The following is excerpted from the question-and-answer section of the transcript.
(Questions from industry analysts are provided in full, but answers are omitted - download the transcript to see the full question-and-answer session)
Question: Jingyi Zheng - UBS - Analyst
: Hi, good morning, and thank you very much for taking my question. I have two questions here. The first one is on your performance in Q4. I wonder
what was driving the double-digit strong performance in North America. And if you could give a split of how much of that was pricing versus
volume?
And second question is on your guidance. I appreciate the color by end market and the detail on pricing. I wonder if you could give some color on
what's baked into the top end and bottom end of your guidance. I just want to understand the bull case and bad case here and maybe how much
of that is dependent on the broader macro interest rate environment and the tariff development, please? Thank you.
Yeah. Okay. If we go with the first question, and I guess you take the second one, Xavier. If we go with the first question, we're very pleased with
our strong Q4 performance. And that was mainly driven by volume. Out of the 9%, 8% came from volume and 1% came from price. Generally, we're
seeing low demand in new pool, but aftermarket continues to be very strong for us. And that's where we continue gaining market share. And also,
we have very positive impact in commercial pools.
One important thing to notice is that we follow a lot our sell-through in the market and our sell-in and our sell-through are very connected as we
finish the year-end when we see our total year growing 7% and when sell-out from our customers in the mid-single digits. So we feel very good
about that. And at the end of the day, a lot of the growth came from gaining market share for us.
Yes. I'll take the second one. I mean the components of guidance as shared by Jaime, but let's get a little bit more into detail. We see positive
momentum in all regions in the year as the year has started and as we have built the guidance, in particularly around aftermarket, remodel and
commercial pool.
We have implemented some price increases, but we still remain cautious because of geopolitical and economical uncertainty. But getting into
specifics, we are expecting new build to be directionally flat. And if you go to the lower end or the higher end of the guidance, I mean, in the lower
end, clearly, we are still expecting minor decreases and the higher end is expecting some growth to the tune of, let's say, around 5%.
We expect remodel to do a little bit better than new build. And obviously, aftermarket is going to be resilient to the tune of, let's say, 1% to 2%
gains. We continue to execute on all our actions to take market share gains as well. For commercial pool, we expect to continue the positive trend
with volumes up between 2% to 5%.
And then on pricing, as we -- as I mentioned during the call, for the group, we expect 1% to 2%, which is going to be a little bit higher in North
America, low to mid-single digits and a little bit lower in Europe and rest of the world between flat to 1%.
And then also in order to build that guidance, we have counted on the contribution of the simplification program with the delivery of a little bit
north of EUR30 million to reach that total of EUR100 million, some inflation in labor and general cost to the tune of, let's say, 3%. And it's also
important, as Jaime pointed out, that we continue to invest for growth and digital and the order of magnitude of those investments are going to
be to the tune of EUR10 million to EUR15 million incremental.
As highlighted as well, the assumption for guidance is that the euro-dollar rate is around 1.04, which is what we have seen in the last, let's say, 30
days or so. And the M&A contribution expected coming from the deals is of around 1%. So all in all, guidance reflects this mid-single-digit growth
in sales, high single digit in EBITDA and high teens growth in cash EPS on the middle.
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FEBRUARY 27, 2025 / 9:00AM, FLUI.MC - Q4 2024 Fluidra SA Earnings Call
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