Supply-Chain Firm Jabil ‘Firmly Committed to Serving’ Apple Brand, CEO Says

The technology and “business model transitions” taking place in the market are trends that “favor” Jabil Circuit, CEO Mark Mondello said on a Wednesday earnings call. “Consumers demand more and more devices be connected, connected to each other, connected to the cloud and connected to the end user -- automobiles, appliances, meters, home security systems, drones, just to name a few,” said Mondello, whose firm provides contract-manufacturing and supply-chain services to companies like Cisco, HP and Sony Mobile Communications, but counts Apple as its top customer. “This world of massive connectivity assures that more and more data will be generated. This in turn requires more bandwidth, which requires more computing power and more storage. This is all good news for Jabil.” Mondello thinks mobile devices “are here to stay,” as they “monitor and control an infinite number of connected devices as well as connect all of us in our daily lives,” he said. “Apple remains dominant in this space and we're fully committed to serving their brand.” On Apple, “I love our biggest customer,” Mondello said in Q&A. “And we'll continue to make investments for them and we will be prudent in that. I think our ability to partner with them is outstanding, I think our ability to handle their volatility if and when it occurs is really, really good and I have a lot of confidence in Apple.” Representatives at Apple didn't comment Thursday.