Carrier Global Corporation

Good morning and welcome to Carrier's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. I would like to introduce your host for today's conference, Michael Redner, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and welcome to Carrier's fourth quarter 2025 earnings conference call. On the call with me today are David Gitlin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, and Patrick Gores, Chief Financial Officer. Except where otherwise noted, the company will speak to results from continuing operations excluding restructuring costs and certain significant non-recurring items. A reconciliation of these and other non-GAAP financial measures can be found in the appendix of the webcast. We also remind listeners that the presentation contains forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Carrier's SEC filings, including our Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, provide details on important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Dave.

Thanks, Mike, and good morning, everyone. 2025 was an important year for Carrier. The short cycle residential and light commercial markets softened more than we expected in the second half of the year. We made meaningful progress on our strategic priorities and reached major milestones, including growing our data center business to around $1 billion. Notably, even with CSA residential down nearly 10% and light commercial down about 20%, Total company organic sales were down about 1% as we continued to drive growth in our long cycle and aftermarket businesses. We also reduced channel inventory and lowered overhead while continuing to invest in technology differentiation, salespeople, and technicians. Those actions position us for stronger incrementals when our short cycle markets recover. We had our fifth consecutive year of double digit growth in commercial HVAC while continuing to gain share and increase margins. Aftermarket was also up double digits for the fifth consecutive year. We offset tariffs with aggressive cost and pricing actions, drove strong material productivity, and took decisive overhead cost actions. And as you'll see in our outlook, the cost actions that we execute into 2025 will deliver over $100 million of savings in 2026. Finally, we distributed $3.7 billion to our shareholders through buybacks and dividends. In terms of capital allocation, we remain focused on investing in the highest return opportunities, maintaining a strong balance sheet, and returning cash to shareholders. We will continue to focus on outsized growth in products, aftermarket, and system offerings, and you can see the progress we're making on all three growth vectors, starting with products on slide four. Our data center investments are delivering results, with fourth quarter CSA data center orders up more than 5x. We are still in the early innings, and our expanded portfolio now addresses essentially all major data center chiller applications. Our share of water-cooled chillers has increased 4x since spin, and with our recently introduced Maglev-bearing air-cooled chillers, we see meaningful share opportunity there as well. Key differentiators include quick restart, free cooling, and leading efficiency at elevated ambient temperatures. We introduced our first CDU for liquid cooling in 2025 and plan additional higher capacity CDUs up to 5 megawatts in 2026. Over the past couple of years, we have expanded our commercial HVAC engineering lab and chiller manufacturing capacity globally and have added hundreds of technicians. These multi-year investments have positioned us to outgrow the commercial HVAC market as reflected in our 2026 outlook with double-digit revenue growth, including data centers up about 50%. Aftermarket also remains a good news story for us, as you can see on slide five. Our playbook works, and we continue to improve upon it. Three years ago, we had 17,000 chillers connected. Today, it is over 70,000. Our attachment rate in CSA grew more than 3x last year and is now close to 60%, and our global coverage, that is, chillers covered by service agreements, is up to 110,000, including Toshiba. We estimate that 70% to 80% of our high-complexity chillers are under service contracts. The area within our aftermarket business where we see the highest growth potential over the next five years is modifications and upgrades. Sales last year were up 20%. With a focused team, investments, and strategy, we see great opportunities in cities globally. In 2026, we are well positioned for double-digit aftermarket growth for our sixth consecutive year. Turning to systems on slide six. Our HEMS offering in the United States is getting tremendous attention from hyperscalers and utilities, and it is not surprising given the magnitude of the impact that our solution can have on the grid. If our integrated heat pump battery solution were in every home and building that Carrier currently serves, we would free up nearly 15% of grid capacity during peak hours. It also weighs favorably versus alternatives in terms of time to market, cost of implementation, and affordability to the consumer. Our Carrier Energy team's progress in 2025 was significant. Through field trials in carrier employee homes, we have been demonstrating that we can consistently provide up to four hours of battery-powered heat pump operation during peak hours. We are planning market launch later this year. Likewise, in Europe, we have been working closely with our installers to offer differentiated HEMS solutions. Our Systems Profi installers, Those qualified to sell and install complete solutions, including heat pump, battery, solar PV, domestic hot water, all connected through our digital home energy management system offering, drove their sales up double digits last year. We plan to double our number of qualified prophy installers in 2026, driving strong growth for them and us. Turning to slide seven. In our CST business, there is no better example of end-to-end solutions than what we're seeing in our container business. Four years ago, links did not exist. Today, we have over 220,000 paid link subscriptions with over 110,000 on containers, including six of the world's top 10 shipping lines. We also recently invested in NetVasa, which provides enhanced wireless IoT connectivity on cargo ships. By combining advanced AI-driven reefer health algorithms in our links applications with enhanced ship connectivity, we enable shipping customers to avoid manual checks on refrigerated units and to predict and avoid failures before they occur. This end-to-end solution is expected to help smooth the container cycles and provide meaningful recurring revenues while delivering differentiated customer value. Let me turn now to discussing some of our shorter cycle businesses, starting with CSA Resi on slide 8. Over the long term, residential remains a significant opportunity for Carrier. It is a large, replacement-driven market with secular tailwinds in electrification and heat pumps, and our leading brands, channels, and install base are unmatched and position us for outsized earnings growth as demand normalizes. In this market, we estimate demand in a typical year to be around 9 million units. Between 2020 and 2024, our industry averaged 9.7 million units for a cumulative overage, so to speak, of about 3.5 million units. Last year, we estimate our industry delivered about 7.5 million units. So we absorbed about 45% of that overage. We are assuming that we absorb the balance in 2026. Our assumption for the year is essentially no change to the macro conditions that we exited last year with. Little change to mortgage rates, consumer confidence, or new and existing home sales. That would result in total industry units down 10 to 15%. With that industry assumption, our sales would be down high single digits as we benefit from the absence of destocking in the second half of 2026 compared to 2025, combined with low single digit price realization. Turning to CSE residential on slide nine. The good news in this market is that the transition from boilers to heat pumps is underway with heat pumps growing double digits as anticipated. The bad news is that total heating the total heating market has been in a cyclical downturn for the past few years. Like the Americas, the industry has been absorbing overage that we saw in the 2022-2023 timeframe. We expect continued softness in total heating units in 2026, resulting in expected flat sales with our growth initiatives being offset by lower industry volumes. When unit volume stabilizes, we are well positioned to drive strong earnings growth given our strategic initiatives and the cost actions that we have taken in this segment. Turning to slide 10 for what this all means for our full year guidance. With respect to revenue growth, we expect that about 40% of our portfolio, commercial HVAC and aftermarket, will continue to grow double digits. Expected continued softness in our higher margin short cycle businesses, especially CSA residential and light commercial, is expected to largely offset that growth, taking the total to about 1% organic growth for the company. On the profit side, mix is expected to be a headwind somewhat offset by the cost actions that we took last year. Patrick will take you through the guidance in more detail, but we will continue to focus on controlling the controllables across all aspects of growth, cost, and productivity. We are the best positioned company in our industry when our short cycle businesses recover, which they surely will, and we are poised to see outsized grains when they in fact recover. We enter 2026 energized and focused on outgrowing our markets, delivering best-in-class solutions for our customers and driving productivity as we always do. With that, I will turn it over to Patrick.

Patrick? Thank you, Dave, and good morning, everyone. I'll provide some color on our results and then move to our 2026 outlook. Please turn to slide 11. For the quarter, reported sales were $4.8 billion, adjusted operating profit was $455 million, and adjusted EPS was $0.34. As expected, the year-over-year decline in these financial metrics was largely due to much lower volumes in our higher margin CSA residential and light commercial businesses, leading to an overall 9% decline in organic growth, partially offset by 3% tailwind from foreign currency translation. Total company orders were up over 15% in the quarter, driven by strength in CSA commercial, underscoring continued strong demand for our products in this market. Adjusted operating profit was down 33%, mainly reflecting lower organic sales and the unfavorable business mix I just referred to, as well as much lower manufacturing output, partially offset by strong productivity. The adjusted EPS decline mainly reflects lower adjusted operating profit, a lower share count, and somewhat higher interest expense and tax rate. We have included the year over year adjusted EPS bridge in the appendix on slide 21. Free cash flow in the fourth quarter of about $900 million reflected a large reduction in inventories and accounts receivable and full year free cash flow of about 2.1 billion was in line with expectations. As to full year results, you can see that our organic sales were down about 1% due to weakness in our shorter cycle businesses, which represent over 50% of our portfolio. Very strong growth in global commercial HVAC, up 14%, helped mitigate the short cycle business of sales decline. Moving on to the segments, starting with CSA on slide 12. This segment had a very difficult quarter, with organic sales down 17%. Commercial delivered another strong quarter, with sales up 12%, but this was more than offset by lower resi and light commercial sales. Resi sales were down close to 40%, with volume down over 40%, offset by regulatory mix and price. Light commercial sales declined 20%. Segment operating margin was just under 9%, a decline of about 10 points versus the prior year, reflecting the impact of lower sales and significant underabsorption in our resi manufacturing facilities, which had less than half the output compared to Q4 of last year. At year-end, field inventories for resi were down roughly 30% year-over-year, in line with our expectations, and we believe that field destocking is now substantially behind us. Similarly, light commercial distributor inventories were down 25% year-over-year. For the full year, CSA Commercial had another excellent year, with sales up over 25%. offset by resi down nine and light commercial down 20. Moving to the CSE segment on slide 13, organic sales were down 2% with commercial up mid single digits offset by mid single digits declines in resi light commercial. The residential heating market continues to be challenging in this region, particularly in Germany, which is our largest market. The transition to electrification and heat pumps is happening as reflected by growth in heat pump sales and a decline in boiler sales. Segment operating profit and margin were both up year over year on lower organic sales, reflecting the impact of cost actions. Turning to Climate Solutions Asia Pacific on slide 14. Strength in India and Australia was more than offset by ongoing weakness in resident light commercial in China leading to an overall 9% sales decline. Overall sales in China were down about 20%, with Resilient Light Commercial down about 30%, where we intentionally reduced distributor inventory during the quarter, while commercial in China was down mid single digits. Segment operating margin of about 12% was up 100 basis points, primarily driven by strong productivity offset by the impacts of lower sales. Moving to transportation on slide 15. This segment had a strong quarter with 10% organic sales growth driven by continued exceptional growth in container. Global truck and trailer was flat in the quarter, with growth in North America offset by weakness in Europe and Asia. Segment operating margins expanded by 30 basis points year over year, primarily driven by strong productivity partially offset by business mix. Turning to Q4 orders on slide 16. Total company orders were up 16% for the quarter, with strength driven by commercial HVAC globally, which was up over 45%, and particularly in CSA, where commercial orders increased 80%, reflecting some large data center wins. Applied orders within CSA commercial more than tripled compared to last year. Light commercial orders were up 70% with resi orders about flat. As you can see on the slide, orders were flat to up in every segment. Moving on to slide 17 and shifting to 2026 organic sales guidance. We expect flat to low mid single digit organic growth and reported sales of approximately $22 billion. This includes a roughly 350 million year-over-year revenue headwind from the exit of Riello, mainly reported in the CSE segment. We announced the sale in December and our guide assumes the transaction closes at the end of the first quarter. Also, as Dave mentioned earlier, our outlook reflects continued double-digit growth in commercial and aftermarket globally offset by continued expected softness in our shorter cycle businesses. In commercial HVAC globally, we expect the first half to be up low to mid single digits and the second half up mid teens, reflecting comps and customer delivery timing. This back half acceleration reflects conversion of data center wins and delivery of our broader commercial backlog. By segment, we expect CSA and CSE to be up low single digits, while CSA-ME and CST are expected to be about flat. Within CSA residential, we expect a very difficult first half followed by growth in the second half as we benefit from the absence of destocking. CSA commercial is expected to remain strong, and as I just mentioned, accelerating in the second half as we deliver more of our data center wins. Within CSE, our outlook for a flat RLC business largely reflects expected continued overall heating market weakness. Within CSAME, expected declines in China are offset by growth in the rest of the segment, and in transportation, declines in container, as 2025 was a record year, are expected to be offset by modest growth in our global truck and trailer business, as well as Sensatec. Moving on to slide 18, profit and cash guidance. Total company adjusted operating profit is expected to be about 3.4 billion. The benefit of modest organic growth and productivity including prior year overhead cost actions are partially offset by unfavorable business mix given high single digit declines in CSA resi and light commercial and investments. We expect free cash flow to be approximately $2 billion, which will be second half weighted, reflecting our normal seasonality. Finally, we intend to repurchase about one and a half billion in shares. Moving to slide 19. We expect adjusted EPS of approximately $2.80 of high single digits versus 2025. Adjusted EPS growth includes about 15 cents from increased operating profit, as I just outlined, as well as tailwinds from a lower tax rate and a lower share count, which are partially offset by higher net interest expense, NCI, and the exit of Riello. As usual, additional guide items are in the appendix on slide 23, and our guide assumes no change to the macro, including the current tariff environment. Finally, let me provide some additional color on the first quarter. As we've communicated previously, CSA Resi faces a very tough compare. We anticipate total company Q1 revenues to be about $5 billion, with organic revenue down high single digits, including CSA Resi down over 20%. We expect Q1 company operating margin to be about 10%, largely reflecting the sales and manufacturing volume pressure in our higher margin short cycle businesses. Adjusted EPS is expected to be about which includes the benefit of about a 0% effective tax rate due to a discrete tax item in the first quarter. Free cash flow is expected to be a use of a few hundred million dollars in line with our normal operating cadence. While we expect sales and EPS to be pretty well balanced between the first and second half of the year in absolute terms, the year-on-year growth in sales and EPS will obviously be second-half weighted. Overall, we will continue to drive operational excellence throughout our businesses as we return to organic growth and margin expansion and remain focused on executing in 2026. With that, I would like to ask the operator to open it up for questions.

We will now begin the question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star one again. Please pick up your handset when asking a question. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Nigel Cole with Wolf. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thanks. Good morning. Wow, what a year, huh? Thanks for all the details. I did want to maybe, Patrick, dig a little bit deeper into the 1Q, you know, sort of mix. And can you maybe talk about, you know, the CFA margins? And it looks to me, if I just, eyeball the numbers. It looks like maybe closer to 10%, maybe low double-digit margins in CSA. And number one, is that correct? And secondly, maybe just run through some of the drivers of that. So, you know, the fixed cost absorption headwinds that you're facing, you know, any kind of raw material impacts, you know, just, you know, kind of what's driving that margin and maybe the recovery path from there.

Yes, there's a lot there. I'll start with CSA expected margins in Q1. We expect them to be close to about 15% in Q1. And from an overall company point of view, the way you can think about Q1 is Q1 actually looks very similar to Q4 of 2025, but with a bit higher sales at about $5 billion and about a point higher of an operating margin point of view. In Q4, our resi sales were down about 40%, and we expect them, we expect resi sales in Q1 in the Americas to be down about 20 to 25%. And so that explains a little bit of the uptick in margin in Q1. And then in Q1, because of the 0% effective tax rate, that is about a 10 cent benefit versus Q4. So about 15 cent improvement, five points, $0.05 of that is better CSA performance, $0.10 of that is a lower tax rate.

Okay. Just the 10% overall operating margin is what threw me off there. So maybe talk about the other segments, other downside drivers in the other segments.

Yes. If I go through the other segments, the transportation segment is expected to have similar margins to the prior year. about 14%. Asia had very strong margins in the first quarter of 25. We think the margins will be similar to what we've seen in the fourth quarter of 25. So about the 10, 11% range. And Europe, we think that the margins will be similar in Q1 as they were in Q4. So generally similar margins as to what we've seen in our businesses in the fourth quarter of the year. The Americans a little bit better, less of a headwind of resi.

Okay. Thanks, Patrick.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from Julian Mitchell with Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Maybe just wanted to understand a little bit more that full year guidance for the CSA residential business. Maybe help us understand what you're seeing in the market on pricing and how you see industry discipline on the price front. And maybe help us clarify kind of how much volume, fair gain, or outperformance you're expecting this year relative to that double-digit, I think, sell-in market decline.

Yeah, Julian, let me kind of walk you through how we came up with our forecast and guidance for this year. So we're assuming at the highest level that industry conditions are the same as last year. So no improvement on interest rates, consumer confidence, newer existing home sales. We assume that the second half of 26 industry units are the same as the second half of 2025. So on a two-year stack, that would mean a 30% decline in industry units which is what we assume for the first half of 2026. So all the result there is that in the first half of this year, industry units would be down year over year by 20 to 25%. And in the second half, industry units would be flat to the second half of last year. So the full year would be down, industry units down 10 to 15%. Now, Julian, what it means for us is that we believe that the distributed inventory destocking that occurred in the second half of last year is substantially behind us. So therefore, we think that in the first half of this year, we'll be down 20%, 25% consistent with movement. And in the second half, sales will be up. Our sales will be up 10% given the absence of of last year's second half destocking so a bit complicated but what that all means is the net result of all of this is that we expect our sales and our our sales and our volume to be down high single digits year over year with our sales including about a low single digit benefit from pricing that's super helpful thanks very much maybe my

question. We've got a different topic around CSE. You had this dynamic in 2025 where decent heat pump growth offset by a boiler price and sort of mixed headwind. Just wondered what you're dialing in for that CSE RLC market for the year ahead and how you see your own internal dynamics vis-a-vis heat pump and boilers playing out?

Well, look, I think the mix-up is essentially playing out as we thought, you know. So the issue is that what we're predicting for this year, for 2026, is that the industry overall in Europe will be down mid to high single digits. Now, we guided to flat because we do get the benefit of mix-up, you know, He pumps up double digits, boilers down low to mid-single digits. We'll see aftermarket up double digits, which drops through at a point or two. And then we have our growth initiatives and our revenue synergies, which are frankly playing out well. The big issue that we've been having, frankly, is in Germany where we're, of course, overweighted. So remember, we were thinking that the German market would go from something like $715,000 to $660,000. Then we thought $640,000. And it ended up around $600,000. If you look over historically, the German market is about $800,000. So just like in the US, we do think there will be a reversion to the mean. We just don't think it happens this year given some of the continued ambiguity and uncertainty around some of the heating laws in germany great thank you thanks julian your next question comes from the line of scott davis with melius research your line is open please go ahead hey uh good morning guys morning scott morning um i'm uh

I'm looking at slide eight and I'm just trying to figure out how far below normal do you think channel inventories are in CSA resi?

Yes, Scott. As we sit here today, we ended January versus January of last year down about 32%. So we did go to great lengths with our channel partners. to end at the field inventory levels that we had, we had said, and you know, that's putting us at like 2018 type levels. So the good news is that the field inventory that we targeted to get down, we got down and we've continued to take it down, uh, here in January.

Okay. Helpful. And, uh, moving to, to more fun stuff. Data center is, um, obviously usually helpful here, but it, I don't know how far out you're booking orders, but when you think about the billion-dollar revenue numbers that you put up, 60% up orders kind of implies a billion six for 26. Is that somewhere in the ballpark? Perhaps there could be some orders in 27 and stuff. I'm sure it's not perfect, but I'm just trying to get a sense of that, how that order flows through revenues in 26.

Yeah, Scott, that's about right. What we're guiding is to $1.5 billion for this year, so you're in the ballpark. So we saw great orders last year. I mean, phenomenal orders in 4Q. January's been good. So we feel very well positioned. Now, the reality is that we have a lot more in 3Q and 4Q. We would love to see a little bit more pulled in, but right now that's when the customers that – that we've had great wins with are looking for the deliveries, but we feel really good about data centers for this year.

Okay. Helpful color. Thanks. Best of luck, guys. Appreciate it.

Thank you. Yep.

Your next call comes from the line of Joe Ritchie with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Hey, Joe. Morning, Joe. Hey, Dave, can we just talk about the inventory dynamic just a little further? So clearly you saw a pretty big reduction in your inventories queue on queue. I think it was down 17%, but the inventory levels were up year over year, about eight. And so is that a function of just building inventories for the parts of your business that are growing? Just give us any more detail on that dynamic.

Hey, Joe Patrick here. You may recall that we decided last year to keep our U.S. resi manufacturing facilities running at minimal levels because it was more economical than shutting them down for several months and then having a cold start. As a result, there is a couple hundred million more inventory on our books at the end of the year than we otherwise would. And our current guide assumes that that gets liquidated through the year. Quarter over quarter, inventory is actually dropped.

Justin Capposian- got it okay great that's that's that's helpful Patrick and then and then and then one last question, I know we were kind of being a dead horse here on the on the resi side. Justin Capposian- But this like six and a half million unit industry average I mean assuming whatever you want to assume for new new new housing starts you call it somewhere in that million a million and a half zone. Justin Capposian- really kind of assumes a replacement rate that's like north of 20 years for this year it just seems you know seems it seems conservative at first blush. Just any thoughts around, you know, if you go back even further, Dave, and you take a look at, you know, where the industry was even before that kind of 2020 timeframe, like, you know, do you really think that for the year you're going to need to flush out this much demand in order to get back to equilibrium or just trying to be conservative to start the year? Thank you.

You know, Joe, what we start with are some of those bigger picture analyses, the average with new home construction of nine, 9.7 and three and a half overage last year, seven and a half. So we kind of use that for triangulation. Then we go towards what we're seeing with boots on the ground in the marketplace. And we're seeing that what we ended last year, a lot of those macros, we did not assume that we'd wake up on January 1st and they'd all be suddenly better and different. So that's why we did the analysis that I kind of took Julian through of what we assumed in the second half. We just assume for the second half of this year, cause you know, it is a seasonal business. We can't assume sec something for the second half and apply those volumes to the first half. So we tried to be as pure as we could, um, about the analysis that, that we applied. And then we applied that to your stack to 24. So look, you know, we, uh, we've guided to down high single digits for us, the market down 10 to 15. And if things play out exactly as they did in the second half, that's about where we would end up this year. Do we hope it's better? Of course. But that's how we're planning.

That would be very helpful. Thank you. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Steve Tusa with JPMorgan Chase & Co. Your line is now open. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Good morning. How are you? Hey, Steve.

Good.

Good. Just on the resi side, I haven't done the math, but what do you think for the, you know, like, for the year now, like, movement ended at, you know, in the channel? And what are you assuming movement is for next year?

Um... Like, help me with what movement was.

Sorry, like sellout, sellout, sellout. Sorry, sellout.

Steve, movement was down about 30% in Q4.

Okay. So that's the sellout number. Okay. And then what are you guys assuming for inflation and total company price? And how are you marking the commodities? Are you marking them, like, to market today or year-end or maybe just some color on the inflation side?

Steve, in terms of pricing, Dave mentioned about low single digits, so give or take close to a point for the total company. In terms of commodities, we block on a rolling four quarters. And today, as of today, we have about a $60 million headwind related to copper, steel, and aluminum headwind for this year. And that is net of our blocking position. And that headwind is about equal across the four quarters. And we're about 50, a little over 50% blocked for the full year.

Okay. And the 1% in Rezzy as well, or is Rezzy a little higher than one?

Low single digits. So in that range. That range.

Great.

You know, we, Steve, we announced a price increase of up to, I think, five or six effective in March. And we think we'll realize in that low single digit range.

Great. Thank you.

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Andrew Kaplowitz with Citigroup. Your line is now open. Please go ahead. Good morning, everyone.

Hey, Andy.

Dave, you obviously talked about the $100 million of cost benefits expected in 26 that you actioned in 25. Maybe you could talk about how the benefits are layering in in 26. And If, for instance, CSE Residential or CSA-ME continues to drag, what can you do to protect the margin improvement you have in your guidance?

Okay, I'm going to, I want to make sure I get the question, but I'm going to walk you through the profit walk 26 versus 25. At a high level, we're targeting about $100 million of incremental operating profit. Volume mix combined is a headwind of about $100 million. We talked earlier about price, so price is about a point. If I combine that with some of the tariffs, it's about $100 million to $200 million. Productivity, including the cost actions that we have taken, is close to $400 million. You offset that with some of the inflation that I mentioned, the annual increase in merit, and then investments, and basically you get to about $100 million increase in operating profits. And then, of course, the segments each have their targets and are working on contingency plans, depending on how they perform versus their targets for the year.

It's helpful, Patrick. And Dave, maybe you can touch on the guide for CSA and the confidence level there for flat in 26. As you know, China RLC revenue was down 30% in Q4 25. You talked about destocking, but it looks like your orders bounced back a little. And maybe it's easy constant China. So give us more in common what you're seeing there versus the rest of Asia.

You know, for AME for 26, Andy, we were guiding flat. We expect China to be down about high single digits. We think RLC softness continues. We think that's down about 20 with the CHFAC business in China being up low single digits and then the rest of Asia to grow high single digits. We've been doing very well in places like India and the Middle East. Japan, those that are watching us for the last two years, Japan actually grew 8%. And frankly, when we bought that Toshiba business, very little growth with margins pretty close to zero. And by the end of this year, our EBITROS should be in the mid-teens. And last year, we grew 8%. So A lot of good work outside of China. Resi in China remains tough. We tried to take some actions in the fourth quarter to decrease the amount of inventory in the channel on the residential side. So hopefully that helps us a bit going into next year. But the macros in that Resi channel business are still tough.

Appreciate the call.

Thanks, Andy.

Your next question comes from the line of DeAndre with RBC Capital Markets. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hey, Dave. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Hey, Dave, if we just step back in terms of all the dynamics and the destocking, what's your expectation when we come into the typical cooling season? You know, there's still a sense there's some pent-up demand on the resi side and channel inventory at eight-year lows. Will there be any chance of stock outs or just, you know, sounds like the channel could be some channel inefficiencies and just kind of how are you prepared for that?

You know, it's one of the things that we put a lot of emphasis on, obviously forecasting, but also operational agility. So as we get into the season, we have our forecast. You know, we've assumed, for example, that the first quarter is down 10%. in the 20-25% range, and January was kind of consistent with what we thought was going to happen for the first quarter. As you get into the season, what we learned from last year is that things can surprise you to the upside or downside, so we just need to be ready. If we get into the season and weather is a very positive factor, we have inventory levels in the channel quite low, demand starts to pick up, We will be positioned operationally to support that, but we think we've tried to plan in a way consistent with what we've been seeing over these last six months.

All right. That's good to hear. We'll be listening to Al Roker. And then on the data center side, what are the implications on the recent comments from NVIDIA regarding chiller demand. Does that change your expectations for the mix between water and air chillers? Does it change any of the configuration, economics of the configurations that you're modeling in today?

We actually have been very, very fortunate to work very closely with NVIDIA. Frankly, earlier this week in Vegas, our team was meeting with NVIDIA. We've been working together on a number of climate optimized reference designs, and thinking very closely about the chilling requirements for their future chip, the Vera Rubin. What I would say, Dean, at the highest level is that, number one, data centers will require a combination of liquid cooling and traditional cooling. And we are confident that NVIDIA agrees with that. If you look at the Blackwell chip and the new Vera Rubin chip, they both have similar thermal profiles. They're both designed to operate up to 55 degrees C, so both need some form of cooling. The Vera Rubin chips will be more efficient and deliver a lot more output, but the input temperature will be about the same. And that power translates directly into heat, so both designs require the same amount of heat dissipation. So we're working closely with NVIDIA and, of course, our Hyperscaler and Colo customers. We're working on both liquid cooling traditional cooling, the combination through our quantum leap offering. And yes, there's going to be, depending on the customer, some prefer water cooling if you have access to more water. And then a lot of our recent wins have been on the air cooled side.

Good to hear. Thank you.

Thank you, Dean.

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Snyder with Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. I wanted to follow up on some of that conversation around speaking to the channel partners. Do you think your channel partners plan for the same level of spring purchasing that they have done in prior years? Or do you think it would maybe be a more spread out cadence throughout Q2 and Q3, you know, just given all the volatility that they've had to work through over the last 12 months? Because, you know, while channel inventories, you know, have returned to 2018 levels per some of the comments, it seems like demand could be tracking below 2018 levels. Thank you.

Yeah, Chris, I think that our channel partners are planning the year very consistent with how we're planning the year. I think after what we all saw in the second half of last year, where frankly we all got surprised by the magnitude of the decline, I think there's a reticence for anyone to get out over their skis. So everyone went to great lengths to get field inventory down, our channel partners and us working with them. We think that we're balanced, and it'll all now be a function of underlying demand as we get into the season. So I think that clearly there will be more demand as we get into the season than offseason. I think it would be a typical ramp, but off a lower base.

Thank you. I appreciate that. And then maybe if I could follow up on America's margins, I think Patrick said Q1 of about 15%. So if my math is right, it seems like you guys are calling for Q2 to Q3 to get back to that mid-20s-ish range. And obviously, that's a level that you guys have gotten to consistently in the past. But can you just maybe talk about the path to get there? Because it feels like there would still be some level of absorption headwinds, volume still down, and just continued cost inflation in the market. Thank you.

Yes, Chris. Most of the under absorption year over year this year will be in Q1 for Rezzy. And then sequentially, given the seasonal build, which there will be a seasonal build, that typically happens in the second quarter, late in the first quarter. And that is the reason, frankly, why sequentially we expect margins to improve in that mid 20s range, as you mentioned, for CSA. And so it's a combination of less headwind from under absorption as well as an improvement in sequential sales, which is typical for CSA, even though in absolute terms, organic sales will be lower than the year before.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Your next question comes from the line of Amit Medrotra with UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Thanks, operator. Hi, everybody. Dave, I just had maybe a philosophical question, and then I wanted to get a follow-up on incremental margins if I could. So first, folks sometimes never waste a good crisis. And what I mean by that is that given kind of the environment that you've had to endure, has that offered an opportunity to kind of rethink how the company approaches some of the structural costs? Is there anything that you're doing or want to do differently with respect to cost that's born from this environment of just hypercyclicality in the market?

Oh, for sure. I mean, I love the question because, as you just said, you never want to let a good crisis go to waste. So we, certainly from a cost perspective, uh we did take out which is very very difficult but the right thing to do we did have to reduce 3 000 heads last year mostly in the second half of last year we um we always look at our footprint uh and we've had to rationalize our footprint and there will be more of that uh as we go forward And then we look at our overall way of doing business. So we're using AI across our functions to drive more productivity. There's a lot of demands on our people, so it's easy to just sort of try to take out costs. The hard thing is to drive better productivity while taking out costs. So the team's done a great job embracing AI as well to drive more productivity. And then we've looked across everything. We've looked at our forecasting. We've looked at... Our whole growth process and how we look at specific campaign by campaign and introducing new products into the marketplace to ensure we win. And we've looked at product platforming. So how we can use a back office COE concept for engineering to drive product platforming. So we've made a lot of changes. Look, our formula changes. work since our spin. We got surprised in the second half of last year by some of the residential downturn. We are not pleased that we missed in the second half. It's not who we are. We plan for that never to happen again. That's not who we are as a company. And we went to great lengths to learn from that in the second half to do everything in our power to make sure it never happens again.

Great. And just a follow-up highly related to that. If I look at the decremental margins, obviously very, very high in the fourth quarter, could have implied quite high in the first quarter as well. But the counterpoint to that is high decrementals sort of also imply high incrementals. And I'd just be curious, when this thing turns, and eventually it will turn, how much cost do you think you have to bring back? And can we be looking at you know, the same type of margin just incrementally as opposed to decrementally, if you can talk about that.

Yeah, Chris, maybe a little bit about the Q4 decrementals. And if you look at the decrementals, it looks like it's a 70% decremental. It's impacted by currency. If you yank out currency, which is about $150 million in sales with no earnings, our decrementals are 50%, still really high, but not, of course, close to 70%. And the 50% of it represents or reflects sales reductions in resi and light commercial in the U.S. and the underabsorption. So as those businesses recover, which, as you said, at some point they will recover, we expect to have high incrementals. And you mentioned how much of the cost we've taken out do we have to add back. Our current guide includes about $100 million of incremental investments. Throughout this period, we continue to invest in sales resources and digital capabilities. And so I do not expect we have to add a lot of incremental costs that we've taken out this year as business improves. We will continue to increase our annual investments, but I don't see a step up after what we've done last year.

Right. Great. Wonderful. Thank you, guys. Good luck. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Joe O'Day with Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Dave, can you just take a step back and thinking about the resi cycle and six and a half million units and underlying support for nine. Just talk about the building blocks to get back to nine, the degree to which what we're seeing this year is just replacement that happened maybe sooner than it needed to in that 2020 to 24 period. What you think about in terms of repair versus replace, dragging things out a little bit in 26. But most important, you know, that path to get back to nine.

Yeah, Joe, I think it comes back to the fundamentals. You know, once you start to see the 30-year start with a five or less, you know, it's been starting in the low sixes. A little bit of tailwind on consumer confidence, a pickup in new home construction, especially on a single-family side, and existing home sales. lot of those elements once you start to see that underlying demand pick back up we should start to see a reversion to the mean of that overall nine million units uh i think in terms of repair versus replace i have no doubt that we saw an uptick in repair last year uh we don't think that that's a long-term trend and i would say for for three reasons joe number one is that the economics will almost always weigh better in favor of a replacement. A typical repair can cost $1,000. The compressor can be a few K, but it only extends the unit's life by one to three years. So in general, a consumer will be better off with a full replacement. Number two, it was particularly impacted by low sale of existing homes because it hurts you on both ends from the homeowner that's been waiting to buy a new home is a little bit reluctant to have a full replacement a year or two before they sell their home. So they may be waiting and limping along with a repair. And once they buy the home, they will often negotiate a replacement of the HVAC product as part of the full replacement. So that decrease in existing home sales has put probably more pressure on repair versus replace. But as existing home sales starts to pick up, which it eventually will, you'll get back into that replacement cycle. And the third piece I'd mention is what you typically see in an industry is with a refrigerant change, you see more repair versus replace. It takes a while for the channel to get trained on the new refrigerant. Last year, we had a canister shortage with the 454B, which impacted things a bit. then the old refrigerant eventually becomes more expensive and it's harder to access so that that it will lead to more replacement over time so we need the macros to recover we don't see repair over replace as a long-term trend and once that happens which it eventually will and we'll be ready operationally to support our customers uh the conversion on that will be quite positive

That's helpful color. And then just on CDUs, why do you win on CDUs? We hear kind of talk about a pretty fragmented competitive environment, just the degree to which for you a sale tends to be more of a system sale with a chiller and air handling. What that means for kind of margin profile of a CDU and if that's dragging things down at all, just to explain that a little bit.

Yeah, no, no margin drag at all from the CDUs. I'm really proud of the team because we looked – on the liquid cooling side, we've looked at both organic and inorganic, and we've opted for a couple of VC investments. You know, we still have a percentage of Zootercore, which has a two-phase solution. On the CDU side, we decided to produce our own. It's essentially a mini chiller. We introduced one megawatt or 1.3 megawatt last year. We've already had a really nice wind down in the southern part of the United States. We just got a handshake on a new wind earlier this week for another one in South America. So we feel good about what we've introduced organically. We have a three and a five megawatt coming out later this year. There's a lot of interest. And I think that part of it is our relationship with customers. But part of it is that bms interaction not only between traditional cooling and liquid cooling but the entire cooling cycle with our with our chip customers as well so we're really excited about what we have going on in liquid cooling quantum leap we're in the first inning but we see this as a real differentiator for us going forward thank you thank you

Your next question comes from the line of Tommy Moll with Stevens. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Morning, and thank you for taking my question. Hey, Tommy.

Morning, Tommy.

I wanted to circle back on the comments about movement. Two-part question here. Was the down 30 in fourth quarter, is that a volume number or a revenue number? And then as you think about um movement and 26 davis if i'm trying to read between the lines here i think you're essentially saying that channel inventories are pretty balanced currently and so i think the takeaway there is movement ought to track your sales pretty closely through 26 but correct me if that's not right uh it's generally right what i would say first of all tommy in 4q

Volume was down a little bit north of 40. Our sales were down in the high 30s because we got a mid-single-digit benefit from price and mix. The movement, if you think about this year, movement will generally track our sales, except in the second half, we get a bit of a benefit from the absence of destocking that happened in the second half of last year.

Okay. Thank you for that clarification.

The Q4 number we said was volume, was units. The Q4 movement is down over 30% is volume.

Yeah, okay. And just sticking with Rezi for a follow-up here, obviously there have been a lot of headwinds on the volume side. we can all make guesses as to what the drivers are, but one that hasn't been mentioned squarely that I just want to mention now is Daikin, which obviously lost a lot of market share toward the end of 2024. You were one of the clear beneficiaries of that. And so, granted, the industry demand levels are pretty poor right now, but could your volumes also not just be reflecting the fact that they've been able to take back some of that share and that's not that's not a fault of anyone's. It's just a reality that there's a mean reversion in place. And so you're going to see some of that in volume headwinds at carrier.

We don't, we don't think so, Tommy. We, we understand what you're saying that we know that there's been some changes in share in the industry over the last five years. If you look at us versus spin, we're probably up a few hundred basis points since we spun. And if you look at our share last year, I would call it flat from a movement perspective, a sellout perspective. So we saw no change in share last year. We understand there's some movement in terms of some folks that may have lost some share and picked it up. From our perspective, up a few hundred bips since we spun, and last year we held steady at that number. And we expect to hold steady at that number. If not, increase we have a bunch of new products coming out we have a new fan coil that showed a lot of there was a lot of interest in in vegas earlier this week the team's done really well with our channel partners to position us so we have no intent of losing any share while maintaining price and uh we want to ensure that we are on that track of of gaining share thank you dave i'll turn it back thanks tommy

This concludes our Q&A session. I will now turn the call back to David Gitlin for closing remarks.

Well, listen, thanks to all of you. We could not be more energized about this year. We did take the opportunity to learn from some things from last year and apply those to position us for a tremendous year in 26. So my thanks to our nearly 50,000 teammates around the world and thanks to our investors for your continued confidence.

This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.