America II Electronic Inc.'s CEO and President, Mike Galinski, and Executive Vice President of Sales, Chuck Magee, in "A Conversation with SemiTrends.

Online, July 28, 2010 (Newswire.com) - On July 26 2010, Ken Bloom of SemiTrends hosted America II Electronic Inc.'s CEO and President, Mike Galinski, and Executive Vice President of Sales, Chuck Magee, in "A Conversation with SemiTrends." A Conversation with SemiTrends is a 30-minute Q&A session between component industry veterans from SemiTrends and Electronic Component Industry leaders. By having industry experts conduct the Q&A, SemiTrends is able to provide grass root level primary research that is typically not available via other research vehicles. Additionally, the interviewees have a forum to articulate their viewpoints on specific topics that may not be available to them via the more traditional Q&A's at industry conferences.

Mr. Galinski opened up the conversation by commenting that Q409 was strong for America II, with Q110 being stronger and Q2 even stronger than that. "Based upon the first month of Q3, we expect Q3 will be our strongest quarter of the year," added Galinski. Mr. Galinski was quite bullish during the last Conversation with SemiTrends about 60 days ago and is even more bullish today. Chuck Magee echoed Galinski's bullishness by saying that the strength of their customer backlog has never been greater. Galinski noted that they have over $1 billion in sellable inventory at their warehouse in St. Petersburg, Florida. Magee chimed in that the inventory orders that America II placed with their suppliers in late 2009 and early 2010 are now arriving at their warehouses. They are providing valuable components to their mostly OEM and EMS customer base throughout the world. Magee further relayed that they continue to invest very heavily in inventory with their suppliers due to the continued expectation of growth in the market.

The America II team has not seen any signs of cancellations and they commented that they typically are at the leading edge of cancellations when they have occurred in the past. Galinski polled over 40 of his field sales representatives last week and they unanimously advised him that they have not seen any softness in their business. Galinski noted that their book-to-bill ratios continue to be very strong and they are expecting more growth in Q3 and Q4.

Bloom probed into some of the end market areas and found that America II is not focused on the computing nor handset markets, but rather it's the industrial, telecomm and enterprise markets that drive their business. "America II continues to see significant demand from the telecomm industry," said Galinski. He noted that they are engaged with tier 1 customers in this space, which is typically not their forte. Galinski further commented that tier 1 customers typically are able to obtain their components from the suppliers or their franchised partners, so they don't often engage with America II. However, America II is now working closely with some tier 1 customers. Additionally, they don't typically engage with automotive customers, but again, due to the extreme tightness in the discrete component arena, automotive manufacturers are now working with America II. "All of these signs cause us to believe that the strength in the marketplace will continue through the end of CY10 and possibly beyond," added Galinski.

The conversation moved onto specific areas of shortages and Magee was quick to comment that passive components, like tantalum capacitors, are an area that has gotten more severely constrained in the past 60 days since our last conversation. Lead-times have stretched to more than 30 weeks on these products, likely due to shortages of raw materials. Other long lead time items are FPGA's, HPA and commodity analog components. America II is also receiving some unexpected demand in flash memory products from some suppliers along with shortages in discrete components. In addition to lead times lengthening, Magee has seen prices increasing on these product families as well. "America II continues to invest heavily in inventory as we believe that the market strength is likely to continue until at least early 2011 and probably beyond," said Galinski. America II is putting their money where their mouth is by investing in inventory.

About America II Electronics, Inc.:

Established in 1989, America II Electronics, Inc. is one of the world's largest independent semiconductor distributors. Headquartered in St. Petersburg, Florida and with offices in the UK, Germany, Asia and Mexico, the company stocks active, passive and electromechanical components from over 1,400 manufacturers, while providing value-added services and inventory solutions from its ISO 9001:2008 and ESD-certified 336,000-square foot North American distribution facilities. With over three billion components in stock valued at $1 billion, America II has one of the largest inventories in the industry.

About SemiTrends:

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