Conference Operator: Good morning, and welcome to Packer's first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All lines will be in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session. Today's call is being recorded, and if anyone has an objection, they should disconnect at this time. I would now like to introduce Mr. Ken Hastings, Packer's Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Hastings, please go ahead.
Ken Hastings: Good morning and welcome, everyone. My name is Ken Hastings, PACR's Director of Investor Relations, and joining me this morning are Preston Fite, Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Boehne, President, and Bryce Poplosky, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. As with prior conference calls, we ask that any members of the media on the line participate in a listen-only mode. Certain information presented today will be forward-looking and involve risks and uncertainties that may affect expected results. For additional information, please see our SEC filings at the Investor Relations page of PACCAR. I would now like to introduce Preston Fite.
Preston Fite: Hey, thanks, Ken. Good morning, everyone. In the first quarter, PACCAR's outstanding employees did an excellent job providing our customers highest quality trucks and transportation solutions in the industry. I really appreciate their hard work, their high performance, and dedication as we increase build rates in our factories all around the world. PACCAR achieved revenues of $6.8 billion and net income of $605 million in the first quarter. These results were generated by strong PACCAR parts and financial services results, as well as solid growth in the truck businesses. Packer Parts achieved quarterly revenues of $1.7 billion and quarterly pre-tax income of $402 million. Packer Financial had a strong quarter, achieving pre-tax income of $116 million. Looking at this year's US and Canadian truck market, we estimate it to be in a range of 230,000 to 270,000 units. The market is strengthening as driver and fleet capacity becomes limited, and customers begin to realize higher freight rates. This is somewhat moderated by fuel and other operating costs volatility. In the first quarter, Kenworth launched a new C580 heavy-duty vocational truck. This large, multi-axle model was introduced at the ConExpo trade show and is a unique, super heavy-duty truck used in severe service applications around the world. We project the 2026 European above 16 ton market size to be in a range of 280 to 320,000. DOF's premium aerodynamic trucks provide customers with the latest technology and best operating efficiency. As mentioned on the January earnings call, the DOF XF and XD electric vehicles won the International Truck of the Year 2026 honor. In the first quarter, DOF extended its EV leadership by introducing new flagship XG and XG Plus electric vehicles. In addition, the XF Electric earned another award, the 2026 Eco-Friendly Truck of the Year in Spain. This year's South American above 16-ton market, where DAF trucks are desired by customers for their durability and advanced technology, is expected to be in a range of 100,000 to 110,000 vehicles. In the first quarter, PACCAR delivered 33,100 trucks, and in the second quarter will deliver an estimated 37 to 38,000 vehicles. PACCAR's truck, parts, and other gross margins increased from 12% to 13.1% in the first quarter due to improved truck segment performance. Second quarter margins are forecast to expand to around 13.5% as global production volumes increase. We anticipate continued performance improvements in the second half of the year as our customers benefit from our local-for-local manufacturing strategy, experience better operating conditions, and purchase trucks in front of the coming 2027 submissions change. PACCAR's exceptional range of trucks, compelling parts business, industry-leading financial services, and advanced technology strategy position the company well for an excellent future. Kevin will now provide an update on Packard Parts, financial services, and other business highlights.
Kevin Boehne: Kevin? Thanks, Preston. Packard Parts achieved first quarter revenues of $1.7 billion and profits of $402 million. Gross margins were 29.6%. We estimate parts sales to grow by about 3% in the second quarter and be in the range of 3% to 6% for the full year. Packer Parts has 21 parts distribution centers worldwide and has plans to expand its global distribution network in TRP stores. As mentioned in our recent analyst day, we continue to see great opportunities for broad-based parts growth and look forward to realizing that opportunity in partnership with our outstanding dealer network. Packer Financial Services pre-tax income was a robust $116 million. The continued strong performance is a result of solid asset growth, improving margins, and a used truck market that is beginning to strengthen. This year, we're planning capital investments in the range of $725 to $775 million, and R&D expenses in the range of $450 to $500 million, as we continue to invest in key technology and innovation projects. These include advanced flexible manufacturing technologies, next generation powertrains, PACCAR's autonomous vehicle platform, and integrated connected vehicle services. We are excited for the growth PACCAR will experience in the coming quarters and years. We are now pleased to answer your questions.
Conference Operator: We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. 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 Michael Feinger of Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Michael Feinger: Thanks, everyone. Just on the parts guidance, maybe you guys can just unpack what you see in the quarter. It feels like a slower start. I'd love if we could just start there of what you're seeing the parts side, how we're looking so far through Q2, and how we should think about that in the back half. with orders starting to pick up and be better than expected?
Kevin Boehne: Yeah, Michael, this is Kevin. I'll start with the parts side. So with fleet consolidations and the higher fuel prices that's impacted, let's say, operating cost volatility, that's resulted in the parts market remaining soft. And so, as we see as customers start to get healthy, we'll talk a little bit more about the truck market side, but as customers start to get healthy, we'll see the parts market get healthier with that as well. And so, just for the four-year guidance for the 3% to 6%, we see that accelerating through the rest of the year.
Michael Feinger: And just on the, my last question, just on the gross margin, 13.5%, you know, the pickup versus 13.1% in Q1, just Should we still think that gross margins sequentially walk up through the year as build rates recover? Is there a pricing expectation that that could also get better as well, given your comments that the U.S. markets continue to strengthen? I'm just kind of curious how we should think about as you build through the year and what number we might be exiting the year as we're starting to see some strength in freight rates, even excluding fuel right now.
Preston Fite: Thank you. Hey, Michael. Thanks for the question. This is Preston. It's good to talk to you. You know, I think you talked about a few things in there that we're seeing is we do see the increasing volumes. I'm really pleased with how the factories have been able to, again, create this local for local manufacturing capability in America. We see the volumes increasing, as we said, to 37, 38,000 in the second quarter. That's on the basis of build rates that we've already put in place. So teams have done a really good job of that. And we see some of that margin growth coming from that volume. You know, partially offset a little bit by the price of energy, steel, aluminum, other raw material pricing in there. So there is that. I'm not quite sure customers have seen the full effect of tariffs yet. But we feel really good about the cadence throughout the year as the market and our customers get healthy. And we see accelerating sequentially.
Ken Hastings: Okay, Miriam, let's go to the next question.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jerry Revich of Wells Fargo. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Jerry Revich: Yes. Hi. Good morning, everyone. Hey, Jerry. Hi. I'm wondering if we could just talk about the really strong profit per truck that you folks delivered in the quarters with lower revenues. Parts contribution, you folks still exceeded the guidance ranges. It looks like your profit per truck was up to about 5,300 from 2,900 last quarter. Can we just unpack that, how much of that was better cost execution versus makes and any other moving pieces as we think about the profile heading into the rest of the year?
Preston Fite: Yeah, Jerry, thanks for the comments. I appreciate them. They're nice and well-stated. We did have price cost advantage in the quarter sequentially. So we saw ourselves up over a percent in price cost, which is good. I think the teams are doing a really good job of focusing on the market we're in. So being price careful to see if we can make sure that we get our percentage of the market. In fact, we saw that in terms of our percentage of market filled. So in the first quarter, we built 31.8% of the market, which is very favorable and a good position to be in. And so we're balancing that growth with price-cost favorability.
Jerry Revich: Super. And then as we look at the backlog, how much more favorable is price-cost based on what's in backlog versus what we saw in the first quarter?
Preston Fite: Well, we think we'll have favorability as we look forward into the second quarter. Obviously, we're looking at our volumes going up appreciably. We're really full through the second quarter, and we have good visibility into the third and the fourth quarter.
Jerry Revich: Okay, super. And just one last one, just to calibrate expectations around orders over the balance of the year, we're hearing that there's just limited number of build slots available that might hamper orders over the next couple of quarters versus underlying demand. Is that the case for your business? What proportion of your build slots are already spoken for for the next three quarters?
Preston Fite: Yeah, like I said, we're full in Q2. We're a majority full in Q3-4. I'm not sure I recognize the commentary about people not having slots. That sounds more like a marketing scheme.
Jerry Revich: Fair enough. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Tammy Zakaria of J.P. Morgan. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Tammy Zakaria: Hey, good morning. Thank you so much. My first question is on the simplified metal tariffs that went into effect in early April. Does that change your view on what would be the tariff impact, especially for aftermarket parts, versus the last time you spoke? Or is it basically doesn't, does it not change the tariff headwind that you expected?
Preston Fite: Hey Tammy, it's good to hear from you. It doesn't really have a lot of impact for us because of the truck specific 232 has specific offsets and it applies mostly to those materials. So there's some moderate impact but not significant.
Kevin Boehne: Same on the parts side, Tammy.
Tammy Zakaria: Understood, that's helpful. And just following up on what Jerry was asking, maybe I wanted to ask it in a different way. Based on third-party data, orders have been very strong year-to-date. You kept your U.S.-Canada outlook unchanged. Does this outlook include the year-to-date strength in orders, meaning do you expect orders to moderate as we go through the year and as we get close to the NOx timeline, or is your view shaped by supply chain rather than demand?
Preston Fite: I think our view is shaped by the fact that the first quarter really didn't have a high cadence to it. So if the first quarter ran at something around or a little under $200,000, then in order for it to come to the midpoint at $250,000, there's going to have to be already a rapid acceleration. And we have a great supply base, but they also need to be able to spin up their operations. So the rate of increase quarter over quarter is what probably informs the total market size.
Tammy Zakaria: Understood. Thank you.
Preston Fite: You're welcome. Have a good day.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Rob Wertheimer of Mellius. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Rob Wertheimer: Thanks. Is there any visible impact of the war in the Middle East on confidence or demand or orders in Europe?
Preston Fite: You know, what we've seen is, I think there's a really good word used, confidence and demand, Rob. And I would say that Confidence, yeah, I think people are paying attention to it and trying to discern what it might mean in the general economy, of course. I would say from a demand standpoint, we've seen less impact. We've seen continued good order intake throughout the last couple of months. So less of a show there.
Rob Wertheimer: Perfect. Thank you. If I could just ask, I mean, I think we chatted about this once, but the rise of electric trucks in China has been very sharp, and maybe for geopolitical reasons. Could you talk about your own experience, and do you see strong demand from customers? Is there a crossover on total cost of ownership yet on some size classes, models, whatever? And how do you see that shape at present? Thank you.
Preston Fite: I'll stop there.
Kevin Boehne: Kevin, why don't you share some thoughts? Yeah. So, Rob, you mentioned Europe, and so the geopolitical has had an impact on the fuel prices, and the cost of diesel is a bigger percent of the operating cost for customers in Europe. So there's been a lot more discussion about battery electric trucks in Europe. And as we said, you know, DOF just won International Truck of the Year with the DOF XF and XD Electric. They just expanded their product range. So in a really good position to address the growing customer questions and demand about battery electric trucks in Europe. And we're well positioned against the competition. We've had a lot of competitors over time, and I think we're really well positioned with a great product line.
Preston Fite: And I would say Kevin and I had a chance to drive that XD truck of the year. It's amazing. It's just a really wonderful truck to be in. So it's going to be great for our customers, and it just launched in the recent months. If you look at the U.S. market, it might inform a little bit differently. I think without subsidies... then doing widespread adoption is probably less likely. There can be markets where it makes sense. Certainly in urban environments, there could be places where EVs make sense. And we look forward to – we just launched a couple new medium-duty models for Kentworth and Peterbilt. So we have those regional delivery EVs, which is where the market makes the most sense in America.
Rob Wertheimer: Thank you. You bet.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of David Rasso of Evercore ISI. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
David Rasso: Hi, thank you. The question relates to trying to understand your operating leverage in the truck business particularly. It looks like you can back into the gross margin for truck. It must have been around 6.9, something like that in the first quarter. So sequentially, the truck revenues went up $11 million, but your gross profit went up 73. And I'm just making sure we understand, was there anything in the first quarter about you know, reversal of old tariffs that you could take the benefit with IEPA gone. I know we already had truck 232 already in, but just making sure that's a clean, you know, that's that kind of strength and gross profit growth on only 11, 11 million of revenue. I mean, I appreciate U S Canada as a percent of the shipments was a lot bigger this quarter than last quarter. So, so maybe that's part of it, but can you walk us through that gross margin?
Preston Fite: improvement in truck on really no revenue increase yeah and david you host you such a good job with your numbers and you continue to do that is you kind of get it right is that we had somewhere above seven percent for our truck margin and that came largely because the teams did a really good job selling these best-in-class products and then the leverage we got off of the volume helped us as well so the price cost advantages contributed to that Bryce, anything you'd add to that?
Bryce Poplosky: Yeah, we also had, I'll call it favorable product mix, selling more of the Kenworth and Peterbilt brand at the year end. They're more lower because of the holiday shutdown season. And then, of course, DOF at the end of the year usually has a few units that they're getting done on their fleets that they hold in inventory. So a little bit of a favorable mix effect on where we're selling the trucks as well helped us.
Ken Hastings: And we didn't record any increase for IEPA, related to IEPA.
Preston Fite: So summary of all that, David, to you is very clean quarter, nothing to put or take out of it.
David Rasso: That then begs the question for the next quarter where your truck revenue could be up, you know, call it $600 million, you know, rough numbers. You would think then the gross margin impact could be a little more significant than going up only 40 bps at the company level. And I apologize. I think maybe earlier you mentioned parts gross margins for 2Q. I don't think you call that anything particularly negative for it, but maybe I didn't hear it correctly. So again, I'm just trying to understand that impressive performance for Q to 1Q, but then 1Q to 2Q seems a lot more muted, despite this is the quarter you get a bigger revenue move.
Preston Fite: Yeah, well, let's see what the quarter is. We kind of gave you the 13.5% as our midpoint guidance for our margin look. We do see the volume being a good thing. I did mention earlier in the call that that our build percentage has increased in the market in North America. So we're at 31.8% of a build percentage. And I also see that pricing remains competitive as our customers are just beginning to experience acceleration in their end markets. So there's a competitive price point out there in the market that's contributing also. And so those are kind of the key factors that inform the second quarter.
Bryce Poplosky: Yeah, David, one other comment probably worth making. When we guided 3% growth in parts, obviously the truck volume would be much greater than 3% going up by 7,000 trucks, 6,000, 7,000 trucks. So you have a negative, if you want to call it price mix effect, it also dampens the total margin percent.
David Rasso: No, I appreciate that. Okay, thank you so much. Yep.
Preston Fite: Have a great day, David.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Chad Dillard. of Bernstein. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Chad Dillard: Hey, good morning, guys. As you think about the pre-buy likely to hit later this year, what are your plans for the number of shifts or build slots? Maybe you can compare it to where you are today or On a year on year basis, I guess, like, what I'm trying to get at is, like, how quickly could you ramp that up? Versus where you are today, if you got a little bit more visibility into the durability of demand.
Preston Fite: You know, we have great operations teams. I think they've demonstrated that not just in the past year, but over the decades. And they continue to be able to move up quickly. So I think it's more about what the supply base and order board and how quick they have visibility to it. So it's about a hiring cadence across the industry that will probably inform how quick it can go up. But I feel very confident in our team's ability to add the people and the capacity we need to support the market in any market size.
Chad Dillard: Got it. And can you talk about How industry pricing behavior has changed versus the start of the year? Are some of the non-domestic producers starting to price for tariffs?
Preston Fite: Well, I think you'd have to ask them the question of how they're thinking about their pricing scheme. They're better informed on that than we are. We do see a competitive market out there right now. We do see the fact that our customers, as I said, are just starting to see improvement. Raw material pricing is high, so there is still those things that are putting into it. But I think we're at the beginning of what feels like an acceleration, considering that the first quarter build was just under 200,000, and last year was low. So if you think about the average market being 267,000 units, there's going to be some replacement demand, and there's going to be some strengthening financial performance, and those are both going to be good for us in the near and midterm for the business.
Chad Dillard: Great. Thanks for passing on. You bet.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steve Oakman of Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Ken Hastings: If we are not able to hear you, I wonder if you're on mute.
Steve Oakman: Yes, I was just figuring out this phone thing after a few decades of use. Well, sorry about that. So I'll start again. You guys are good at managing supply chains, probably the best at that. And we have a big ramp, I guess, in the second half this year. And we're starting to hear some early signs that there might be some constraints in things like memory chips. And sometimes some people are even worried about aluminum supply. I'm just curious if there's anything on your radar that you're watching that could actually constrain us in this kind of second half build that we're all expecting.
Preston Fite: Yeah, great question, Steve. Thanks for jumping back in and taking the time with it. I think that the thing that informs right now in supply chain is really how much energy related exposure people have. to the supply of materials and what that might do to their cost as one factor. And then the second, as I said previously, is the hiring cadence of people and getting them trained up to speed in a sustainable manner for our suppliers to be ready for the ramp up and build.
Steve Oakman: Got it. Okay. So nothing specific yet standing out. And then maybe can you just comment, Preston, about the mix that you're seeing relative to vocational versus over the road, I guess, maybe in terms of how the second half is going to ramp up?
Preston Fite: It's been pretty uniform. We've seen over the road companies getting their recovery now with spot rates up double digit, maybe even up to 20%. We've seen contract rates improving. So that's helping our truckload carriers. The vocational market continues to be solid as well as the LTL. So we're seeing orders coming in from kind of all sides. as people want to make sure that they have their fleet in the right spot for the year and next year. Great. Thank you. You bet. Have a great day.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Kyle Menges of Citigroup. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Kyle Menges: Thank you. I just wanted to go back to some of the comments you made on gross margin. And it sounds like you're expecting improvement really quarter over quarter as we move throughout the rest of the year. And just I understand volume is a big piece of that. But how are you thinking about pricing momentum? And what are you seeing as we get to the second quarter and into the second half? And how do you how are you thinking about price cost as well for the rest of the year?
Preston Fite: Yeah, well, I think the year is a long way is what we typically think about for this discussion is really the next quarter. And I would say that we expect to have a price-cost favorability in the quarter. I think how that gets informed is, again, based upon what the market asks for and how raw material pricing finishes up for us. So we'll watch carefully how that raw material pricing moves through the year. Obviously, there's some volatility in the market in general, and that'll have a consequence. But we do expect to see favorability throughout the year.
Kyle Menges: helpful. And then we are getting pretty close now to the new EPA mandate. Just curious how the new engine's performing out in the market and if you guys think that it'll be ready in time. Thank you.
Preston Fite: Yeah, Kyle, thanks for that question. I think, you know, Packard's team does a great job of having the right engines for our customers. And so we are really pleased with the engine development programs that are ongoing right now, both for us and we're watching how it's going with Cummins, obviously, who's a great partner for us. We look forward to seeing how the implementation rolls through for everyone, but I feel great confidence in our teams and what we'll deliver. Thank you. You bet.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Jamie Cook of Truist Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Jamie Cook: Hi. Good morning. Congrats on a nice quarter. I guess my first question, you know, Preston, if you could talk to, as we think, you know, through the second half of the year, and I guess throughout the cycle, what the setup for PACCAR is in terms of incremental margins. I mean, last cycle you delivered above average incremental margins with a lot of the new product launches that came into the market. This cycle we have, you know, the Section 232 benefit, you know, market share opportunity. I'm just wondering how you'll balance the two. Should we think of the normalized incremental margins of like 15 to 20% or above that. And then I guess my second question, can you just talk to sort of channel inventory where PAC are sitting versus its peers and whether its peers have made any progress on destocking some of the inflated inventory in the channel? Thank you.
Preston Fite: Yeah, let's start with your inventory question, Jamie. I think if you look at our inventory, we feel like it's in very good shape. That's kind of around just under three months, 2.8 months. and that compares to 2.2 months back in December. So we've been able to get at least a little bit of inventory back into the market, which feels healthy. I think the industry overall has a higher percentage of inventory, I think over four months. So that's kind of the lay of the land from an inventory standpoint. Packrock feels like we're in really good shape there. Dealers have been able to get a few trucks on the lot and get ready to go. Obviously, inventory for us is affected by our higher percentage of vocational share. So people getting bodies put on trucks is has an influencing factor there. And then if you just think back to your first question was on margin and how we see that developing, we see margin being favorable and we see that our build percentage at 31.8% in the first quarter is good for our performance and good for our customers who get trucks for us. Being full in the second quarter means that we feel good about the position we're in.
Jamie Cook: Thank you. You bet.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steven Fisher of UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Steven Fisher: Thanks. Good morning. I just wanted to clarify your answer on the parts acceleration that you expect in the second half. And you mentioned about clients just starting to get healthier. But I think you also mentioned about fuel having an impact in Q1. So I was hoping you could just give us a little more color on what you're expecting that's going to drive the acceleration. Do you still need to see freight rates continue to rise? Do you need to see fuel costs falling? Is it just more about getting more trucks on the road? Do you need freight shipments to be picking up? Just curious kind of what will drive that acceleration.
Kevin Boehne: Yeah, you said a lot there, but it's a little bit of all of that, right? As we see the increase of the truck orders, so as more trucks are on the road and we see Our customers' business improved. We see that on the parts side. I mentioned earlier the increased fuel and the operating cost volatility because customers still focus on required maintenance. And so they have delayed their optional parts purchases. So we see both the volume as well as the mix improving, and that leads to the acceleration through the year. So we see as the truck market improves, we see the parts market follow that.
Steven Fisher: Okay, that's very helpful. And then I guess to what extent have you had any discussions with your customers about the first part of 2027 planning? And really just trying to make sure I understand how you're characterizing the expected pickup in the second half of this year, whether it's really a kind of a pre-buy or just a buy. I know it's maybe a little bit early to talk about 2027, but I guess a pre-buy implies a pull forward. So I guess it seems like it could be a relevant part of the discussion right now. Just curious how you would frame that.
Preston Fite: I like the way you framed it, Steve. I think that pre-buy versus buy, I think there's a little bit of both going on, honestly. I think that there's some buy going on because of the demand that the customers are getting healthy and want their fleet age to come back to where they want it. So that's a bit of the buy side. And I think on the pre-buy side, obviously, there's a cost impact to a 35 milligram engine. And I think they're sensitive to that. And so I think there's some of the people that are looking at putting orders in front of it. So both of those are influencing the year. Looking into 2027, I think we'll see how the year fills out and what the full year retail looks like and build looks like. And that'll probably give some information about what 27 will look like.
Kevin Boehne: Yeah, just to add is, you know, the combo of the buy versus pre-buy is the second half of the year is pretty well balanced in terms of the fill between the third and fourth quarter. If it was more weighted to a pre-buy, would see that demand towards higher at the end of the year, but we see a really nice balance in both third and fourth quarter.
Steven Fisher: That's really helpful. Thank you.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Angel Castillo of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Angel Castillo: Hey, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. Maybe I've missed this, but I wanted to go back to the EPA dynamic, I guess. Has the EPA actually formalized the low NOx emissions rule that it communicated, I guess, back at the end of last year? And does that have any bearing on the ability of the industry to ultimately launch and move forward with these engines that meet the kind of latest low NOx standard? And Likewise, I guess, any implications on the customer's ability, I guess, to move forward with any, you know, orders or potential pre-buy? Just curious if that's where we're at on that, and if we don't have any formalized kind of releases there, I guess, if you have any insights as to when we might be able to get that.
Preston Fite: I think the formalized release that they've made, Angel, is that it'll be a 35 milligram standard come 2027. That's the law, and that's the There's not any kind of modification expected to that in terms of it being a 35 milligram standard for new engines in 2027. And the parameters around that, I think, are things that they will have to contemplate or are contemplating based on customer and market feedback.
Angel Castillo: Got it. And then I wanted to go back to maybe the margin discussion. Could you, I guess, just give us the shipments number that you – or deliveries guidance you provided for 2Q? Could you give that by region, specifically how much you expect U.S. and Canada versus Europe? And then if we could kind of revisit the 13.5% gross profit margins, I get you mentioned, I think, a little bit more uplift from trucks maybe is a little bit of a mixed drag on the overall and why you don't see that kind of incremental step change in 2Q versus 1Q, but – I guess it wasn't entirely clear to me if there's any other drags beyond that that keep it from being more of a material step change quarter over quarter, just given the seasonality.
Preston Fite: Yeah, I'll just take the question in saying that we expect in Q2 volumes are up around the world pretty much in every market. We've had build rate increases everywhere, and so that's what's driving the total increase in volume. And I think we've kind of spent quite a bit of time already describing that 13.5% being volume-based improvement as well as slight price cost with still pressure on pricing in the market as tariffs maybe haven't been fully rolled through, yet also PACCAR performing really well in terms of getting share of buildup. Understood. Thank you.
Unknown: You bet.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Louis Merrick of PNB Paribas. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Louis Merrick: Yeah, good morning, everyone. Thank you for taking my questions. We've heard about customers potentially pushing back their delivery dates for trucks. I'm just wondering, are you seeing any evidence of this occurring?
Preston Fite: No, I don't recognize that in our backlog. We have not seen any of that.
Louis Merrick: Okay. And just quickly on the tariffs topic, can we get your latest understanding on when we could expect the previously announced 3.75% NSRP credit to be applied.
Preston Fite: Well, it's fairly well defined for the truck side of the 232. And so now it's about when we can apply for them and get them back, and we would expect that to be in the not distant future.
Louis Merrick: Okay. Thank you very much. I'll turn it over.
Preston Fite: You bet. Have a great day.
Conference Operator: Your next question. comes from the line of Scott Group of Wolf Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Scott Group: Hey, thanks. Good morning. So on that pre-buy versus buy sort of discussion from earlier, do you have a sense on the buy part of it? How much of that is sort of growth fleet plans, fleet growth plans, or just sort of pent-up replacement? And
Preston Fite: the extent that there's just more replacement do you think is as we start replacing more after aging the fleets does that naturally pressure some of the parts growth i think that what's going on is that you you kind of said that we're in the buy side of it there's this been a tough little run for some of our customers and now they have the opportunity hopefully where they'll be we'll see better financial performance which is enabling them to allocate capital to trucks You know, keeping their fleet at a reasonable age is good for them. And it's also good for them from an operating cost standpoint. When they're buying the Kenworth, Peterbilt, or Doff trucks, they're getting a highly efficient truck into the fleet. So they're taking out something that has lower fuel economy from the past and now has the best fuel economy possible for them. So it's a good operating performance benefit. But it's kind of a tie of their financial performance and then the truck replacement cycle that they're trying to keep up with.
Scott Group: Okay. And then maybe just lastly, orders have doubled year-to-date versus what they were doing a year ago, and you're still talking about a competitive pricing environment. Why do you think we're not seeing a bigger, faster improvement in pricing?
Preston Fite: Well, I think that the orders are sometimes around... multi-year things and there's some projections on orders. And I think orders isn't the cleanest thing to measure. I think it's probably a more clean measure to look at what's happening in the industry through build. And if you look at build, that gives you a clean indicator of where things are. So the cleanest way to look at is build and retail. If you build it, you'll retail it. Orders don't necessarily for everyone come through the same way. But with our 31.8% of build in Q1, we feel good about the position. And we do still think that there are some orders left in the second half to be had.
Scott Group: That makes sense. Thank you, guys.
Preston Fite: Great. Have a good day.
Conference Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Steve Volkman of Jefferies. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Steve Oakman: Thank you. I figured it out this time. Just a quick follow-up.
Unknown: I was going to say something to Pete and Steve.
Steve Oakman: I wanted to hit that off. Just a quick follow-up. I know you guys give sort of average prices in the 10Q. I'm just curious if you might have those available for truck and parts.
Bryce Poplosky: If not, I'll wait for the Q. For the first quarter compared to the first quarter last year, you'll see price up 2%. And you'll see our... Cost, unfortunately, is up higher than that, so that made our margins down on the truck segment. And then price on the parts side was up 6%.
Preston Fite: But I think if you look at sequentially, you'd see price was roughly flat. Cost was down sequentially for truck, more than a percent. And sequentially for parts, price was up a couple percent, and cost was only up a percent.
Steve Oakman: Super. Thank you so much.
Conference Operator: Perfect. Your next question comes from the line of Tim Thine of Raymond James. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Tim Thine: Great. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just start. My first question is just on the customer mix within the backlog and how that may or may not be influencing the truck margin. And so I'm just thinking, Preston, on the on-highway side, at least in North America, you know, you've always skewed more towards the small and mid-sized fleets, you know, perhaps not as much today as you once did, you know, years ago. But presumably that some of the whips and the fluctuations we've seen in diesel costs can sometimes hit those smaller carriers a bit harder. So I'm just curious if that's That's not the only factor, but essentially the punchline is, you know, is there a mix view within how you're filling the backlog between some of those large, you know, mega fleets versus your historical kind of bread and butter small fleet?
Preston Fite: Hey, Tim, I think that's an interesting concept. It gives me a little thought, but I don't really think that it's significant in terms of that. I think we've kind of got a broad mix of customers that are buying trucks right now. I agree with your thought that the fuel surcharges are maybe more cash impactful to the smaller customers while they affect everyone that may be more sensitive to it. But I don't think it's really informing what's going on. I think it's just that we're seeing the beginning of a market recovery. We're seeing things starting to improve for most all of our customers. They're starting to get better rates. They're starting to buy more trucks. And so I think it positions PACCAR well for the next coming period of time, for the next quarter and beyond. the year and beyond for a strengthening market and a strengthening performance.
Tim Thine: Okay. Thanks, Preston. Maybe another one relevant for, you know, this deep in the queue, but it relates to the lease and rental customers. You know, sometimes we think about them being, they can be a bit of like a canary in the coal mine when truckload markets inflect, you start to see a pull on lease and rental fleets. You know, I'm just looking at the PAC lease fleet I guess similar to what you would see in some of the big publicly traded lease rental guys has been declining quite a bit over the past few years. I'm just curious if you're starting to maybe see any change in terms of utilization or aspirations to maybe reverse that and start expanding the PAC lease fleet. Just anyways, just kind of what if any clues you're picking up from that cohort of your customer base?
Kevin Boehne: Good. We're seeing a little bit of increase in the utilization, but also another indicator would be the used truck market. And we're seeing price utilization and volume demand starting to strengthen as well. So I think between the beginnings of the increase on both of those factors is just another indication that we're starting to see the market improve. All right.
Tim Thine: Good stuff. Thank you.
Conference Operator: There are no other questions in the queue at this time. Are there any additional remarks from the company?
Ken Hastings: We'd like to thank everyone for joining the call, and thank you, Miriam.
Conference Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Packer's earnings call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
