Zebra Technologies Corporation

Good day and welcome to the first quarter 2024 Zetra Technologies Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in the listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mike Steele, Vice President, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Zebra's first quarter earnings conference call. This presentation is being simulcast on our website at investors.zebra.com and will be archived there for at least one year. Our forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially, and we refer you to the factors discussed on our SEC filings. During this call, we will reference non-GAAP financial measures as we describe our business performance. You can find reconciliations at the end of this slide presentation and in today's earnings press release. Throughout this presentation, unless otherwise indicated, our references to sales performance are year-over-year and on a constant currency basis. This presentation will include prepared remarks from Bill Burns, our chief executive officer, and Nathan Winters, our chief financial officer. Bill will begin with a discussion of our first quarter results and strategic actions. Nathan will then provide additional detail on the financials and discuss our second quarter and full year outlook. Bill will conclude with progress on advancing our vision. Following the prepared remarks, Bill and Nathan will take your questions. Now let's turn to slide four as I hand it over to Bill.

Thank you, Mike. Good morning and thank you for joining us. As expected, our first quarter performance was impacted by continued broad-based softness across our end markets and regions, which we began to experience in the second quarter of last year, resulting in a double-digit decline in sales and profitability. However, we are beginning to see a modest recovery in demand as we saw sequential improvement from the fourth quarter. We are particularly encouraged by the better than expected large order activity, which drove the upside for the quarter. That said, we are not yet seeing a broad-based recovery, and as a result, we continue to take an agile approach to navigating the current environment. We also delivered another quarter of sequential improvement in profitability as a result of our restructuring actions and improved gross margin. Services and software were a bright spot in the quarter with improved sales and profitability, helping to offset the year-on-year sales declines across all product categories. For the quarter, we realized sales of $1.2 billion, a 16.8 percent decline from the prior year, and adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.9 percent, a 150 basis point decrease. and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $2.84, a 28% decrease from the prior year. We are pleased with the progress we have made on our previously announced actions to improve profitability and drive sales growth as our end markets recover. Our restructuring plans to deliver $120 million of net annualized operating savings is on track to be completed mid-year. On the supply front, we made substantial improvement in our working capital driven by our renegotiation of long-term supply commitments and ongoing work to draw down component inventories with our contract manufacturers. We have also driven both tactical and strategic sales initiatives, including reallocation of resources to accelerate growth. Given the progress on our actions, we are raising our full-year outlook for sales, margin, and free cash flow. I will now turn the call over to Nathan to review our Q1 financial results and discuss our revised 2024 outlook.

Thank you, Bill. Let's start with the P&L on slide six. In Q1, sales decreased 16.8 percent with declines across our regions, major product categories, and customers of all sizes. Services and software were a bright spot in the quarter with growth driven by increased units under support contract and retail software wins. Our asset intelligence and tracking segment declined 25.3%, primarily driven by printing. Enterprise visibility and mobility segment sales declined 11.8%, with relative outperformance in mobile computing. Our Asia Pacific region saw the steepest sales declines, led by continued weakness in China. From a sequential perspective, total Q1 sales were 16 percent higher than Q4, as distributors had completed their destocking process by year end, and we realized modest improvement in demand. Adjusted gross margin increased 60 basis points to 48.1 percent, supported by higher services and software margin, and cycling premium supply chain costs in the prior year, all of which were partially offset by expense deleveraging from lower sales volumes. Adjusted operating expenses delivered 230 basis points as a percent of sales. The impact was mitigated by approximately $25 million of incremental net savings in the quarter from our restructuring actions. This resulted in first quarter adjusted EBITDA margin of 19.9%, a 150 basis point decrease versus the prior year, and a 450 basis point sequential improvement from Q4. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share was $2.84, a 28% year-over-year decrease. Interest expense contributed to the decline offset by a lower adjusted tax rate. Turning now to the balance sheet and cash flow on slide seven. We generated $111 million of free cash flow as we begin to realize benefits from reducing inventory levels. We ended the quarter at a 2.6 times net debt to adjusted EBITDA leverage ratio which is slightly above the top end of our target range. And we had approximately $1.3 billion of capacity on our revolving credit facility as of quarter end, providing ample flexibility. Let's now turn to our outlook. For Q2, we expect sales to decrease between 1 and 5% compared to the prior year. We entered the second quarter with a solid backlog and pipeline of opportunities, particularly for mobile computing and retail and e-commerce. This outlook assumes a modest improvement in demand trends across our major product categories, with mobile computing and the EVM segment returning to growth as we cycle easier compares. We anticipate Q2 adjusted EBITDA margin to be slightly above 19%, driven by expense deleveraging from lower sales volume with the benefit from restructuring actions and lower premium supply chain costs offset by normalized incentive compensation expense. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $2.60 to $2.90. We have raised our guide for the full year, reflecting our progress on actions to drive sales and profitability as our end markets have stabilized. Although there is optimism from partners and customers regarding recovery in the second half of the year, we would like to see additional momentum in large orders before factoring in a broader recovery. We now expect sales growth between 1% and 5% for the year, with adjusted EBITDA margin now expected to be approximately 20%. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $11.25 to $12.25. And we now expect our free cash flow for the year to be at least $600 million, including the impact of our final $45 million settlement payment in the quarter. We've been making progress right-sizing inventory in our balance sheet and improving cash conversion and have been prioritizing debt pay down in the near term. Please reference additional modeling assumptions shown on slide eight. With that, I will turn the call back to Bill. Thank you, Nathan.

As we look longer term, we continue to be well-positioned to benefit from secular trends to digitize and automate workflows for our customers. We remain focused on elevating ZBriff as a premier solutions provider through a comprehensive portfolio of innovative solutions and our go-to-market ecosystem. Zebra empowers workers to execute tasks more effectively by navigating constant change in real time through advanced capabilities including intelligent automation, machine learning, prescriptive analytics, and artificial intelligence. As you'll see on slide 11, our customers leverage our solutions to optimize workflows across a broad range of end markets. We empower enterprises to increase collaboration and productivity and better serve their customers, shoppers, and patients. In March, at the MODX Manufacturing and Supply Chain Trade Show, Zebra, along with our partners, showcased our expanded portfolio solutions that are modernizing workflows across the broader supply chain. Managing operations has become complex, with increased consumer expectations for inventory visibility and same-day deliveries. The event provided an opportunity to demonstrate how we improve key outcomes such as production quality, supply chain agility, and capacity utilization. Machine vision was one of the many solutions we feature where we have enhanced our capabilities to address emerging use cases. We continue to build our market presence with a few notable wins. a large state-owned European logistics company recently invested in thousands of Zebra machine vision cameras to enhance the speed and efficiency of inspections of government bonds and transaction documents. Additionally, an Asian manufacturer incorporated our machine vision cameras and frame grabbers into their product sorting and quality control processes. This solution is significantly faster and more accurate than the previous manual approach. At HIMSS, the leading global healthcare conference, Zebra and our partners demonstrated how our solutions improve the patient journey from check-in to bedside point of care, as well as medical equipment track and trace. Additionally, the University of Maryland Health System shared how they are utilizing our clinical communications platform, which includes our mobile computers and work cloud software. I would also like to call out a win with the North American Hospital Network, who recently implemented thousands of Zebra printers, specifically enhancing its specimen tracking and labeling processes. These printers integrate with the electronic health record system, facilitating noticeable organizational improvements across departments. Zebra's reputation for ease of use helps secure this win. Recent wins in retail demonstrate how customers are driving productivity, improving asset visibility, enhancing the experience for associates and shoppers. The European retailer selected thousands of Zebra mobile computers to replace their legacy devices from a competitor. The customer plans to pair our new mobile computers with their Zebra mobile printers to improve their price markdown, labeling, and online order-picking processes. The North American-based retail department store chain enhanced thousands of Zebra mobile computers by incorporating our device tracking software. Prior to deployment of this software, the retailer experienced issues with misplaced devices in stores and fulfillment centers, resulting in wasted time and resources. Additionally, a North American grocer has expanded their installed base of Zebra mobile computers with thousands of additional units and implemented our WorkCloud software. The solution is expected to enhance operational efficiency among associates, improve employee communication, streamline inventory management within their stores. On slide 12, we highlight secular trends that we expect to support long-term growth for Zebra as we drive value for our customers. These include labor and resource constraints, real-time supply chain visibility, track and trace mandates, and increased consumer expectations. We are hosting an innovation day on May 14th at our headquarters near Chicago, where Nathan and I will be joined by other members of our leadership team to discuss how we digitize and automate workflows to drive positive business outcomes for customers across our end markets. In closing, as we look forward to a long-term opportunity for Zebra, our conviction in the business remains strong. We continue to elevate our strategic role with our customers through our innovative portfolio of solutions, while our cost and go-to-market actions are positioning us well for profitable growth as our end markets recover.

And we'll now hand it back to Mike. Thanks, Bill. We'll now open the call to Q&A. We ask that you limit yourself to one question and one follow-up so that we can get to as many of you as possible.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star and 1 on your touch-tone telephone. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up the handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from the line of Jamie Cook with Truist Securities. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Nice quarter. I guess first question, Can you just call out how much freight helped the first quarter, lower freight costs, and then what's implied in the guide relative to how you guided last quarter? And then I guess just my second question, the gross margins in the quarter struck me, you know, in particular the EVM margins, which were up year over year. And so I'm just wondering if you could help us understand you know, what drove the gross margin improvement on the sales decline there. Thank you.

Yes, so, Jamie, I'll take that. Good morning. So if you look for the – particularly the freight in Q1, it was about a – drove about one point year-on-year improvement just given cycling through now that we've fully neutralized the premium supply chain costs between the operational actions and the price increases. So year on year, that was about a point of benefit in the quarter. Yeah, and I'd say the other drivers for the relative strength in Q1 was both from the slightly higher volume as well as some favorable mix, along with the service and software profitability and the strength we saw there, which is primarily in EVM, which is, I think, driving the benefit both sequentially as well as relative to our guide in the quarter.

And then just to follow up, sorry, the larger order activity that you talked about in the quarter, which obviously isn't in the guide and I guess would reflect some conservatism in the guide, if that continues, I mean, what's preventing you from putting that in the guide? And if that continues, you know, how would we think about the sales guidance relative to your, you know, sales growth of 1% to 5%, you know, X, F, X? And sorry, then I'll get back in queue.

Yeah, I think, you know, as we stated, we've seen some improvement in demand, particularly in mobile computing and retail, which drove the beat in Q1, as well as what we're expecting to see come through for the remainder of the year, driving the raise for the full year from 1 to 3 percent. And so, you know, the way we think about the full year was we'd expect Q3 to look very similar to Q2, which looks, you know, similar to Q1 just in terms of run rate and trajectory, which I'd say maintains that relative strength in some of the large orders we've seen come through in the first quarter. But I would separate that from, you know, what we have yet to see, and I'd say what's still, you know, kind of waiting to look at is, you know, the larger mega deals, mega deployments, that's still not coming through. The deal sizes are still in that, you know, I'd say 1 to 5 million range in some of the initial phases of deployment. So that's what you see carry through for the remainder of the year and inflected in the guide, but not that uptick in terms of the larger deployments.

Thank you. The next question comes from Damien Karras with UBS. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, everyone. Nice to see the improvement. Morning. Morning. I was wondering if you could maybe elaborate a little bit on the large order activity of which you spoke. You know, could you give us a sense, right, is this sort of one or two components customers that are placing rather large orders? Or are you kind of seeing, you know, just your larger customer base in general, start to bring back a larger quantity of project activity? If you could just maybe elaborate and provide any detail like which end markets and regions you're seeing some of these larger orders as well.

Yeah, I'd say overall in Q1 and into as we enter 24, we've really seen demand stabilize. And we've seen modest improvement in large order activity overall. And it's been particularly in mobile computing and it's been specific to retail as they've kind of wrapped up their year. So, you know, we're certainly encouraged by the better than expected, you know, sales results in Q1 as a result. And, you know, we'd expect, you know, modest improvement of demand as we continue to progress throughout the year. However, H2 is, you know, the growth there is primarily driven by, you know, lapping through, you know, the prior destocking activity that we've seen. So, overall, I think as we anticipated, you know, mobile computing is the first place that we're seeing recovery. We're seeing it in retail. Both of those were the first to be impacted, you know, coming through the cycle with COVID. And what we'd like to see is more visibility and momentum. seen so far. And, you know, I think we'd like to see it, you know, move from retail to T&L and manufacturing and other verticals before we call it kind of a broad-based recovery.

That's really helpful. Thanks, Bill. And then a follow-up question on your guidance, just maybe asked a little bit differently. I know you guys have spoken, right, this really large funnel, but just kind of a lack of conversion to orders. guidance sort of has you sequentially second half sales comparable to the first half. Could you just tell us like what you're assuming for that funnel conversion, you know, kind of a probability of some of those projects sitting in the back half? Thank you.

Yeah, I'd say that, as I mentioned earlier, the second half, I would call you grounded and based on what we see today, both in terms of, you know, the order of velocity, what we're seeing in terms of being sold out through the channel and as well as the conversion rates that we've experienced now over the last two quarters. I'd say still lower conversion rates on our pipeline than we would have historically assumed based on what we experienced in the second half, but again, aligned with what we've experienced over the past two quarters. I think the big difference is we're not assuming, we're making an assumption around a mega-deployment Just given that we've yet to see kind of firm commitments from our customers, there's a lot of optimism, discussions around those. But in terms of committing to move forward with those projects or ensuring that they have the budget available in the year, that really remains the uncertainty. And you look and see the second half look very similar to the first half because that's what we're experiencing and what we're seeing play out in the market. We think that's appropriate for the guide for the year.

Thank you. The next question comes from Keith Wilson with North Coast Research. Please go ahead.

Good morning, guys. I appreciate it. Thanks. In terms of Asia-Pacific region, obviously underperformed compared to the rest of the company, and I understand China's challenge right now, but perhaps can you expand a little bit on what you're seeing here and expectations for some of the pressures perhaps be a little bit longer-lasting versus shorter-lasting, and just more color about the performance in that area, please.

Yeah, I mean, Keith, it's Bill. I think that, you know, overall, the Q1 performance, you know, was continued impact by soft demand across, you know, all of the regions. So, I think we'd start there. I think that, you know, as we've said, the, you know, relative, you know, outperformance was really in mobile computing, and we saw some bright spots in services and software, you know, clearly in the quarter. I would say, you know, the regions pretty much look the same except, you know, Asia was, as you said, impacted probably, you know, more through the declines in China. I would say that, you know, we see, you know, Asia overall having, you know, China continue to, you know, a longer recovery for the China market. We've seen some bright spots, again, in retail, again, in larger orders in Australia and New Zealand. So, that was, you know, a positive for the Asian market. I think we continue to see opportunities outside of China, so Southeast Asia and India with the investments in manufacturing there. We continue to see Japan as the longer-term, you know, opportunity for us as we're making investments there, and we have lower share there than other places. But I think, you know, we expect that China continue to remain, you know, a challenging, you know, mover forward.

All right. Appreciate it. And just as a follow-up, Nathan, in terms of adjusted EBITDA, there's a little bit decline in the guidance you're giving for 2Q versus 1Q. Sequentially, how should we think about the moving parts and the reason for a little bit lower adjusted EBITDA margins in the second quarter?

Thank you. As you mentioned, our 2Q guide is slightly above 19%, so down from the 19.9% in Q1. That is entirely driven by the seasonality of our retail software business, which you probably recall, but, you know, is seasonally higher in Q1 at accretive margins, just given the timing of retailers and wanting to perform their cycle counts and physical inventories, which is where that, you know, platform really focuses. So, that's the adjustment from Q1 to Q2. And the way I characterize it is, you know, the Q2 guide is fairly in line with how we structured the full year going into it. I think Q1 was benefited by some of the cost actions coming in earlier, giving us confidence in the remainder of the year as well as some of the benefits and just a little bit better mix and revenue to start out the year. So I think Q2 in line with where we expected the year to play out and the sequential decline is entirely driven by the seasonality of our retail software business.

Thank you. The next question comes from Tommy Moll with Stephens. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Morning. Morning, Tommy. You've given us some context on the omnichannel retail and e-commerce and markets, but I wanted to ask for any other detail you could provide. In particular, on the e-commerce side, there are some anecdotes regarding finally hitting the end of this absorption phase from some of the overbuilding in years past. Are you seeing any signs of that on your side? Thanks.

I would say that, you know, overall, you know, retail, you know, relatively outperformed, as we've talked about already. And we're seeing encouraging signs, right? We saw some, you know, modest year-end retail spending across Q4 and Q1. Some customers clearly have absorbed the capacity and begin to buy again, as you've kind of referenced, Tommy. We've also seen, you know, some of the pushouts that took place in, you know, last year, you know, and really over the last 18 months or so, begin to come back. So, we've seen those projects as we expected and we talked about for a long time. Those projects will come back. What we've seen mostly is initiating of really phase one of those projects and the customer's not quite ready to commit to the full deployment. So, we've seen deployments that in the past would have been larger, even larger orders and full rollouts immediately. Now, a more conservative, let's start with that project, but roll it out over time and, you know, complete the deployment kind of later in the year. So, you know, we have confidence that they'll continue to be a recovery. I think we anticipated retail would recover first, followed by T&L and manufacturing and and healthcare, and we're seeing that play out. And we also anticipated that we'd be mobile computing, you know, first as well, and that's what we're seeing. So, the bright spots are really mobile computing and retail, retail and e-commerce. That capacity is being used up. Retailers are beginning to bring those projects back, but they're doing it in a very measured way. And I think what we want to see is retail, T&L, manufacturing, you know, more of the vertical markets come back. and more of that order activity, even more than we're seeing today in the uptick in orders before we call a broad-based recovery.

That's helpful. Thank you, Bill. As a follow-up, I wanted to ask about the channel inventory levels. It sounds like there really wasn't any noise from a destocking perspective in the first quarter, but I'm curious, what's your view on how many days on hand in the channel currently? And if you think historically, do we sit today below what that historic level is? And does that imply at some point there may need to be a restock? Thank you.

Yeah, Tom, that's it. Ending the Q1, summer to exiting Q4, that the global channel inventories, measure that on a days-on-hand basis. is normalized to support the current demand. So I'd say within the range that we'd expect on a global basis, there's puts and takes if you go by region and product families. So I think a nice improvement from where we were just six to nine months ago. And as you said, I think no meaningful impact in the quarter or assumed in the full year guide in terms of changes, relative changes in the distribution inventory levels.

Thank you. The next question comes from Brad Hewitt with Wealth Fargo. Please go ahead.

Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. Good morning. So you just talked about a return of some of the project deferrals from last year. I guess how would you describe your pipeline and sort of overall visibility versus six months ago? It kind of feels like visibility across the space has been generally trending in a positive direction, but just Any color on how your visibility looks relative to history would be helpful.

I'd say that, you know, overall we'd expect, you know, orders, you know, customer orders to continue to resume overall. I think that as I just talked about with, you know, Tommy's question, we've seen customers absorbing the capacity that's previously been built out. That's been more, again, focused on retail and e-commerce as opposed to the other verticals, you know, so far. I would say that You know, the macro economy, kind of the uncertainty around that abating will certainly help as well. We're viewed as a trusted partner to our customers, and we're staying close to them across each of the verticals as, you know, we would see this order momentum picking up across other verticals as we progress through the year. You know, we've got a large install base, right, you know, with growing solutions, so we're continuing to work with our customers as well, you know, kind of on new solutions and new use cases. So, you know, overall, I would say that, You know, we anticipated large deployments kind of starting to come back. We anticipated retail. We want to see more of that across manufacturing and T&L, as I said. We'd like to see more of it, too, in kind of different size deals, so mid-tier and run rate deals, you know, come back a bit. But I would say overall we're, you know, our engagement with customers have been encouraging. You know, there's certainly uncertainty remains around timing of some of the projects. I think Nate covered that earlier. And I think it's reflected in our year-end outlook overall.

Yeah, you see it in the pipeline in terms of where the deals are at in the deal stage. So, you know, qualify versus where we'd like to see them more in the validate secure. So, earlier stages of the funnel, particularly in the second half, than where we'd like to see it at this point in the year or relative to what we've maybe seen in prior years.

Okay, that's helpful. I think you guys had some retail orders that you expected to convert to revenue at the end of Q4 that were pushed into Q1. would you be able to quantify the magnitude of that deferral? And then when you talked about the uptick in the large quarter activity on the retail side, was that inclusive of some of that year-end spending, or was that a separate bucket?

I would say that year-end spending across retailers, their years end differently, whether it's truly year-end or into first quarter. So I think we typically see orders that bridge boats on an annual basis. So I don't think there was much that moved between Q4 and Q1 as much as just customers need product before they have their year end from a retail perspective. And again, I think those are all encouraging signs, whether it was Q4 or Q1 to us that retailers are beginning to, you know, buy again. And I think we continue to want to see more of that momentum. I would say that even those orders are measured, you know what I mean? So it's a It was year-end spending, but it was the first phase of a project, and we want to see those continued projects moving forward, and we believe they will. So I would say nothing really in movement of Q4, Q1 as much as just normal activity around that where some customers in retail ended, you know, the true year end, you know, December 31st and others end, you know, in the first quarter.

Thank you. The next question comes from Jim Ricciuti. with Needham & Company. Please go ahead.

Hi. Thanks. I missed it. Did you comment at all about the activity you're seeing in the SMB market? Is the recovery you're seeing in parts of retail also impacting that part of the business?

Yeah, I would say that, you know, SMB would fall kind of in this mid-tier, you know, to run rate business. And I think we've seen, again, more recovery and large opportunities. I think we're seeing optimism clearly on the part of our partners and our distributors that that business will continue to, you know, progress and get better through the second half year. But I think at the moment, we have not seen, you know, the uptick we've seen in large orders across mid and in the run rate business, which really falls in this SMB category. So I'd say not yet. I would say there's optimism on the part of our partners, but I think that we want to see more of that. As, you know, large orders typically are the first to decline, they're the first to recover. Retail was the first to pull back, and now we're seeing the first to recover. And I think that SMB, call it mid-tier in run rate business will fall.

Got it. How would you characterize the RFID business in the quarter, level of activity you're seeing and just the trends in that business we're starting to see? More activity, it sounds like, on the T&L side with the big customer moving out of the distribution center into the package delivery side of the business. How would you characterize RFID for you?

Yeah, I would say RFID, you know, clearly, you know, we see as an opportunity in the across multiple verticals now, not just retail and retail apparel, where it was originally focused. And we're clearly seeing opportunities across track and trace and supply chain. You mentioned, you know, parcel tracking with transportation logistics, you know, airports and airlines with baggage tracking, inside manufacturing, work in progress, and tools. So, a whole series of different applications we're seeing, quick-serve restaurants, Clearly, the move ahead of large retailers like Walmart or UPS's smart package initiatives are causing others to continue to look at what they're doing in RFID and move things along across multiple industries and verticals. Zebra has the broadest and deepest set of RFID solutions in the market today. So whether it's fixed or handheld readers, industrial and mobile printers, our software that we utilize to, you know, for reads and locates, and then, you know, our labels printed through our printers. So, you know, we've seen strong growth across the portfolio, you know, over the past few years. We continue to see the drivers being the fact that, you know, the technologies continue to improve with, you know, greater re-rate accuracy across the development of new tag types that make that, you know, more efficient in the reading of the tags. I think we're seeing more software applications being available today serving these different markets. We're clearly, you know, overall, the idea that, you know, the number of tags, I think what excites all of us is the fact that, you know, readers follow tags, right? So from our perspective that, you know, the adoption of tags and source tagging of items, that point of manufacturing, the number of tags being sold is certainly significant. you know, going to allow more applications of those tags in, you know, customer environments. So we remain, you know, excited about this space overall, and I think we're going to continue to see, you know, growth across RFID.

Thank you. The next question is from Joe Giordano with TD Cabin. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Just a I know people are hesitant to lay out big capital still, like you said, a couple of times, but as you get into like next year and just considering the large scale increase in your install base that happened in the immediate aftermath of COVID, like should we be thinking refresh cycle is kind of like in play for 2025? I think overall that, you know, the,

You know, EMC clearly, you know, across mobile computing is really what you're talking about in kind of large repress cycles. And as I've said, you know, a couple of times already, we're seeing that as the first signs of recovery. And really in retail, the start, I think that, you know, the customers in have begun to absorb their capacity, you know, certainly in e-commerce. We'd like to see that happen across, you know, T&L, you know, as those customers build out a lot of capacity as well during the pandemic. And we'd like to see manufacturing be a bit more healthy in the idea that moving from a services-based economy to more goods-based economy overall. I'd say that, you know, the refresh cycle, our sales teams are focused on that with our customers. And ultimately, you know, mobile computers are essential to their operation. They, you know, have worked with us across, you know, multiple generations of products. We've got a healthy pipeline of opportunities, but, you know, we'd want to see those move ahead, you know, through this year and into next year, as you described. So, you know, clearly there is a refresh cycle out there. The embedded base is larger than it's ever been as people have deployed, you know, more applications for mobile devices in their environment. So the installed base is larger. So those will continue to refresh, and every customer is on a different cycle. So I think that whether you're talking about a postal, you know, environment in a specific country or a T&L provider or a larger retailer, what we have seen is that, you know, even in retail, these larger orders have been more measured, as I talked about. So haven't been large scale, as Nick described, kind of mega deals. They've been smaller in size and rolling out over time. We'd expect probably that same thing will happen in places like T&L. So I think it will be a measured, you know, overall recovery. And I think, you know, we feel that we've got a strong base to continue to refresh, but it's going to take time.

Fair enough. And then maybe just shifting to the balance sheet quickly, you know, with your key markets, at least we can debate the magnitude of recovery, but it seems like deterioration has kind of stopped. And it's good to see you pay back some debt here. You know, cash flow looks strong. So is there an appetite for buybacks to kind of increase your leverage on a recovery as you come out of this?

Yeah, as you mentioned, we, you know, finished the quarter at a little over two and a half times leverage ratio, so slightly above the target range. That begins to move back within the range, particularly as we roll through Q3, you know, Q3 of last year. Today we feel like we have ample flexibility with the revolver. As you mentioned, we are prioritizing debt pay down just given the debt leverage ratios in the current interest rates environment. But we do plan to reassess buybacks as the year progresses, you know, particularly in the second half.

Thank you. The next question comes from Andrew Buscaglia with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning, guys.

Morning.

So I just want to check on, you know, you comment on the guidance. You know, we're seeing a sequential step down in margins seasonally, it seems like. The comment on the Q3 looking more like looking similar to Q2, just to clarify, you're talking about run rate on sales. And then what about margins? Because it does seem like you're expecting some lift in Q4 and wondering what's behind that.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. So, yeah, the comment on Q3, similar to Q2, was on from a revenue perspective. We do expect an uptick in margin as we go through the year. Similar to what we talked about in the last call, which is phasing of some of the incremental cost actions that will be coming through late this quarter and early part of Q3, as well as, I'd say, just normal project timing. between, you know, things like payroll taxes and just the, you know, typical funding cycle with as you get into Q3, Q4, you get into holidays. So it tends to be a little bit of a downtick in terms of just seasonal spend. So I think there's no magic bullet there in terms of the actions we need to take in order to deliver that sequential improvement from Q3 into Q3 and Q4. Okay.

Okay. And then, you know, maybe along the lines of Joe's question, You know, heading into, you know, your cash flow is improving. You raised it a bit. What about M&A now? You know, I think the software story has been nice. It's helping you lately. So, yeah, what's the environment like as you see it with deals?

Yeah, I'll take that, Nate. I would say that, you know, organic growth continues to be, you know, our first priority overall. I think our M&A philosophy really hasn't changed much, you know, We're clearly, you know, targeting assets that, you know, are clearly adjacent and, you know, synergistic to, you know, our portfolio today as you've seen us, you know, acquiring kind of these adjacent and expansion areas. We have a strong balance sheet, obviously, that could support that, you know, over time here. I think in the short term, there's clearly a higher bar, you know, as, you know, given the macro environment and, and the debt leverage, you know, that we're at today. So I think we're continuing to be inquisitive and look what's out there. I think we see it as an opportunity to be strategic and add to our portfolio, you know, our products and solutions that we have in the marketplace. And I think that, you know, in the short term, I think it's just a higher hurdle.

Thank you. The next question comes from Brian Drab with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, Bill, Nathan, Mike. Thanks for taking the questions. So clearly, I just want to clarify one thing. So clearly you're seeing the recovery in retail, and you said you expected it to play out this way where retail comes back before manufacturing and T&L. Does that mean that you're not seeing a recovery in manufacturing and T&L yet or that the the recovery in retail is just stronger at this point than those two categories.

Yeah, I would say that, you know, we're not seeing it there yet. I would say that, you know, the T&L customers are clearly still absorbing capacity built out, you know, during the pandemic and that, You know, they're continuing to take actions to optimize their operations overall. I would say that manufacturing is impacted by, you know, the broader market trends of uncertainty and clearly still a services-based economy versus a goods-based economy. But I think, you know, overall our value proposition, you know, remains strong in both markets. You know, we've got strong relationships across T&L, and I think that we'll see them continue to buy again once the capacity is, you know, built out. I would say manufacturing is an opportunity for us overall that, you know, as customers continue to buy again, they are, you know, will invest in automation and things like traceability and resilient supply chains. Those themes haven't gone away, but we've seen just a conservative, you know, nature of spending based on the uncertainty. So that represents an opportunity for us. I would say that Manufacturing, unlike T&L, is kind of under-penetrated for us, that there's an opportunity for us. And we've got new solutions within manufacturing, something like a machine vision, robotics automation. Our demand planning strengthens our offering there as those markets recover. And we've also shifted additional sales resources through this to manufacturing. So I think that we expected retail was the first to decline. It's the first to recover. T&L and manufacturing will follow. I would say we've got strong relationships across T&L, but lots of opportunities there when it does recover. And manufacturing will continue to be a focus area for us because we see it as an opportunity longer term.

Okay. Thank you very much. And then I wonder if I could ask a question this way. You know, you have that good slide that you use where you talk about the core in the adjacencies and expansion markets and growing, you know, expected longer term, mid-single, high-single, and low double-digit, respectively. I'm just wondering, in your outlook for the next year, can you frame it in terms of those three categories, what you're expecting for growth in those three categories? Yes.

I'd say overall that, you know, it's hard to predict where each is going to end up. I would say overall that, you know, the core in mobile computing has become, you know, is recovering first. I think each has a different dynamic. So, I think that things like, you know, tablets and others in the expansion categories will be closely, you know, connected to things like mobile computing. RFIDs in that category and that will continue to be an opportunity. I would say, you know, if you think of the kind of last circle to that, you know, software and our services business had, you know, a positive quarter in Q1, you know, overall. So, I think that's, you know, more recurring revenue based. Machine vision has been challenged in the short term with, you know, areas like semiconductor and, you know, manufacturing being down. So, I think it varies by each segment. If I think there's gives and takes in each, I think the core mobile computing first, the others, you know, still down but will recover. I think in the adjacencies, RFID and others, you know, will be bright spots. And I think software was a bright spot, but machine vision challenged in the short term. Robotics still rated at its infancy. So I think kind of mixed across those, but I think that it's going to be, you know, all will recover over time. It's just, you know, different timeframes for each.

Thank you. The next question comes from Mehta Marshall with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Great. Thanks. I think you alluded to this in kind of the replacement cycle question earlier in the call, but just any trends between kind of mobile computing and printing as we think about kind of some of these renewal cycles coming up? And then maybe second, You know, you haven't touched on the healthcare market. That's clearly been an area of expansion for you guys. Just any investment or kind of progress that's being made on that opportunity? Thanks.

Yeah, I'd say that, you know, as we talked about, mobile computing clearly showing the first signs of recovery as expected, and we've talked through that a fair amount. I would say that in printing, we saw, you know, kind of broad-based declines, but it's stabilized now in Q1. There was a difficult compare in Q1 for both printing and DCS as a year ago, first quarter of 23. We saw supply chain challenges abate in both those areas, so we shipped a lot of printers and scanners in the quarter a year ago, so the compares were pretty tough. I would say that in printing specifically, you know, clearly still challenged by the softer macroeconomic conditions and then particularly by manufacturing, but I would say stabilized overall. we'd expect that, you know, recovery and printing and scanning would follow mobile computing as we kind of talked about. Specific to healthcare, I would say that, you know, impacted by the same trends, the broader market overall, clearly, you know, tighter budgets, thin margins within healthcare. We would see that, you know, we continue to drive productivity solutions within healthcare you know, which, you know, allows, you know, healthcare providers to be more efficient, which is certainly appealing to them on tight margins and clearly to enhance, you know, patient safety. We see home healthcare as an opportunity for us. So, we're clearly seeing some of our partners address that market. So, think of, you know, tablets as an example around, you know, home healthcare opportunities. You know, so I think we see, you know, Optimism, you know, we were at the HIMSS trade show, which was well attended in Q1, you know, the largest retail show, as we mentioned in the script earlier. But, you know, I think that we've seen optimism on the point of our partners and our customers. Just like the other verticals in manufacturing and T&L, we'd like to see more of that optimism turn into real orders like we're seeing in retail.

Thank you. The next question comes from Rob Mason with Baird. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Bill, you've touched on it a couple of times, just the run rate business. You haven't necessarily seen signs of recovery there yet. I just wanted to see if you could put a finer point on the expectations there for the year, just in the context of your overall guide, sales guide up 1% to 5% relative to maybe the large deal side of it. the business?

Yeah, I would say that, you know, our thought is probably relatively, you know, flat. You know, I think we expected large deals to recover first. We expect, you know, mid-tier and run rate to recover after as we've talked about already. I think there's been a lot of optimism on the part of our partners and our distributors in this area. And we just want to see more progression, I think, more than anything else. That's, you know, that's kind of where we're at. We typically large deals are the first to decline and then followed by, you know, mid-tier and run rate because run rate is kind of the longer tail. And I think we're going to see that same thing in recovery. We haven't seen it yet. So I think that that's the challenge we're seeing. I wish the visibility was better through the year. And I think consequent with our guide, you know, is that we're kind of, guiding to what we see from a visibility perspective, and we just haven't seen the recovery in mid-tier or run rate yet. And the optimism is out there. The opportunities seem to be there. You know, everybody wants to go after it. We just need to see more of it really happen and turn into worse.

Yeah, I think, Rob, you said the flat, right, kind of Q1 to 2 to 3 in terms of overall revenue. flat just because that's what we see in terms of the trajectory across, you know, all the different categories of business without seeing an inflection point of, you know, a dramatic uptick. Again, that's why we feel like that was the appropriate guide based on, you know, what we're seeing today across all those different categories.

Yep, understood. And then just as a follow-up, Nathan, could you tell us what the placeholder you have slotted in to the guidance for debt reduction is for the year?

I would assume that the vast majority of the cash convert, you know, the $600 million of pre-cash flow will either go to debt pay down maybe a little bit in terms of, you know, held in cash, you know, some modest interest rate, but the vast majority would go to debt pay down.

Very good. Thank you.

Thank you. The next question comes from Ken Newman with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, guys. Thanks for squeezing me in. Good morning. Thanks, morning. Most of my questions have been asked, but I just wanted to ask a longer-term, higher-level question. Obviously, you've got some very significant operating leverage implied for the back cap, and I think that's mostly just on easier comparisons on the volume side. As we think about, you know, maybe returning more towards a normalized operating environment, how do you think about the run rate operating leverage or the run rate incremental EBITDA margins, just given all the cost-out initiatives that you've executed on? Would you think that's structurally higher than what we've seen in past cycles, or is that still too early to tell?

Yeah, as you mentioned, obviously the volume leverage or, you know, margin expansion in the second half highly correlated with, you know, the increased volume along with, you know, coupled with the restructuring actions we took throughout last year. And really, for us, the target would get back to above 20 percent as the baseline so that we can grow and scale from there. And I think still too early to tell in terms of, you know, what exactly that framework looks like. I'd say, you know, historically, We've kind of looked at, you know, 30% incremental decrementals and a normal quarter, you know, quarter in, quarter out. Fundamentally, the business hasn't changed in terms of what you would expect. Over time, we'd expect that to be a little bit greater as we scale some of these new emerging markets like machine vision or software that have an inherently higher gross margin. I think that's probably the best way to think about it now until the dust settles and we get to some normalcy both from a year-on-year as well as a sequential perspective.

Very good. Thanks for the help there.

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Burns for any closing remarks.

Yeah, I'd like to thank our employees and partners for the strong and expected start to the year and positioning Zebra to return to growth in second half year. We look forward to seeing analysts and investors at our Innovation Day in two weeks. Have a great day, everyone. Thank you.

Thank you. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.