Amphenol printed its best quarter ever. The street's \"46% target cut\" was mostly a stock split.
Sales rose 65% to $10.2 billion and orders hit a record $12.2 billion, yet Amphenol closed the AI selloff week about 12% under its high. The fight is over 41 times forward earnings for a connector maker whose growth is part bought, and management answered with a 20% dividend raise, a $4 billion buyback and $1.6 billion of non-data-center acquisitions.
Vincent Jiang · 3 min read
A record quarter, sold off with the sector
Amphenol−3.18% — Amphenol, down 3.18 percent today, the Wallingford, Connecticut maker of the connectors and high-speed cable that carry data and power inside AI servers, reported the strongest quarter in its history on October 28: sales of $10.2 billion, up 65% year over year, adjusted EPS of $0.80 against a $0.73 consensus, and record orders of $12.2 billion, a book-to-bill of 1.19:1 12.
Amphenol's quarterly sales have more than doubled in nine quarters
Data
| Net sales | |
|---|---|
| Q3 '24 | $4.04B |
| Q4 '24 | $4.32B |
| Q1 '25 | $4.81B |
| Q2 '25 | $5.65B |
| Q3 '25 | $6.19B |
| Q4 '25 | $6.44B |
| Q1 '26 | $7.62B |
| Q2 '26 | $8.76B |
| Q3 '26 | $10.23B |
The stock still fell as much as 4.6% on Friday before closing at $79.30, about 12% below its October 6 high of $89.93 23. The selling came from the sector: the Nasdaq dropped 2.9% on October 30, closing its worst month since March 2025, after Intel−29.36% — Intel, down 29.36 percent today fell 29% on a weak outlook and Amazon−1.20% — Amazon, down 1.20 percent today reported a free-cash-flow decline driven by AI spending 5.
The 46% target cut is mostly the stock split
The sharpest headline of the week, Rothschild & Co Redburn's October 30 move to $107 from $197, needs an asterisk 341. That $197 was set on July 30, five weeks before Amphenol's two-for-one split began trading on September 3; halved, it is $98.50, and the new target sits about 9% above it 341. The genuine de-ratings are Evercore−2.38% — Evercore, down 2.38 percent today ISI's $90, the lowest target among 19 analysts, and the multiple itself: 41 times forward earnings for a component maker 32. Consensus still sits at $105, a third above the close 3.
Even after the cut, the street's targets all sit above the $79.30 close
Data
| Value | |
|---|---|
| Oct 30 close | $79.3 |
| Evercore ISI | $90 |
| Redburn old, split-adjusted | $98.5 |
| Consensus | $105 |
| Redburn new | $107 |
Management answered with cash and non-AI customers
On October 27 the board raised the quarterly dividend 20% to $0.15, payable January 13 to holders of record December 22, and approved a three-year $4 billion buyback effective January 1, after the current $2 billion plan completes December 31 1.
It also committed about $1.6 billion to four acquisitions: Empire Electronics, an automotive supplier with roughly $320 million of sales, closed in September; AdvancedPCB, a defense and industrial circuit-board maker with about $270 million; Dexgreen, European fiber at $90 million; and Humanetics Sensors at $70 million 17.
Of the quarter's 65 points of sales growth, 37 were organic, so acquisitions and currency supplied 28. The Inference reported on October 5 that the second quarter split nearly the same way, 24 bought of 55 8.
Bought growth held near 43% of Amphenol's sales growth two quarters running
- Organic
- Acquisitions and currency
Data
| Organic | Acquisitions and currency | |
|---|---|---|
| Q2 '26 | 31 pts | 24 pts |
| Q3 '26 | 37 pts | 28 pts |
What decides it
IT datacom is now 48% of sales, and AI accounts for about three-quarters of that, roughly a third of company revenue 6. CommScope, the fiber business bought this year, is running ahead of plan at $5.1 billion of 2026 sales, though communications networks sales fell 28% organically on broadband softness 16.
Total debt stands at $17.9 billion, 1.1 times net leverage 6. The dates to watch are December 22, the dividend record date, January 1, when the buyback starts, and the fourth-quarter guide of $10.3–10.5 billion in sales and $0.81–0.83 in adjusted EPS 12. Amphenol is spending its AI cash on customers the AI cycle cannot take away; whether 41 times earnings was ever the right price for the ones it can is what the next two quarters have to decide 12.
Get Data Center by email, free
Who is building AI's data centers, and who is paying for them. In our daily email, every weekday.
