2/18/2025

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

Good day and welcome to the Watsco Fourth Quarter 2024 and year-end earnings call. All participants will be in 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. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Albert Named, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead.

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

Good morning. This is the

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

earnings call.

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

This is Albert. He is A.J. Named, President of Watsco, Paul Justin, Barry Logan, and Rick Gomez. Now, before we start, our cautionary statement is only, this conference call has four bookie statements as defined by the C laws and regulations that are made pursuant to the State Farbork provisions of these various laws. Ultimate results may differ materially from the forward-looking statement. Now, on to the call. Watsco had a terrific, emphasis on terrific, Fourth Quarter to close out a strong year. We achieved record sales, expanded margins, improved operating efficiency, and generated record earnings and cash flow. Market conditions continued to improve, which led to a 14% growth in equipment sales and 16% growth in residential products. Our financial position is stronger than ever, and we are happy to announce today an 11% dividend increase to $12 per share. Looking forward, we are optimistic about our opportunities ahead of us. First, the transition to next-generation A2L products is well underway. The new A2L products provide the opportunity to upgrade the installed base of existing equipment to systems that are both more efficient and environmentally friendly. We estimate the transition will influence 50 to 60% of our sales. We are making investments to train our customers, leverage our technology advantage, and transition close to $1 billion in inventories to aggressively take advantage of this opportunity. Second, our technology platforms have gained momentum. Our community of active users of Watsco Mobile Apps has expanded to over 64,000 users. The commerce sales in the quarter increased 16% at pacing overall growth rates, and now represents 35% for annual sales, which is a number of $2.6 billion and under that. On call now, our digital sales platform for contractors presented approximately 313,000 proposals to homeowners, generating $1.5 million in gross merchandise value. A 25% increase. There is no question that our technology investments have contributed to our performance and provided us with immense competitive advantage. And the importance of these investments are only grown with time. Finally, we believe our strong financial position is also an important differentiator. We have the ability to invest in big opportunities to accelerate growth and gain market share. In January 2025, we completed our 70th acquisition since 1989. There are many great family businesses in our industry, and we believe all for compelling reasons for them to join forces with us. As always, and I emphasize this, our focus is on the long term. We have a great deal more to accomplish, and we welcome any of you to visit and spend time with our team in Miami to learn more. With that, let's turn the Q&A off.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then 1 on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then 2. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from David Manthe with Baird. Please go ahead.

speaker
David Manthe
Analyst at Baird

Morning, Dave. Yeah, hey, Al. Good morning. First question is with double digit unit growth in residential versus 16% reported, I guess that implies mid single digit price mix. Was A2L a driver of that uptick? And just a general update, when do you expect to be fully transitioned to the new technology? And it seems like channel feedback is 8% to 10% pricing. Is that consistent with how you're thinking about things? Let's turn to Paul Johnson for that answer.

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

Yeah, you know, in the fourth quarter, no, we really didn't have much of an impact on A2L. We were 90 plus percent, you know, on the 410A. Pricing actions, yes, 8% is what was previously announced with the tariffs coming online from the White House. It seems like there's going to be some more pricing actions from the manufacturers that are going to be announced here shortly. So we're going to start seeing more single digit price increases.

speaker
Barry Logan
Executive Officer

And Dave, on your question about the unit growth, I don't quite follow the logic of your math. And just to be super clear about the math, we saw the residential products, you know, that were up what it is for the quarter. But if I look at inside, let's just be careful with it. So unit growth, which when we say the words unit growth, it equates with how AHRI looks at equipment growth, which is unitary products, compressor bearing units. So across Watsco, all markets, that was up 16% for the quarter. And price was an additional 3%. Domestically is actually a bit stronger than that in terms of unit growth. So it is a, you know, there is some price in mix and driven also by much stronger unit growth. And as Paul said, there's a small influence, a minute influence from A2L in the quarter and greater influence as we get into 2025.

speaker
David Manthe
Analyst at Baird

Yeah, thanks for that, Barry. That's encouraging. And just one quick one, kind of on a tangent. Could you talk about Watsco Ventures ownership position in Housecall Pro? Could you scale that for us and just give us an update there? Yeah,

speaker
Rick Gomez
Executive Officer

Watsco does not have an ownership in Housecall Pro. We have a commercial relationship, which we've enjoyed with them for a very long time and have both benefited from. The flagship in Watsco Ventures portfolio is Oncall Air, which is our homegrown software in our homegrown business called Oncall Air, which helps the contractor sell at the home. And that's being used at scale now and continues to grow about $1.5 billion worth of our customer sales to their customers. Now we're powered through that platform and customers ours that are using it, they're growing faster, they're winning more deals, they're higher margin deals, they're higher ticket deals, and it's a -win-win for everybody. But to answer your original question, Watsco does not have any investment in Housecall Pro.

speaker
David Manthe
Analyst at Baird

Okay,

speaker
Rick Gomez
Executive Officer

that's great. Thank you very much.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

The next question comes from Tommy Moll with Stevens. Please go ahead.

speaker
Tommy Moll
Analyst at Stevens

Morning, Tommy. Morning, Alan. Thanks for taking my questions.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

Sure.

speaker
Tommy Moll
Analyst at Stevens

First question is if you look at your inventory position today, what's the best guess on when you've run down that 410A currently on the balance sheet and should fully transition to the new product? I mean, it'll depend on the weather and other factors, but what's a reasonable outlook there? Oh, Barry, you

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

want to take a shot at that?

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

Go ahead, Paul. Yeah. Yeah, we've been working with our subsidiaries to try to make sure that we sell through the 410A and do a reasonable transition into the A2L. And at the present time, what we're looking at is, I would say, probably the beginning of second quarter. We should be pretty much running our 410 down to almost nothing, and we should be almost fully engaged with A2L. It's not to say that we're not going to still have 410 products. We still will have 410 products probably throughout the year, but the big transition is probably going to occur in the second quarter.

speaker
Rick Gomez
Executive Officer

I would agree with that. I'll just also add, just to clarify, our position is that, whether the regulations say this specifically or there's noise around it, is that we want to be through selling and through our 410 inventory by the end of 2025, and we fully expect to do that. And that's in large part because of the scale and the power of Wasco. It's a good time to be the size that we are because our business units can help each other. There's a lot of data surrounding what's where in terms of inventory and what products need to be moved, and they can help each other out and clear out what needs to be cleared out in time. Well

speaker
Tommy Moll
Analyst at Stevens

said. Follow-up question, as you do start to run more of the A2L volumes through, it's really a two-part question. What, if any, impact should we think about in terms of the gross margin percentage there, obviously with the mixed tailwind? And then, as you execute this in the marketplace, how are you helping your customers in turn articulate the benefits of the product to the end user here? I mean, we're, we on the call are all prepared for substantial price mix increases, but at the end of the day, this occurs at the kitchen table. So how are these conversations or how are you helping your customers with these conversations as we move forward? Thanks.

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

I mean, that's what we do for no matter what the changes. That's our job. Maybe some more specifics, Paul? Yeah,

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

we

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

provide

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

extensive training to our customers to get them ready for the transition to the new refrigerant. As you know, it's got a slight flammability to it, so it has to be handled in a little bit different manner. And it's got other components that are going to be on the product that aren't on the 410. So a lot of training has gone in prior to the introduction of the product. As far as the gross profit movement, you'll see the gross profit dollars probably go up, but because it's a brand new product, you're not going to see so much the gross profit percentage move up that much to start with. It's going to be a more expensive product than the 410A product, and we expect that to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 8 to 10%.

speaker
Barry Logan
Executive Officer

Thank you, Todd. Just to add to that, obviously, the entire database of product information that we own needed to be upgraded and has been upgraded for all the new products. And how things match and fit and even down to how permits can be pulled on new product is all a digital experience now for what is, we say 35% of total Watts Go. It's probably closer to 45%, 50% of our residential business in Watts Go. So you have this digital platform that's kind of smoothing the transition into how customers actually buy the products, specify the products, match the products, add correlated products to those products, and you get the drift. So you kind of have this, I would say the last time we did this, we didn't have these tools, not on scale at least to the way that we have them. And so that's super important in this discussion. And we mentioned On-Call Air, AJ mentioned On-Call Air. For those customers signed up on that program, now those tools are actually feeding out how a consumer is going to learn and see and experience these new products. So it's very good timing. I just wish the user community of On-Call Air was 10 times the size. But it is $1.5 billion of stuff that a consumer is seeing digitally for the first time in their lives buying these products. So there is momentum and that's part of the answer. Going back to gross profit, just to add to what Paul said, it is an algebraic equation that has the benefit of higher cost for sure. And if we just apply the same margin, that's good for business, right? And of course, one of our other technologies is a pricing platform. And the intent there is to make a better margin where we can, if we can, and use the technology to inform our teams on how that's going. So that's a bit more of an abstract answer, but it's one of the opportunities we see with new pricing technology in place as well.

speaker
Tommy Moll
Analyst at Stevens

Thank you all. I'll turn it back.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

The next question comes from Jeff Hammond with KeyBank Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Morning,

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

Jeff. Hey,

speaker
Jeff Hammond
Analyst at KeyBank Capital Markets

good morning, guys. Hey, just back to fourth quarter, I mean, very strong unit growth. I'm just wondering if you can unpack, you know, what's kind of easy comps, what's kind of this supplier issue, lapping the supplier issue, and then, you know, was there any evidence that contractors were taking 410A, you know, that would have impacted the fourth quarter, and then just last, you know, any kind of change in optimism around just underlying demand?

speaker
Rick Gomez
Executive Officer

Thanks. Yeah, Jeff, this is Rick. I can take the first part of the question about, you know, just the unit trends and what we saw within the customer base. First on the comps, I think fourth quarter of last year we said we were down about four, and so when we looked at units organically over a two-year period, it's up about 12%. So it is not just a comp that's benefiting that. I think there's good underlying demand, good underlying new customer acquisition, and, you know, we think some markets here that will be evident in the data going forward. Now, the question then becomes, you know, did, was some of that demand, the contractor channel, holding more inventory than they normally do? And I'll give you a couple data points there. First, just conceptually, I think we all know the average contractor is a small business, an owner-operator, handful of trucks. They don't have 100,000 square foot facilities to store inventory. They tend not to invest in inventory and working capital because we are just, you know, we the distributor are their -in-time inventory partner. And generally they have days of inventory on hand, not months of inventory on hand. So conceptually the channel, you know, has never really had a whole lot of inventory beyond us the distributor. So secondly, when you look at our movement throughout the fourth quarter, you know, if contractors were buying, you'd say you'd see a spike in December. And what we saw was very balanced growth throughout all the fourth quarter, and October was just as strong as December, which does not, you know, would not easily lead to the conclusion that there's more inventory out there. And we then looked at our own customer level trends among our largest customers. They would be the ones who would have the capacity to buy forward and hold inventory. And there's nothing in that data that points to large-scale buying. And fourthly, just to beat the horse dead now, I think our own inventory says a lot about this question. And beyond the dollars that you see on the balance sheet, units in inventory have been very balanced and flat versus two years ago, believe it or not. So we don't see a whole lot of evidence that contractors are carrying much inventory beyond us in the channel and nothing that would cause alarm about what 2025 growth rates might look like.

speaker
Jeff Hammond
Analyst at KeyBank Capital Markets

Well, I feel

speaker
Barry Logan
Executive Officer

like beating up the dead horse some more, Jeff. We've turned it to glue. You mentioned about recovery of business from one of our OEMs who had issues a year ago. There is recovery, but that's not what's driving the growth that you see. It's a component of it, but it's not anywhere near the principal reason. And one of the principal reasons that I want to emphasize, Rick said, is new customer growth. We really have seen progress, either technology or whatever market share generation concepts we are doing. The greatest component of growth this quarter is new customers. So I want to say those words like next year and feel like we have a really progressive trend going in that direction, but we saw that this quarter for sure. And we've seen it year to date.

speaker
Jeff Hammond
Analyst at KeyBank Capital Markets

Okay. Thanks. Great color, guys. Battle sheet is in great shape. Just maybe talk about the M&A environment. It does seem like private equity has been more present in the space. Just what are you guys seeing in your pipeline, et cetera, and the ability to get stuff done?

speaker
Barry Logan
Executive Officer

David, this is the same story that you've heard for much of my career, our careers. There are still easily 50 to 100 families that own businesses that are $100 million and more. We've tried to always know the families, have a personal relationship, have now multi-generational relationships with those families. As much of them are second, third generation at this point. And I would say the stability of the last year or two, COVID you had wild increases in earnings. The question is were there wild variations in valuation or not? Now we have a couple years behind that to kind of know where things are and know where things stand. And I think it's a confidence builder for us to invest. It's reality in terms of how some of these businesses should look at their own valuation. I would say private equity seems still interested but less a factor than maybe during COVID when the valuations had run wild and there were people taking the bait in that respect. I would say it's a bit more business as usual in that respect now. But we'll see. As always, our job is to have great relationships and be there when the families want to play something out. And we feel good that there's some good activity in that respect going on today. Thanks a lot.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

The next question comes from Damien Caris with UBS. Please go ahead. Hi, Damien.

speaker
Damien Caris
Analyst at UBS

Hey, good morning, Al. Nice work in the quarter. Thank you. I guess the one area that's maybe just a little bit stagnant still is the non-equipment sales. Could you maybe give us a little bit color around what you're seeing in that area of the business?

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

I think you're seeing a couple things happening there. One, we've got a lot of that business that is driven by commodities, copper, refrigerant, steel. I think we're going to see a pop perhaps in steel and a pop in copper. Refrigerant still has been slow. When you get into the parts business, which is what it takes to actually install a unit or repair a unit in the field, we saw a definite increase. In fact, we had a double-digit increase in parts, which would indicate that there could be kind of a dual action going on in the industry right now where we've actually seen parts sales go up at the same time we're seeing equipment sales go up. Outside of the commodity portion, I would have to say we're very pleased with what we're seeing in the aftermarket right now also.

speaker
Damien Caris
Analyst at UBS

Great. That's really helpful. My follow-up, I know you guys are absolutely delighted talking about gross margins, but I wanted to kind of just hear your confidence in the past getting back to 27% or higher when that might be. I'm just curious if any of these new customers that Barry talked about driving a lot of the growth, if you expect that to have any kind of meaningful impact on your profitability as you bring some of these new customers into the mix?

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

Well, you may or may not have heard that our aspiration is a 30% growth spot

speaker
Jeff Hammond
Analyst at KeyBank Capital Markets

performance.

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

And we think we're going to add a lot of value to our customers to achieve that in product or services. So we aspire more than we presently have. And do we have a time period of that? No. But we think it's possible. And we have the tools and the means to get there probably better than anybody else. Do you want to add anything to that?

speaker
Barry Logan
Executive Officer

Yeah, I'll add something. Again, in just some depth within WatsonSCO, we have a number of business units. And like any portfolio, we have outperformers. And our outperformer business units are at or near 30 today. So it's not a pie in the sky number. It's something we see within our network that we, again, like any portfolio, we want to work towards the maturity as well as the overall capability of much higher margins. But in the near term, the short term, which is your question, obviously we had some impact this year that we described last quarter about recovery with one of our vendors. Cost us about 30 basis points this year. And we expect to recover that and hopefully expand on that in future periods. And that's the cost of doing business this year that was needed. And now we move on from that point of view. Also, the technology story that we've told on pricing and technology. And again, anyone is welcome to come down and understand this better. So it's not just a sound bite on a conference call. Anyone is welcome to come down and learn more. But the idea of a culture of improving technology to price every product we sell is still ongoing. And that's part of the long term. Short term, it's basis points. Long term, we want it to be percentage points. And product mix is another. This year a little bit of headwind, probably 20 basis points or so in the growth of our equipment versus the flatness of our non-equipment. And I want Paul to be right in his sentiments because if they grow together, that's a creative margin, certainly in the short term.

speaker
Damien Caris
Analyst at UBS

Appreciate your time. Good luck with everything.

speaker
Barry Logan
Executive Officer

Thank you.

speaker
Damien Caris
Analyst at UBS

Thank

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

you.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

The next question comes from Ryan Merkle with William Blair. Please go ahead.

speaker
Ryan Merkle
Analyst at William Blair

Hey, everyone.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

Hey, morning.

speaker
Ryan Merkle
Analyst at William Blair

Hey, I want to go back to the fourth quarter, the new customer growth, being the big driver. Why all of a sudden in the fourth quarter did you see this? And then who are these customers? Are these more tech forward contractors that appreciate your technology? Is there anything similar about these customers?

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

No.

speaker
Ryan Merkle
Analyst at William Blair

Rick,

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

go ahead. Yeah, right. I don't think they're really here by the way. I said that's Barry Jr.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

So you

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

are.

speaker
Rick Gomez
Executive Officer

The trend was not isolated to the fourth quarter. I think we saw that trend kind of build throughout the year. If you go back in time, this time last year, it was a – I'll call it a choppy sideways kind of market. Those are generally markets where we do very well in and have been good at gaining share. And so we just saw it build really throughout the year. And it really showed itself in the fourth quarter a little bit more. But the annual trend is almost exactly the same where we saw the highest amount of revenue contribution from new customers since we started measuring that metric many years ago. What do they look like? I mean, yeah, it's a good question. It's like snowflakes. They all look a little bit different. I would say that that mix is – we are well represented with the large contractor. And what we always want to do is go after that mid-tier contractor in the market. And that's where our non-equipment offering sometimes resonates even more. That's where the product depth and the diversity of what we carry in inventory matters a great deal. And it's also where our technology can be a bit of an inflection point for that contractor. We've heard this a lot. AJ can expand on it, is that what our technology does a very, very good job of is turning that 2, 3, 4 truck operation and giving them the same tools and the same sophistication than the biggest customer we have in our portfolio has. And that is a meaningful contributor over time, I think.

speaker
Barry Logan
Executive Officer

Yeah, if I add to it, just to add some depth as an example, and I'm going to be purposefully intentionally abstract to protect some of the competitive discussion that we need to be careful with. But a big part of our network historically, its DNA was large customers, large dealers, name brand dealers, people that had been part of a nucleus of large customers for a long time. To grow that business, it needed to serve the other thousands of contractors in its local markets. And when we say working with OEM partners, an example is to go to that partner and say, listen, here's part of the market that we're not addressing. And it needs to be investment and inventory, and price and programs, and inventory built to serve that market. I think that, again, without being too specific, that's an example of something that's been playing out probably over the last year or two. And we want the momentum to keep going because it's adding share, it's adding sales dollars to every location and at a nice margin level.

speaker
Ryan Merkle
Analyst at William Blair

Okay, that's helpful. And then it sounds like the improved volume growth at least is continuing into the first part of the year. And I guess my question is, in the press release you mentioned A2L, there's an incremental growth opportunity and share gain opportunity. Can you unpack what you mean by that?

speaker
Barry Logan
Executive Officer

Well, first, I think any new product offers the opportunity to create value with customers that rather than selling the same old thing year after year, every juncture like this presents opportunity. So the sales force is energized, the technology is enabled, the energy flow from this kind of change is an opportunity to do that, but it takes investment. And so that's where we think our competitive advantage lies is in making those investments and bringing that energy to this kind of transition. And so that's how I would look at it.

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

And on the pricing side, you're going to see a lift in price. The product has a higher cost. You're going to be installing an indoor and outdoor. You can't just replace the outdoor unit and not replace the indoor unit. All the safety devices for the refrigerant are on the indoor unit and have to be replaced. And they can't be field installed. So we're definitely going to see a definite uptick in revenue dollars and gross profit dollars from that.

speaker
Ryan Merkle
Analyst at William Blair

All right. Makes sense. Thanks. Pass it on. Best of luck.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

The next question comes from Jeff Sprague with Vertical Research. Please go ahead.

speaker
Jeff Sprague
Analyst at Vertical Research

Good morning, everyone. Hey, glad to hear you all. Just wonder what your final verdict, if there is one, is on the notion of pre-buy. And the reason I ask it so simplicity, right, is so simplistically is your inventories do not look unusual in any historical light. And you just made a pretty convincing case that the dealer channel is not up to their eyeballs. So when you look back at this and kind of all the ink that's been spilled on pre-buy and what it might be, do you have kind of a final view on what actually happened?

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

What actually happened? Who wants that one?

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

Sounds like

speaker
Rick Gomez
Executive Officer

a Rick question to me. Thank you, Paul. I'll take a stab at it, Jeff. I think some of the OEMs have tried to quantify this. And that math exercise I would say is more art than science. But if we take what they have quantified, and if you assume an average selling price for an outdoor unit, you get to 2 or 3% of what is 9.5, 10 million systems a year. And so the question is, did it happen somewhere in pockets maybe? Is it fundamentally anything that would alter a competitive dynamic or a growth algorithm for the year? I just don't think so.

speaker
Jeff Sprague
Analyst at Vertical Research

Yeah, interesting. That does seem to be the takeaway. And then as it relates to your own inventories, as indicated, they look pretty normal to me. But would they be mostly 410A in your reported inventories as we see it? Or there's now a balance mix there as you prepare for the new year?

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

As we indicated, our sales were overwhelmingly 410A. And our inventory was overwhelmingly 410A. And we basically have pushed out the purchase of the A2L product until the first quarter of this year and into the second quarter of this year also. But it pretty much has been 410A.

speaker
Rick Gomez
Executive Officer

Yeah, I'll say that what our goal was was for a harmonious transition from the old products to the new. And I think so far we've had pretty good success on that scale of harm's harmony.

speaker
Jeff Sprague
Analyst at Vertical Research

And it sounds like you're getting kind of a market signal from the OEMs that if tariffs happen, obviously they're going to want to push through price. Would you expect this to be sort of almost a mechanical immediate reaction, sort of day tariffs go into place, day one prices move up in concert with that?

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

You're definitely going to see a price increase with what has been already announced as far as tariffs in China. You know, most of the ductless product and a lot of the side discharge product comes from China directly. So until the manufacturers can adjust the location of the manufacturing of those products, I think you're definitely going to see an uptick in pricing.

speaker
Jeff Sprague
Analyst at Vertical Research

I was referring more to maybe Mexico risk. Any thoughts on that?

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

Mexico, we don't have a clue yet, you know, what's going to happen. If that's going to satisfy President Trump or it's not going to satisfy him is something that only he knows, I believe. So once we identify that, that obviously would be a big mover as far as what the pricing action would be if we put a 25 percent tariff

speaker
Jeff Sprague
Analyst at Vertical Research

down there. Yeah. Thanks for the remarks. Appreciate it.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

The next question comes from Brett Lindsay with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

speaker
Brett Lindsay
Analyst at Mizuho

Hey, good morning. Just one more on this price mix dynamic and specifically gross margins. So you talked about the high single digit to double digit price mix this year on new units, but also some of this additional tariff pricing. Is there any way to think about how that drops through mixed versus incremental pricing on gross margin percent for Watsco?

speaker
Barry Logan
Executive Officer

Again, I want to be very careful about this. Any kind of A2L increase that we're talking about, just the idea that any OEM makes a product that's 8 or 10 percent more cost, we then sell for 8 or 10 percent more in price. There is no gross margin kind of gift in that equation. So you have to be careful when mixing price concepts versus the margin benefit from any of those pricing. So just look at it. We said it in the press release, 50 to 60 percent of our business gets impacted by A2L. You've heard during the call that certainly more than half our business is 410A the first part of the year. So then it inverts as we get into the second half of the year. So you can blend that as you see fit across the next four quarters. The inflationary concept that Paul talked about where inflationary price increase on top of that, as that plays out, then that's where some of the gross margin benefit as well as the pricing benefit flows through. And that would affect maybe the last three quarters of the year, Paul. I'm not sure what your crystal ball tells you. But it's something that would be – it's not current state. It's something in the second quarter and the rest of the year.

speaker
Brett Lindsay
Analyst at Mizuho

Just to add one element

speaker
Rick Gomez
Executive Officer

to that

speaker
Brett Lindsay
Analyst at Mizuho

quickly

speaker
Rick Gomez
Executive Officer

is I think there's rightly a lot of focus on gross margin as it relates to this. I think the more direct and the more – or equally powerful aspect of this is that you're able to leverage your SG&A base as you do this. And so the ultimate beneficiary is probably EBIT margin at the end of the day because you have elements in SG&A that aren't really reacting to some of this in the near term. And it's probably I think a more compelling profit margin opportunity at the operating level than at the gross margin level.

speaker
Brett Lindsay
Analyst at Mizuho

Correct. Okay, got it. Yeah, I appreciate that. And then just last one from me. So there's this ongoing debate on repair versus replace. It doesn't look apparent that you've seen a big step down in replacement to repair. But anything in the parts or the component data that's ticked up at all that would maybe inform that or suggest that is the case, but does look pretty resilient. But just any thoughts there?

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

Well, we've already indicated that we saw both parts and unit sales go up double digit. So we're seeing both of them occur at the same time. We're not seeing a repair versus a replace. It's repair and replace. And will that continue throughout the year? We'll have to wait and see.

speaker
Brett Lindsay
Analyst at Mizuho

Got it. Appreciate the insight.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

Again, if you have a question, please press star then 1. Our next question comes from Steve Tusa with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

Hey, good morning. Steve Tusa. How are you, Steve?

speaker
Steve Tusa
Analyst at JPMorgan

Good. How are you? Love it when the CEO and Chairman reads the forward-looking statements. That is quite unique. So thank you for that. Just on the kind of how we're trending into this year, thanks for all the color on pre-buy, etc. Are you guys seeing anything on the refrigerant side, any volatility in price there to speak of, and how this may be trending differently than what happened with R22 to 410A?

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

Yes.

speaker
Steve Tusa
Analyst at JPMorgan

Paul,

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

you deal with that, please.

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

Yeah, we're not really seeing the price of 410 spike yet. No. We have not seen any great movement there. And that's what I indicated earlier with the issue that we're having with commodities is we're not seeing any sort of uptick. If that's what you're talking about on the 410 side, obviously when we get to 454, if any 454 is used in repair during the year, that will be a higher price than the 410.

speaker
Steve Tusa
Analyst at JPMorgan

Right. And I guess, do you think the channel is, it's my understanding that you need a little bit of aftermarket refrigerant to actually install, to charge it in the field or top that off? Are you seeing any availability or price issues there?

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

We're seeing a little bit of availability issue right now, and it has nothing to do with the refrigerant. It has to do with the containers, as far as the availability of containers, because it does take a special container to be able to handle the 454 or the 32A.

speaker
Steve Tusa
Analyst at JPMorgan

Got it. And then just on the kind of reestablishment of that supplier that had the issue last year, my understanding is that those volumes erupted pretty dramatically this quarter. So can you just maybe clarify a little bit more how much that may have helped the volume number?

speaker
Barry Logan
Executive Officer

Steve, again, it's competitive data I think, so I want to be careful with it. But that vendor in general is somewhat less than 10% of total watts go in terms of sales, product sales, that brand sale. So in context, it can only be a portion of the current quarter's growth.

speaker
Steve Tusa
Analyst at JPMorgan

Right. And then just one last one for you. You talked about how you can't just replace the outdoor unit. You've got to kind of do a full soup to nuts type of replacement here. What's the difference in the cost to the consumer for doing that relative to just the outdoor unit?

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

We haven't sold enough to really come up with a good number on that. It's going to be a higher price, obviously, because you're selling an indoor unit. You've got the indoor unit that has to have a sensor as well as a switch to be able to turn on the airflow in the event of a leak. And so you've got more cost on the indoor than you did on the 410 units. Maybe by the second quarter we'll be able to provide you with more information as far as what the delta difference is. We know it's going to be more though.

speaker
Steve Tusa
Analyst at JPMorgan

Right. And you don't think the contractor eats that, do you?

speaker
Paul Justin
CFO

No, I do not. Right. Okay.

speaker
Steve Tusa
Analyst at JPMorgan

All right. Perfect. Thanks for all the info, as usual.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Albert and Ahmed for any closing remarks.

speaker
Albert Named
Chairman and CEO

Thanks again for your interest. We look forward to a great year and we appreciate your following us and all the best. Bye-bye.

speaker
Operator
Conference Moderator

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

Disclaimer

This conference call transcript was computer generated and almost certianly contains errors. This transcript is provided for information purposes only.EarningsCall, LLC makes no representation about the accuracy of the aforementioned transcript, and you are cautioned not to place undue reliance on the information provided by the transcript.

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