In 1955, Avnet Electronic Supply Company was incorporated with a primary business of selling capacitors, fasteners and switches.

With this acquisition, it began selling die casting machines, guitars, and television antennas, and earned a spot trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

[8] Over the course of the decade (from 1960 to 1970), Avnet expanded with several acquisitions: Hamilton Electro Corporation 1962 Fairmount Motor Products Co, Inc.1963 Valley Forge Products, Inc.1964 Guarantee Generator & Armature Co.1965 Channel Master Corporation1967 Brownell Inc. 1968 Carol Wire and Cable Corporation1968 Machiz's Time Electronic Sales[6] 1968 These acquisitions expanded the company into additional fields of semiconductors, relays, and potentiometers.

The company shifted its strategy during this time to focus on sales, warehouse and stocking facilities, product development, and expanding markets, and became the first distributor of semiconductors, integrated circuits, and microprocessors.

[6] In 1998, Roy Vallee became CEO and chairman,[10] the same year that the company relocated its corporate headquarters to Phoenix (from Great Neck, NY).

In March 2012 Avnet, Inc. acquired Ascendant Technologies and in October 2012, BrightStar Partners, Inc. and BSP Software LLC.

In September 2016, Tech Data announced that it had entered into an agreement to acquire the Technology Solutions operating group from Avnet, Inc. in a stock and cash transaction valued at approximately US$2.6 billion.