Sensata Technologies Holding plc (NYSE:ST) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Operator: The next question comes from Samik Chatterjee from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

Samik Chatterjee: Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I guess if we can spend a bit of time talking about the margin guidance that you have for the 21% for FY2023. And one of the questions we’re getting this morning is, if you have visibility into reaching that margin number that has to be predicated with some level of visibility on the revenue trajectory through the year. So just wondering sort of how to think about what revenues that will be predicated on as well as what’s — I know you called out the macro environment, but what sort of impact you’re seeing on autos or fill rates from macro environment and what’s driving that sort of higher uncertainty in your business? Thank you.

Paul Vasington: I mean, I couldn’t quite hear the question.

Jeff Cote: Yes. So I think the question was around our comfort to get to the 21% margin given the market dynamic. Clearly, volume will help us achieve our 21% margin target. So we’re not giving full-year guidance, but we have management intent associated with marching toward that target over time. Volume will help either in the form of outgrowth to market, more market growth. FX tailwind versus headwind will help. And as we go into 2023, at least into the first quarter, we have a market decline and we have foreign exchange headwinds. So it’s a little bit harder to get to that incremental margin profile and so we will get there over time. The question is, at what point in time, and I think that will depend on market forces and other things that are helping associated with the tailwinds to get to that margin profile.

Jacob Sayer: Thanks, Samik for the question.

Operator: The next question comes from Matt Sheerin from Stifel. Please go ahead.

Matt Sheerin: Yes. Thanks and good morning. I wanted to ask a question on your — within Sensing Solutions, the applying to HVAC market, it looks like you’re going to be down year-over-year for the fifth quarter in a row here. I know post-pandemic, there’s been weakness there in inventory. But could you talk about visibility there? And when do you see that market bottoming?

Jeff Cote: Yes. For the first quarter, we are anticipating the — our industrial market, which is where our HVAC market lives to continue to go down as destocking occurs and other impacts associated with the real estate market and so forth, take hold. But we’ve seen a couple of quarters now a decline. And so the question will be, when does that revert to a more normal level and start to recover. It’s hard to predict because it’s the one end market where there is more channel inventory rather than our OEM focused markets. But I really feel as though the transition that’s happening associated with the — excuse me, the HVAC market associated with zero levels associated with the need for other sensing content and equipment given the change in the refrigerant, there’s lots of long-term opportunity there that we’re excited about that we’re seeing success.

In the near-term, we’re just going to have to manage through it, but the last couple of quarters for our industrial business have been down pretty dramatically.