Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE:HOG) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Edel O’Sullivan: Yes, of course. Thank you, Robbie, for the question. Let me start by the trends that we saw in Q2, specifically in North America retail. As Jochen alluded to in his commentary, this continues to be a year that is challenging for customers in terms of inflation, rates, the overall affordability, and that certainly was a prevalent trend in Q2 as well. We also had the impact of the production suspension that — even though it was late in the quarter, there were specific bikes that we were expecting and that our customers were expecting that were disrupted, and this certainly had an impact upon our overall retail performance in the back half of June. That said, I think we’re very pleased with the overall progress on the trajectory of our core stronghold categories, both in the U.S. and internationally, we saw growth in our core Touring, Trike soft tail categories.

We are also very pleased with the reception of the CVOs, which, as you alluded to in the third part of your question, we will see come into full force in the back half of the year. These are already shipping and are already arriving in our dealerships in North America. So overall, we continue to be focused on our pillars of desirability and profitability. We are managing and monitoring inventory very closely as it comes back online post the production suspension to make sure we are prioritizing the right units, that we are ensuring that we have the tools in place to smooth out some of the lumpiness, as you can imagine, is resulting in the network, given that production suspension. We don’t have all the bikes that we want, and we don’t have all the bikes in the right place, as we’re working with our dealers to adjust that, and we’ll continue to do so in the back half of the year.

But overall, our intention — to your point around shipping and managing dealer inventory — is to ensure that we are at healthy levels of inventory. We want to protect 2024. We want to make sure that we are managing a cadence of supply that is in line with those overall objectives, and we will continue to do so as we have in the front half of the year, in the back half of the year.

Operator: Our next question comes from Fred Wightman from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Fred Wightman: Hey guys. Just one follow-up and then a separate question. I know, Jochen, in the past, you talked about full year retail being flat to slightly positive. Wondering if that’s still the case? And then the second question, can you just give an update as far as the revenue build that’s in that flat to plus 3%? How you sort of see units mix and price shaking out for the full year? Thanks.

Jochen Zeitz: Yeah, I’ll let Jonathan take the second question. Overall, it really depends on how the third quarter turns out. And that has very much a reflection of our ability to ship the right bikes to the right dealerships. And yes, as Edel just alluded to, that disruption of our production facility has sort of led to a bit of an imbalance that we need to sort out and are sorting out every day. And — but to really comment on retail trends at this point is, I think, not advisable. Yeah, so I’d like to leave it at that.

Jonathan Root: Okay. And then — thank you, Fred. So a little more information in terms of what we’re looking at from a guidance perspective. So as you touched on revenue growth of flat to 3%, our revised forecast includes wholesale unit decreases of around 1% to 3%. And then obviously, as we look, we continue to expect one to two points of mix as we focus on our profitable core business, and also one to two points of pricing as we offset a little bit of a more moderated inflationary outlook. The other piece that I’ll touch on is as we look at the P&A and A&L business, we do see those businesses continuing to grow year-over-year.