening its market leadership position and capitalising on the significant growth.

"It is with a sense of great achievement that we can announce that Avnet has reached the significant milestone of US$1 billion in sales in Asia," said Bryant.

Avnet Electronics Marketing, which specialises in marketing and adding value to electronic components such as semiconductors, electronic connectors and passive and electromechanical devices, recorded sales in Asia of US$868 million for the fiscal year. Avnet Technology Solutions, the company's operating group specialising in computer products, solutions integration, embedded systems and microprocessors, and whose business units are newer to the Asia region, gained US$154 million in sales.

"This growth has been achieved as a result of a clear focus on operational excellence, ensuring that we offer the very best possible technical support and service to each of our many customers in Asia and around the world," Bryant added.

As a result of the more than 40 percent year-on-year growth, Avnet Electronics Marketing has invested considerably in its regional resources, both in terms of staffing and facilities, in the last year, in order to meet the growing demand in the region. Currently the company has one of the highest ratios of field application engineer to sales engineer in the distribution industry.

"In the last year, we have recruited more than 70 people to join our Taiwan- and China-based teams, with the majority of those being frontline staff -- field application engineers, sales engineers and design engineers -- ensuring we can deliver a level of customer service that is second to none," said Bryant.

With the opening of the new office in Taiwan, Avnet now has more than 20 sales offices in the Greater China region. Avnet is able to conduct business in China with customers in local currency (in RMB), and offers door-to-door delivery, giving customers in the Taiwan, Hong Kong and China markets an unsurpassable level of convenience.

"Our Taiwan team has made a tremendous contribution to Avnet's regional success and we continue to invest in our Taiwan resources to support our aggressive market growth rate strategies for Taiwan, China and Hong Kong markets," said Raymond Tsang, president of Avnet Electronics Marketing Asia.

In addition to strengthening the company's technical support and services, Avnet has also completed its Greater China distribution centre network. Today, Avnet Electronics Marketing has a distribution centre in Taiwan, three distribution centres in China and one in Hong Kong.

These five distribution centres help Avnet to serve customers better, through shorter delivery cycle times and the easy availability of buffer inventory within the Hong Kong, Taiwan and PRC region.

Together with Avnet's distribution centres around the world, these form a worldwide distribution and warehousing network, helping customers to gain access to global inventory easily.

"By combining our extensive experience in global transfer logistics operations with our network of distribution centres, Avnet Asia is able to provide seamless support to Taiwan-based customers, helping them to manage the migration of manufacturing into China," said Tsang.

"This year, with the increase of global business transfer, specifically to Asia, Avnet is strengthening its capability to better serve our global customers. The increasing level of sales we are seeing in the region reflects our expanded capabilities."

A core part of Avnet Electronics Marketing's business in Asia is the provision of turnkey solutions. Avnet has four design centres in Asia, two in China, one in Singapore and one in India. These design centres produce turnkey solutions for Avnet customers, helping to shorten a product's time to market. Avnet's turnkey solutions include applications such as DVD players, PDAs, digital cameras, wireless communication devices and audio systems.

In addition, Avnet has developed partnerships with more than 20 independent design houses (IDHs) in Asia, that provide Avnet customers with various levels of technical support from reference system designs all the way to full turnkey solutions.

"In a nutshell, what we are doing in the Greater China region is to meet customer needs as best we can no matter how big or small the company, whether they are a major global multinational or a small enterprise in a remote part of China," said Tsang.

"We use specialised sales forces to serve different customer needs, all of whom leverage the strong support of our five local distribution centres and our network of design centres."

Phoenix-based Avnet Inc. is an authorized B2B distributor for the products of more than 250 of the world's leading technology manufacturers such as IBM, Motorola, Intel, Microsoft, Texas Instruments, HP and National Semiconductor. Via its two operating groups, Avnet markets, distributes and adds value to electronic components, embedded systems and enterprise computing products, and serves more than 100,000 customers including original equipment manufacturers, contract manufacturers, value-added resellers, systems integrators and end users in 68 countries. Avnet also delivers services such as inventory management and logistics, supply-chain integration, bill-of-materials analysis, systems integration and configuration, technical assistance and engineering design. A Fortune 500 company, Avnet's revenues for fiscal 2003 (year ended June 27, 2003) were $9.05 billion.