Avery Dennison Corporation (NYSE:AVY) Q4 2023 Earnings Conference Call January 31, 2024 1:00 PM ET
Corporate Participants
John Eble - Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations
Deon Stander - President and Chief Executive Officer
Greg Lovins - Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Conference Call Participants
Ghansham Panjabi - Robert W. Baird
John McNulty - BMO Capital Markets
Bryan Burgmeier - Citigroup Global Markets
George Staphos - BofA Securities
Mike Roxland - Truist Securities
Jeffrey Zekauskas - JPMorgan Securities
Josh Spector - UBS Securities
Matt Roberts - Raymond James
Christopher Kapsch - Loop Capital Markets
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. During the presentation all participants will be in a listen-only mode. Afterward, we will conduct a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions].
Welcome to Avery Dennison's Earnings Conference Call for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year ended on December 30, 2023. This call is being recorded and will be available for replay from 5:00 p.m. Eastern Time today through midnight Eastern Time, February 6. To access the replay, please dial 800-633-8284 or 1-402-977-9140 for international callers. The conference ID number is 22028081.
I'd now like to turn the call over to Mr. John Eble, Avery Dennison's Vice President of Finance and Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
John Eble
Thank you, Frank.
Please note that throughout today's discussion, we'll be making references to non-GAAP financial measures. The non-GAAP measures that we use are defined, qualified and reconciled from GAAP on schedules A-4 to A-9 of the financial statements accompanying today's earnings release. We remind you that we'll make certain predictive statements that reflect our current views and estimates about our future performance and financial results. These forward-looking statements are made subject to the Safe Harbor statement included in today's earnings release.
On the call today are Deon Stander, President and Chief Executive Officer; and Greg Lovins, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.
I'll now turn the call over to Deon.
Deon Stander
Thanks, John, and hello, everyone.
In the fourth quarter, we again delivered sequential earnings growth, with earnings up significantly compared to prior year and in line with our expectations. We grew volume sequentially and compared to prior year in both segments, significantly expanded margins, generated strong free cash flow and delivered significant growth in Intelligent Labels.
Looking at the full year, while market conditions in 2023 turned out to be very different than we anticipated, and we did not deliver on our initial expectations for the full year. I am pleased with how we navigated the challenging environment. We protected margins as the industries we serve experienced significant destocking, improved service for our customers, deepened our insights on the drivers of demand and inventory throughout the value chain, continue to shift our portfolio towards high-value categories as we delivered on our growth opportunities, particularly in Intelligent Labels and generated strong free cash flow, highlighting the strength and resilience of our overall franchise.