This Wednesday was eventful for investors in Jabil (NYSE: JBL) . Following a strong earnings report, the electronics design and manufacturing veteran's shares opened the morning session 12% higher. The stock cooled down a bit during the day, stopping at a 7.3% gain by the closing bell.

Jabil's first quarter, by the numbers

Jabil's first-quarter revenues fell 17% year over year, landing at $6.99 billion. The adjusted bottom-line metric of core earnings fell 23% to $2 per diluted share. That may sound like a weak performance, but Wall Street had expected worse. Your average analyst would have settled for adjusted earnings near $1.88 per share on sales in the neighborhood of $6.61 billion.

Of course, Jabil sold its mobility division to Chinese mobile devices maker BYD Electronic a year ago. This report will be the last period of difficult year-over-year comparisons, as the BYD Electronic deal reduced Jabil's quarterly revenues by approximately 5%.

Hurricane headwinds and AI tailwinds

Headquartered in the Tampa Bay area, Jabil took significant damage from hurricanes Helene and Milton during the first quarter. Several manufacturing facilities in Florida and North Carolina were closed for a couple of weeks, reducing Jabil's revenues to an undisclosed degree.

The company is also automating its warehouses and moving its computing operations onto cloud-computing platforms. It's no surprise to see modest earnings and slower sales amid this mixture of planned and unforeseen challenges.

Jabil's stock has now gained roughly 11% in 2024 as a whole. It trades at affordable valuation ratios, such as 13 times trailing earnings and 0.55 times sales. If you're looking for an alternative approach to investing in the artificial intelligence (AI) boom , Jabil might deserve a second look today. CEO Mike Dastoor highlighted rising AI demand as a key growth driver for semiconductor-related equipment sales.

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