Total order surpassed $2.2 billion and grew 40% over the prior year, reflecting a very strong demand pipeline across our portfolio of core automation and digital transformation solutions.
Total revenue of over $1.8 billion grew 15% with additional sales that shifted in the fiscal '22 due to supply chain headwinds.
Organic sales grew 13% versus prior year.
Our ARR grew organically by over 18% and including our recent acquisition of Plex now accounts for over 8% of total sales.
Segment margin of 18% came in line with our expectations with the execution of planned investments in Q4.
Intelligent devices organic sales increased 15% versus prior year, even with significant headwinds from supply chain.
From an orders perspective, this is the fourth consecutive quarter of record order intake in this segment with orders 30% above fiscal 2019 levels.
Software and control organic sales grew 14% led by strong demand across the segment including double-digit growth in Logix.
Orders grew approximately 50% year-over-year, once again showing great momentum across the software, control, visualization and network portfolios.
In Lifecycle Services, organic sales increased 7% versus the prior year and increased 2% sequentially even with some projects delayed as a result of component availability.
Lifecycle Services book to bill of $1.09 was well above seasonal Q4 levels.
Total company backlog of $2.9 billion grew by over 80% year-over-year.
Over 40% of backlog is related to our Lifecycle Services business.
By Q4 as a relationship develop we pulled through an additional $4 million purchase of core automation products showcasing the tremendous synergy resulting from our new software capabilities and intelligent devices.
With their ARR going 45% and over 470 new fixed customers added in just the last nine months.
We had great performance in our discrete industry segment with roughly 15% sales growth.
Within this industry segment, automotive sales grew about 15% led by an increase in EV capital project activity including a strategic win at Magna.
One of the top Tier 1 auto manufacturers delivering EV content for GM and forward.
Semiconductor was strong from 20% off of a very good quarter last year.
E-commerce performance was also exceptional the sales growing approximately 30% versus a strong prior-year.
Food and beverage grew about 15% led by strong greenfield and brownfield project opportunities in North America and EMEA, as well as strong double-digit OEM demand.
Life Sciences grew over 15% in Q4 and remains one of our top growth verticals.
Once again, our fastest growing vertical in the hybrid segment was Tire, which is up about 35% in the quarter.
Process markets grew over 10% with strong sequential and year-over-year growth in oil and gas, especially in our Sensia JV.
North America organic sales grew by 16% versus the prior year with strong double-digit growth across all three industry segments.
EMEA sales increased 7% driven by strength in Food and Beverage, Tire and Metals.
Sales in the Asia Pacific region grew 12% with broad-based growth led by EV, semiconductor, and mining.
Record orders of $8.2 billion in 26%.
Reported sales grew 11% even with supply chain constraints.
Organic sales grew almost 7%.
ICS revenue exceeded $500 million at year-end and grew double-digits organically.
Adjusted earnings per share grew 20% and we once again generated significant cash flow due to our very profitable financial framework, strong focus on productivity and financial discipline.
In fiscal '21, we accelerated funding of software development projects and deployed approximately $2.5 billion toward inorganic investments.
At the same time we returned $800 million back to share owners in the form of dividends and buybacks.
Our new fiscal '22 outlook expects total reported sales growth of 17.5% including 15.5% organic growth versus the prior year.
We are increasing our margin expectations to 21.5% at 150 basis points over the prior year.
Our new Adjusted earnings per share target of $10.80 at the midpoint of the range represents about 15% growth compared to the prior year.
I should add that we expect another year of double-digit annual recurring revenue growth, including our recent Plex acquisition which adds approximately $170 million to our ARR totals in fiscal '22.
Fourth quarter reported sales were up 15% over last year.
Q4, organic sales were up 12.6% and acquisitions contributed one point to total growth.
Currency translation increased sales by 1.5% points.
Segment operating margin was 17.9% in line with our expectations.
The 230 basis point decline was primarily related to higher planned investment spend, the reversal of temporary pay actions and the restoration of incentive compensation, partially offset by the impact of higher sales.
Corporate and other expense was $33 million.
Adjusted earnings per share of $2.33 was better than expected and grew 21% versus the prior year.
The adjusted effective tax rate for the fourth quarter was negative 3%, much lower than expected, compared to 15% in the prior year.
We generated $160 million of Free Cash Flow in the quarter.
One additional item not shown on the slide, we repurchased 200,000 shares in the quarter at a cost of $61 million.
For the full year, our share repurchases totaled $301 million in line with our July guidance.
On September 30th, $152 million remained available under our repurchase authorization.
Lifecycle Services' organic sales were up sequentially and up 7% year-over-year, led by oil and gas, Life Sciences including beverage.
Compared to last year, Intelligent Devices margins were up 100 basis points on higher sales.
Segment margins for the Software & Control segment declined 330 basis points compared to last year.
Lifecycle Services segment margin was 8.1% and declined 820 basis points driven by the reversal of temporary pay actions, the reinstatement of incentive compensation, as well as unfavorable mix partially offset by higher sales.
As you can see core performance was up about $0.70 on a 12.6% organic sales increase.
Approximately $0.10 was related to non-recurring accelerated investments that we announced earlier this year.
The reversal of temporary pay actions and restoration of incentive compensation contributed negative $0.45.
Acquisitions were a $0.15 headwind due to the deal costs associated with the acquisition.
As previously noted, our lower adjusted effective tax rate contributed $0.40.
But the impact of the volume mix of $0.40 was mitigated to lower incentive compensation, further productivity and a favorable mix, all of which contributed $0.35.
As previously noted, a more favorable tax rate benefited our earnings per share versus guidance by $0.25.
Q4 product order levels grew at about 40% versus the prior year and are well above pre-pandemic levels as customers are increasingly interested in investing in our core automation and software.
Reported sales grew 10.5% including over one point coming from acquisitions.
Organic sales were up 6.7% led by double-digit growth in our hybrid and discrete end markets and improving process verticals.
Full year segment margins remained at about 20% including close to $30 million of onetime accelerated investments mostly in our Software & Control segment.
R&D expense was up 14% compared to fiscal '20 and R&D as a percent of sales increased further to 6% of sales in fiscal '21.
Our core automation, which excludes the impacts-- Excuse me, our core conversion, which excludes the impact of acquisitions currency and our accelerated one-time investments was 34%.
Corporate and others was at just over $20 million.
Adjusted earnings per share was up 20%, a detailed year over year adjusted earnings per share walk can be found in the appendix for your reference.
Free Cash Flow conversion was 103% of adjusted income.
Finally,ROIC remained well above our target of over 20%.
For the year we deployed about $3.3 billion of capital toward acquisitions, dividends and share repurchases in fiscal '21.
As Blake mentioned, we are expecting sales of about $8.2 billion dollars in fiscal '22 up 17.5% at the midpoint of the range.
We expect organic sales growth to be in the range of 14% to 17% and about 15.5% at the midpoint of our range.
We expect full year segment operating margins to be about 21.5%.
At the midpoint of our guidance assumes full year core earnings, conversion of between 30% and 35%.
We expect the full year adjusted effective tax rate to be around 17%, we do not anticipate any material discrete items to impact tax in fiscal '22.
Our adjusted earnings per share guidance is $10.50 to $11.10.
This compares to fiscal '21 adjusted earnings per share of $9.43.
At the midpoint of the range, this represents a 15% adjusted earnings per share growth.
Also as a reminder, fiscal '21 Q1 included a non-recurring $0.45 gain related to the settlement of a legal matter.
Finally, we expect full year fiscal '22 Free Cash Flow conversion of about 90% of adjusted income.
This reflects $155 million bonus payout for the fiscal '21 performance.
$165 million of capital expenditures and funding higher levels of working capital to support higher sales.
Our working capital is targeted to be aligned with our historic amount of about 12% of sale.
Corporate and other expense is expected to be around $125 million.
Net interest expense for fiscal '22 is expected to be about $115 million.
And finally, we're assuming average diluted shares outstanding of about $117.5 million shares.
Moving from left to right, core performance is expected to contribute $2.15 this includes the benefit of higher organic sales, we anticipate price realization will exceed input cost inflation by about $0.10.
The removal of the onetime accelerated investments made in fiscal year '21 will be about $0.20 benefit the one-time gain from a legal matter that was settled in the prior year is $0.45 headwind.
Plex will be a $0.15 tailwind in fiscal '22 including the impact of incremental interest.
We expect about a $0.05 impact coming from share dilution and the higher tax rate is expected to be about a $0.75 headwind.
Dividend of about $520 million and share repurchases of $100 million.
In summary, our guidance assumes a combination of order and backlog growth to drive this team and 0.5% organic sales at the midpoint and reaches the total sales of over $8 billion.
We continue to offset inflationary pressures through additional price actions yielding segment margins of 21.5%.
We expect adjusted earnings per share growth of 15% and continued strong Free Cash Flow.

Summary:
Our ARR grew organically by over 18% and including our recent acquisition of Plex now accounts for over 8% of total sales.
North America organic sales grew by 16% versus the prior year with strong double-digit growth across all three industry segments.
Adjusted earnings per share of $2.33 was better than expected and grew 21% versus the prior year.
We expect organic sales growth to be in the range of 14% to 17% and about 15.5% at the midpoint of our range.
Our adjusted earnings per share guidance is $10.50 to $11.10.