汽車地帶 (AZO) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AutoZone's 2022 Third Quarter Earnings Release Conference Call. (Operator Instructions) Before we begin, Brian would like to read some forward-looking statements.

女士們，先生們，美好的一天，歡迎參加 AutoZone 的 2022 年第三季度收益發布電話會議。 （操作員說明）在我們開始之前，Brian 想閱讀一些前瞻性陳述。

Before we begin, please note that today's call includes forward-looking statements that are subject the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance. Please refer to this morning's press release and the company's most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a discussion of important risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. Forward-looking statements speak only as of the date made, and the company undertakes no obligation to update such statements. Today's call will also include certain non-GAAP measures. A reconciliation of non-GAAP to GAAP financial measures can be found in our press release.

在我們開始之前，請注意，今天的電話會議包括受 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》安全港條款約束的前瞻性陳述。前瞻性陳述不能保證未來的表現。請參閱今天上午的新聞稿和公司最近提交的 10-K 表格年度報告和其他提交給證券交易委員會的文件，以討論可能導致實際結果與預期大不相同的重要風險和不確定性。前瞻性陳述僅在作出之日發表，公司不承擔更新此類陳述的義務。今天的電話會議還將包括某些非公認會計原則的措施。在我們的新聞稿中可以找到非公認會計原則與公認會計原則財務指標的對賬。

Thank you. It is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Bill Rhodes, Chairman, President and CEO of AutoZone. Sir, the floor is yours.

謝謝你。現在我很高興將發言權交給您的主持人，AutoZone 董事長、總裁兼首席執行官 Bill Rhodes。先生，地板是你的。

Good morning, and thank you for joining us today for AutoZone's 2022 Third Quarter Conference Call. With me today are Jamere Jackson, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and Brian Campbell, Vice President, Treasurer, Investor Relations and Tax.

早上好，感謝您今天參加 AutoZone 的 2022 年第三季度電話會議。今天和我在一起的是執行副總裁兼首席財務官 Jamere Jackson；以及投資者關係和稅務副總裁兼財務主管 Brian Campbell。

Regarding the third quarter, I hope you've had an opportunity to read our press release and learn about the quarter's results. If not, the press release, along with slides complementing our comments today, are available on our website, www.autozone.com under the Investor Relations link. Please click on quarterly earnings conference calls to see them.

關於第三季度，我希望您有機會閱讀我們的新聞稿並了解該季度的業績。如果沒有，新聞稿以及補充我們今天評論的幻燈片可在我們的網站 www.autozone.com 的投資者關係鏈接下獲得。請點擊季度收益電話會議查看它們。

As we begin, we want to continue to stress that our highest priority remains the safety and well-being of our customers and AutoZoners, Everyone, everyone across the organization continues to take this responsibility seriously and I'm very proud of how our team continues to respond to COVID-19 and subsequent variants. While mask mandates have abated, we continue to make sure the environment our AutoZoners are working in and our customers are shopping in are as safe as possible for these times.

在開始之際，我們要繼續強調，我們的首要任務仍然是客戶和 AutoZoners 的安全和福祉，整個組織的每個人，每個人都將繼續認真對待這一責任，我為我們的團隊如何繼續前進感到非常自豪以應對 COVID-19 和後續變體。雖然口罩要求有所減少，但我們繼續確保 AutoZoners 工作環境和客戶購物環境在這些時期盡可能安全。

Since the start of the pandemic, we have consistently recognized our AutoZoners in our stores and distribution centers, especially for giving exceptional service in the face of all the challenges COVID-19 has meant for all of us. This quarter, we will start the same by, again, thanking our AutoZoners for their dedication to providing exceptional customer service, while helping our customers with their automotive needs.

自大流行開始以來，我們一直在我們的商店和配送中心認可我們的 AutoZoners，特別是在面對 COVID-19 對我們所有人意味著的所有挑戰時提供卓越的服務。本季度，我們將以同樣的方式開始，再次感謝我們的 AutoZoners 致力於提供卓越的客戶服務，同時幫助我們的客戶滿足他們的汽車需求。

This morning, we will review our overall same-store sales, DIY versus DIFM trends, our sales cadence over the 12 weeks of the quarter, merchandise categories that drove our performance and any regional discrepancies. We will also share how inflation is affecting our costs and retails, and how we think they will impact our business for the remainder of the fiscal year. Our domestic same-store sales were a solid 2.6% this quarter, on top of last year's very strong 28.9%.

今天早上，我們將回顧我們的整體同店銷售額、DIY 與 DIFM 趨勢、本季度 12 週的銷售節奏、推動我們業績的商品類別以及任何地區差異。我們還將分享通貨膨脹如何影響我們的成本和零售，以及我們認為它們將如何影響我們在本財年剩餘時間內的業務。本季度我們的國內同店銷售額在去年非常強勁的 28.9% 的基礎上穩定增長了 2.6%。

On both a 2-year and 3-year stack comp sales basis, our trends accelerated. Our team, once again, executed at an exceptionally high level and delivered amazing results despite the difficult comparisons. Our growth rates for retail and commercial were both strong, with domestic commercial growth north of 26%.

在 2 年和 3 年堆棧比較銷售的基礎上，我們的趨勢加速。儘管進行了艱難的比較，但我們的團隊再次以極高的水平執行並取得了驚人的成果。我們的零售和商業增長率均強勁，國內商業增長率超過 26%。

Commercial set a third quarter record with $1.044 billion in sales, an incredible accomplishment. We generated $216 million more in sales this quarter than in Q3 of just last year. On a trailing 4-quarter basis, our commercial sales are just under $4 billion versus $3.1 billion a year ago, up 27%. We also set a record in average weekly sales per store for any quarter at $16,600 versus $13,500 last year.

商業以 10.44 億美元的銷售額創下了第三季度的紀錄，這是一項了不起的成就。我們本季度的銷售額比去年第三季度多出 2.16 億美元。在過去 4 個季度的基礎上，我們的商業銷售額略低於 40 億美元，而一年前為 31 億美元，增長了 27%。我們還創下了每個季度每家商店的平均每週銷售額為 16,600 美元的記錄，而去年為 13,500 美元。

On a 2-year basis, our sales accelerated from last quarter. Domestic commercial sales represented 30% of our domestic auto part sales, another record for us compared to just 24.8% last year. Our commercial sales growth continues to be driven by a host of key initiatives. We've been working on for the last several years, improved satellite store availability, massive improvements in Hub and Mega-Hub coverage, the strength of the Duralast brand, better technology to make us easier to do business with, improve delivery times, enhancing our sales force effectiveness and living consistent with our pledge by being "priced right" for the value proposition we deliver. We continue to execute very well in commercial, and we are extremely proud of our team and their performance.

在 2 年的基礎上，我們的銷售額比上一季度有所增長。國內商業銷售占我們國內汽車零部件銷售的 30%，與去年的 24.8% 相比，我們再創紀錄。我們的商業銷售增長繼續受到一系列關鍵舉措的推動。過去幾年我們一直在努力，提高衛星商店的可用性，大幅改善 Hub 和 Mega-Hub 的覆蓋範圍，Duralast 品牌的實力，更好的技術讓我們更容易做生意，縮短交貨時間，增強通過為我們提供的價值主張“定價正確”，我們的銷售隊伍效率和生活與我們的承諾保持一致。我們繼續在商業方面表現出色，我們為我們的團隊及其表現感到非常自豪。

We're also very proud of our organization's performance in domestic DIY. As a reminder, it was last year's Q3 that had the massive stimulus payments that were distributed to consumers in the U.S. We ran a negative 4.5% comp this quarter on top of last year's record positive comps of 24.8%. While our DIY 2-year comp decelerated slightly from Q2's 2-year DIY comp, perhaps the more relevant comp is the DIY 3-year comp, which did accelerate. We were very proud of our DIY results considering we had such a tough comparison to last year. From the data we have available to us, we continue to not only retain the enormous share gains in dollars and units we built during the initial stages of the pandemic, but modestly build on those gains.

我們也為我們組織在國內 DIY 方面的表現感到非常自豪。提醒一下，去年第三季度向美國消費者發放了巨額刺激付款。在去年創紀錄的 24.8% 的正收益基礎上，本季度我們的收益為負 4.5%。雖然我們的 DIY 2 年比較與第二季度的 2 年 DIY 比較略有減速，但也許更相關的比較是 DIY 3 年比較，它確實加速了。考慮到我們與去年的對比如此艱難，我們為自己的 DIY 結果感到非常自豪。從我們掌握的數據來看，我們不僅繼續保留在大流行初期階段建立的以美元和單位為單位的巨大份額收益，而且還在這些收益的基礎上適度增加。

Our performance, considering the amount of time from the last stimulus and the ending of the enhanced unemployment benefits, has substantially exceeded our expectations and gives us continued conviction about the sustainability of the massive elevated sales levels we have experienced since the beginning of the pandemic.

考慮到上一次刺激措施和提高失業救濟金結束的時間，我們的表現大大超出了我們的預期，並使我們繼續堅信自大流行開始以來我們所經歷的大幅提升的銷售水平的可持續性。

Now let's focus on the sales cadence. Our quarter spans at 12-week period. Our same-store sales increased materially over the first 4 weeks, up 11.8%. Then they were down over the middle of 4 weeks by 5.2%. But remember, we were comping against the stimulus payments made during this time last year. And our same-store sales then accelerated over the last 4 weeks, up 3%. All of these year-over-year comparisons are really difficult to interpret as so much is going on last year and even the year before.

現在讓我們關註銷售節奏。我們的季度跨度為 12 週。我們的同店銷售額在前 4 周大幅增長，增長 11.8%。然後他們在 4 週的中間下降了 5.2%。但請記住，我們是在與去年這段時間支付的刺激性款項相抗衡。我們的同店銷售額在過去 4 週內加速增長，增長了 3%。所有這些逐年比較真的很難解釋，因為去年甚至前一年發生了很多事情。

For Q3, our 2-year comp was 31.5%, and the 4-week periods for the quarter increased 23.4%, 65.4% and 17%, respectively. But our 3-year comp was 30.5%, and the 4-week periods for the quarter increased 29.7%, 44.7% and 29.8%, respectively. What I want to stress is that our 2-year and 3-year comp accelerated for the quarter from Q2's 2- and 3-year comparison. We are encouraged by the sustainability of these enormous sales gains.

對於第三季度，我們的 2 年比較為 31.5%，該季度的 4 週期間分別增長了 23.4%、65.4% 和 17%。但我們的 3 年比較為 30.5%，本季度的 4 週期間分別增長了 29.7%、44.7% 和 29.8%。我想強調的是，與第二季度的 2 年和 3 年比較相比，本季度我們的 2 年和 3 年比較加速了。我們對這些巨大銷售收益的可持續性感到鼓舞。

Regarding weather, in February and March, we experienced normal weather trends across the country. April, however, was a little cooler and a little wetter than normal. Overall, we feel weather did not play a material role in our sales performance. As we look forward to the summer months, we anticipate normal weather patterns. As a reminder, historically, extreme weather, hot or cold, drives parts failure and accelerated maintenance. Regarding the quarter's traffic versus ticket growth in retail, our traffic was down roughly 8.5%, while our ticket was up 4%. Our transaction count decline was correlated to last year's Q3 meaningful 16% traffic count increase.

在天氣方面，2 月和 3 月，我們在全國范圍內經歷了正常的天氣趨勢。然而，四月比往常更涼爽、更潮濕。總體而言，我們認為天氣對我們的銷售業績沒有起到重要作用。當我們期待夏季的幾個月時，我們預計會出現正常的天氣模式。提醒一下，從歷史上看，極端天氣，無論炎熱還是寒冷，都會導致零件故障和加速維護。關於本季度的客流量與零售票的增長，我們的客流量下降了大約 8.5%，而我們的客票增長了 4%。我們的交易數量下降與去年第三季度有意義的 16% 的流量數量增加有關。

While we had expected a decline in transactions this quarter, we were pleased to exceed our beginning of the quarter assumptions on transaction count declines. We're also quite pleased with the ongoing growth in unit share we are seeing in our market share data. We're very encouraged by the sales trends we continue to experience in commercial. Most of the sales growth is coming from transaction growth from new and existing customers.

雖然我們預計本季度的交易量會下降，但我們很高興超過了季度初對交易量下降的假設。我們也對我們在市場份額數據中看到的單位份額的持續增長感到非常滿意。我們對繼續在商業領域體驗到的銷售趨勢感到非常鼓舞。大部分銷售增長來自新老客戶的交易增長。

I've visited our stores and commercial customers extensively this quarter and find it very encouraging to hear the positive comments from our customers and AutoZoners on our comprehensive offerings. The tone of our sales calls has changed meaningfully over the last few years as we continue to implement and execute our commercial acceleration strategy.

本季度我廣泛訪問了我們的商店和商業客戶，並發現聽到我們的客戶和 AutoZoners 對我們全面的產品的積極評價非常令人鼓舞。在過去幾年中，隨著我們繼續實施和執行我們的商業加速戰略，我們的銷售電話的基調發生了重大變化。

As we start our final quarter of the fiscal year, we continue to be pleased with the momentum we are seeing in both domestic businesses heading into the summer months.

當我們開始本財年的最後一個季度時，我們繼續對我們在進入夏季月份的兩個國內業務中看到的勢頭感到滿意。

During the quarter, there were some geographic regions that did better than others as there always are. This quarter, we saw a 54 basis points difference between the Northeast and Midwest compared to the balance of the country, with the Northeast and Midwest performing lower. As the Northeast and Midwest were cooler in weather in April, their sales were below last year's results. We do not believe there will be lasting effects on sales performance in the Northeast and Midwest due to the slightly cooler April weather. Heading into the fourth quarter, we continue to believe weather will have a minimal effect on summer sales.

在本季度，一些地理區域的表現一如既往地好於其他地理區域。本季度，我們看到東北部和中西部與全國其他地區相比有 54 個基點的差異，東北部和中西部的表現較低。由於 4 月份東北部和中西部地區的天氣較為涼爽，因此它們的銷售額低於去年的業績。由於 4 月天氣稍涼，我們認為不會對東北和中西部的銷售業績產生持久影響。進入第四季度，我們仍然認為天氣對夏季銷售的影響微乎其微。

Now let's move into more specifics on our performance for the quarter. Our same-store sales were up 2.6% versus last year's third quarter. Our net income was $593 million, and our EPS was $29.3 a share, increasing 9.6%. Regarding our merchandise categories in the retail business, our hard parts outperformed our sales floor categories, but there was less than a 1% difference between them. As gas prices jumped recently, our sales results in certain hard part categories performed below our plan. This is unlike the sales floor categories, which were on plan. We've been especially pleased with our growth rates in many of our categories like batteries that have successfully left very strong performance last year, and easily exceeded our planned assumptions for the quarter. We believe our hard parts business will strengthen as our customers return to driving more.

現在讓我們更詳細地了解我們本季度的表現。與去年第三季度相比，我們的同店銷售額增長了 2.6%。我們的淨收入為 5.93 億美元，每股收益為 29.3 美元，增長 9.6%。在零售業務的商品類別方面，我們的硬零件表現優於我們的銷售樓層類別，但兩者之間的差異不到 1%。隨著最近天然氣價格的上漲，我們的銷售導致某些硬零件類別的表現低於我們的計劃。這與計劃中的銷售樓層類別不同。我們對我們許多類別的增長率感到特別滿意，例如去年成功留下非常強勁表現的電池，並且輕鬆超過了我們本季度的計劃假設。我們相信，隨著我們的客戶回歸駕駛更多，我們的硬零件業務將得到加強。

Let me also address inflation and pricing. This quarter, we saw our sales increase by 7.8% from inflation, in line with the cost of goods inflation, which was up similarly at 7.2% on a like-for-like basis. We believe both numbers for the fourth quarter could be slightly higher than this past quarter's increases. As rising raw material pricing, labor and transportation costs are all impacting us and our suppliers, inflation has been prevalent in the aftermarket space. We have no way to say how long this will last, but our industry has been disciplined about pricing for decades, and we expect that to continue. It is also notable that following periods of higher inflation, our industry has historically not reduced pricing to reflect lower ultimate cost.

讓我也談談通貨膨脹和定價。本季度，我們的銷售額因通貨膨脹而增長 7.8%，與商品成本通脹一致，商品成本同比增長 7.2%。我們認為第四季度的這兩個數字可能略高於上一季度的增幅。由於原材料價格上漲、勞動力和運輸成本都在影響我們和我們的供應商，通貨膨脹在售後市場普遍存在。我們無法說這會持續多久，但我們的行業幾十年來一直在定價方面受到約束，我們預計這種情況會繼續下去。同樣值得注意的是，在經歷了較高的通貨膨脹期之後，我們的行業歷來沒有降低定價以反映較低的最終成本。

While we continue to be encouraged with the current sales environment, it remains difficult for us to forecast near to midterm sales. What I have previously said is that the past 5 quarter sales have all been consistent on both a 2-year stacked comp basis and a 3-year stacked comp basis. While it's difficult to predict absolute sales levels going forward, we are excited about our growth initiatives, our team's exceptional execution and the tremendous share gains we have achieved in both sectors. Currently, the macro environment, while uncertain, remains favorable for our industry. And even if these near-term trends fade, we believe that we are in an industry that is positioned for solid growth over the long term.

儘管我們繼續對當前的銷售環境感到鼓舞，但我們仍然難以預測接近中期的銷售情況。我之前說過的是，過去 5 個季度的銷售額在 2 年堆疊補償基礎和 3 年堆疊補償基礎上都是一致的。雖然很難預測未來的絕對銷售水平，但我們對我們的增長計劃、我們團隊的出色執行以及我們在這兩個領域取得的巨大份額收益感到興奮。目前，宏觀環境雖然不確定，但對我們的行業仍然有利。即使這些近期趨勢消退，我們相信我們所處的行業有望實現長期穩健增長。

For our fourth quarter, we expect our sales performance to be led by the continued strength in our commercial business as we continue executing on our differentiating initiatives. We will, as always, be transparent about what we are seeing, and provide color on our markets and outlook as trends emerge.

對於我們的第四季度，我們預計我們的銷售業績將由我們的商業業務的持續實力引領，因為我們將繼續執行我們的差異化計劃。我們將一如既往地對我們所看到的保持透明，並隨著趨勢的出現為我們的市場和前景提供色彩。

Before handing the call over to Jamere, I'd like to make sure the listeners know what our key business priorities are for the remainder of the fiscal year and give some color on those.

在將電話轉交給 Jamere 之前，我想確保聽眾知道我們在本財年剩餘時間內的主要業務優先事項是什麼，並對其進行說明。

First, we are focusing on our supply chain. We have 2 initiatives in place to drive improved availability. One is our expanded Hub and Mega-Hub rollouts. We believe intelligently placing more inventory in local markets will lead to our ability to continue to say yes to our customers more frequently, and, in turn, continue to drive our sales performance.

首先，我們專注於我們的供應鏈。我們有 2 項舉措來推動提高可用性。一個是我們擴展的 Hub 和 Mega-Hub 部署。我們相信，明智地在當地市場放置更多庫存將使我們能夠繼續更頻繁地對客戶說“是”，進而繼續推動我們的銷售業績。

Secondly, we are expanding our distribution center footprint. We announced opening 2 new domestic DCs and 1 additional DC in Mexico. These DCs will allow us to not only reduce drive times to stores and market service by the new DCs, but they, being larger than the previous DCs, will allow us to carry inventory that is slower turning yet in demand across the country. We previously relied on our vendor community to carry these SKUs and shipped them once ordered by our stores. Our DC strategy is focused on carrying more product in our supply chain that was not available previously. These SKUs will smartly expand our stocked inventory across all 50 states.

其次，我們正在擴大我們的配送中心足跡。我們宣佈在墨西哥開設 2 個新的國內 DC 和 1 個額外的 DC。這些配送中心不僅使我們能夠減少新配送中心的商店和市場服務的開車時間，而且它們比以前的配送中心更大，將使我們能夠在全國范圍內運送周轉較慢但需求量較大的庫存。我們以前依靠我們的供應商社區來攜帶這些 SKU，並在我們的商店訂購後發貨。我們的配送中心戰略專注於在我們的供應鏈中攜帶更多以前無法獲得的產品。這些 SKU 將巧妙地擴大我們在所有 50 個州的庫存。

And lastly, we plan on continuing to grow our Mexico business, while accelerating growth in Brazil, and we are leveraging many of the learnings we have in the U.S. to refine our offerings in Mexico and Brazil.

最後，我們計劃繼續發展我們的墨西哥業務，同時加快在巴西的增長，我們正在利用我們在美國的許多經驗來完善我們在墨西哥和巴西的產品。

Now I'll turn the call over to Jamere Jackson. Jamere?

現在我將把電話轉給 Jamere Jackson。詹姆?

Thanks, Bill. Good morning, everyone. As Bill mentioned, we had a strong third quarter, stacked on top of a remarkable third quarter last year, with 2.6% comp growth, a 2% decline in EBIT and a 9.6% increase in EPS. Our results for the first 3 quarters of the fiscal year have been incredibly strong as our growth initiatives continue to deliver great results, and the efforts of our AutoZoners in our stores and distribution centers have continued to enable us to take advantage of robust market conditions.

謝謝，比爾。大家，早安。正如比爾所說，我們第三季度表現強勁，在去年第三季度的顯著增長基礎上，實現了 2.6% 的複合增長率、2% 的息稅前利潤下降和 9.6% 的每股收益增長。我們在本財年前 3 個季度的業績非常強勁，因為我們的增長計劃繼續取得巨大成果，並且我們的 AutoZoners 在我們的商店和配送中心的努力繼續使我們能夠利用強勁的市場條件。

To start this morning, let me take a few minutes to elaborate on the specifics in our P&L for Q3. For the quarter, total sales were just under $3.9 billion, up 5.9%, and total auto parts sales, which includes our domestic Mexico and Brazil stores, were $3.8 billion, up 5.7%. Let me give a little more color on sales and our growth initiatives, starting with our commercial business for the third quarter.

從今天早上開始，讓我花幾分鐘時間詳細說明我們第三季度損益表中的細節。本季度，總銷售額略低於 39 億美元，增長 5.9%，包括我們在墨西哥和巴西國內門店在內的汽車零部件總銷售額為 38 億美元，增長 5.7%。讓我從第三季度的商業業務開始，對銷售和我們的增長計劃進行更多說明。

Our domestic DIFM sales increased 26% to over $1 billion, and were up 70.4% on a 2-year stack basis. Sales to our DIFM customers represented 27% of our total company sales and 30% of our domestic auto part sales. Our weekly sales per program were $16,600, up 23% as we averaged just over $87 million in total weekly commercial sales. Once again, growth at 26% exceeded our internal expectations and was broad-based as both national and local accounts performed very well for the quarter.

我們在國內的 DIFM 銷售額增長了 26%，超過 10 億美元，在 2 年的基礎上增長了 70.4%。對 DIFM 客戶的銷售額占公司總銷售額的 27%，佔國內汽車零部件銷售額的 30%。我們每個節目的每週銷售額為 16,600 美元，增長 23%，因為我們平均每週總商業銷售額略高於 8700 萬美元。 26% 的增長再一次超出了我們的內部預期，並且基礎廣泛，因為本季度全國和地方賬戶的表現都非常好。

Our results for the quarter represented the highest weekly sales volume for any quarter in the history of the chain. I want to reiterate that our execution on our commercial acceleration initiatives is delivering better-than-expected results as we grow share by winning new business and increasing our share of wallet with existing customers. We have a commercial program in approximately 86% of our domestic stores, which leverages our DIY infrastructure, and we're building our business with national, regional and local accounts.

我們本季度的業績代表了該連鎖店歷史上任何季度的最高週銷量。我想重申，隨著我們通過贏得新業務和增加我們在現有客戶中的錢包份額來增加份額，我們在商業加速計劃上的執行取得了好於預期的結果。我們在大約 86% 的國內商店都有商業計劃，利用我們的 DIY 基礎設施，我們正在與國家、地區和本地客戶建立業務。

This quarter, we opened 43 net new programs, finishing with 5,276 total programs. As I've said since the outset of the year, commercial growth will lead the way in FY '22, and our results in the third quarter and year-to-date reflect this dynamic. We remain confident in our strategy and execution and believe we will continue gaining share. Delivering quality parts, particularly with our Duralast brand, improved assortments, competitive pricing and providing exceptional service has enabled us to drive double-digit sales growth for the past 7 quarters. Our core initiatives are accelerating our growth, and position us well in the marketplace. And notably, our Mega-Hub strategy is driving strong performance and positioning us for an even brighter future in our commercial and retail businesses.

本季度，我們開設了 43 個淨新項目，總計 5,276 個項目。正如我自年初以來所說，商業增長將在 22 財年引領潮流，我們在第三季度和年初至今的業績反映了這種動態。我們對我們的戰略和執行仍然充滿信心，並相信我們將繼續獲得份額。交付優質零件，尤其是我們的 Duralast 品牌、改進的產品種類、有競爭力的價格和提供卓越的服務，使我們能夠在過去 7 個季度推動兩位數的銷售增長。我們的核心計劃正在加速我們的增長，並在市場上佔據有利地位。值得注意的是，我們的 Mega-Hub 戰略正在推動強勁的業績，並使我們在商業和零售業務中擁有更加光明的未來。

Let me add a little color on our progress here. As we have discussed over the last several quarters, our Mega-Hub strategy has given us tremendous momentum. We now have 67 Mega-Hub locations, and we expect to open approximately 11 more over the remainder of the fiscal year. While I mentioned a moment ago, the commercial weekly sales per program average was $16,600 per program, the 67 Mega-Hubs averaged significantly higher sales and are growing much faster than the balance of the commercial footprint.

讓我在這里為我們的進展添加一點色彩。正如我們在過去幾個季度中所討論的，我們的 Mega-Hub 戰略給了我們巨大的動力。我們現在有 67 個 Mega-Hub 地點，我們預計在本財年剩餘時間內將再開設約 11 個。雖然我剛才提到，每個節目的商業周銷售額平均為每個節目 16,600 美元，但 67 個 Mega-Hub 的平均銷售額明顯更高，並且增長速度比商業足蹟的平衡要快得多。

As a reminder, our Mega-Hubs typically carry over 100,000 SKUs and drive tremendous sales lift inside the store box as well as serve as an expanded assortment source for other stores. The expansion of coverage and parts availability continues to deliver a meaningful sales lift to both our commercial and DIY business.

提醒一下，我們的 Mega-Hubs 通常攜帶超過 100,000 個 SKU，並在商店盒子內推動巨大的銷售增長，並為其他商店提供擴展的分類來源。覆蓋範圍和零件可用性的擴大繼續為我們的商業和 DIY 業務帶來有意義的銷售提升。

This quarter, I visited one of our key markets where we're testing greater Mega-Hub density. And although it's early innings, I am thrilled with the results. What we're learning is that not only are these assets performing well individually, but the fulfillment capability for the surrounding AutoZone stores gives our customers access to thousands of additional parts and lifts the entire network. This strategy is working, and we're doubling down by raising our near-term Mega-Hub target from approximately 110 to 200 Mega-Hubs, supplemented by our new objective of a total of 300 regular hubs. Yes, we plan to have 500 total locations, with significantly higher levels of expanded parts availability and soon.

本季度，我參觀了我們正在測試更大的 Mega-Hub 密度的主要市場之一。雖然這是早期的一局，但我對結果感到興奮。我們了解到，這些資產不僅單獨表現良好，而且周邊 AutoZone 商店的履行能力使我們的客戶能夠訪問數千個額外的零件並提升整個網絡。這一戰略正在奏效，我們正在加倍努力，將近期的 Mega-Hub 目標從大約 110 個提高到 200 個 Mega-Hub，並輔之以總共 300 個常規中心的新目標。是的，我們計劃在不久的將來擁有 500 個地點，並提供更高水平的擴展零件可用性。

By leveraging sophisticated analytics, we're expanding our market reach, driving closer proximity to our customers and improving our product availability and delivery times. Our AutoZoners are excited, our customers are excited, and we're building a meaningful competitive advantage.

通過利用複雜的分析，我們正在擴大我們的市場範圍，拉近與客戶的距離，並改善我們的產品可用性和交貨時間。我們的 AutoZoners 很興奮，我們的客戶很興奮，我們正在建立有意義的競爭優勢。

On the retail side of our business, our domestic retail business was down 4.5%, but up 20.3% on a 2-year stack. The business has been remarkably resilient as we have gained and maintained significant market share since the start of the pandemic. As Bill mentioned, we saw traffic down 8.5% from last year's record traffic levels that were fueled by government stimulus. However, we also saw a 4% ticket growth as we continue to methodically raise prices in an inflationary environment.

在我們業務的零售方面，我們的國內零售業務下降了 4.5%，但在兩年內增長了 20.3%。自大流行開始以來，我們已經獲得併保持了重要的市場份額，因此該業務具有顯著的彈性。正如比爾所提到的，我們看到在政府刺激措施推動下，交通量比去年創紀錄的交通量下降了 8.5%。然而，隨著我們在通脹環境中繼續有條不紊地提高價格，我們也看到了 4% 的票價增長。

Our DIY business has continued to strengthen behind our growth initiatives in a favorable macro environment. On a macro basis, the market is experiencing a growing and aging car park and a challenging new and used car sales market for our customers, which are providing a strong tailwind for our business. Our in-stock positions, while still below historic norms, continue to improve as our supply chain and merchandising teams have made great progress in a challenging supply chain environment. We've been able to navigate supply and logistics constraints and have product available to meet our customers' needs. Our AutoZoners, who are taking care of our customers, give us a key competitive advantage that enables us to thrive in this market environment.

在有利的宏觀環境下，我們的 DIY 業務在我們的增長計劃的支持下繼續加強。從宏觀上看，市場正在經歷一個不斷增長和老化的停車場，以及對我們的客戶來說充滿挑戰的新車和二手車銷售市場，這為我們的業務提供了強大的順風。隨著我們的供應鍊和銷售團隊在充滿挑戰的供應鏈環境中取得了長足的進步，我們的庫存狀況雖然仍低於歷史標準，但仍在繼續改善。我們已經能夠駕馭供應和物流限制，並提供滿足客戶需求的產品。照顧客戶的 AutoZoners 為我們提供了關鍵的競爭優勢，使我們能夠在這個市場環境中茁壯成長。

We remain confident as the fundamentals of our DIY business remains strong, macro conditions are favorable for us, and we've had great execution by our teams.

我們仍然充滿信心，因為我們 DIY 業務的基本面依然強勁，宏觀條件對我們有利，而且我們的團隊執行力很好。

Now I'll say a few words regarding our international business. We continue to be pleased with the progress we're making in Mexico and Brazil. During the quarter, we opened 3 new stores in Mexico to finish with 673 stores, and 3 new stores in Brazil, ending with 58. And on a constant currency basis, we saw accelerated sales growth in both countries, in fact, at higher growth rates than we saw overall.

現在我將就我們的國際業務說幾句話。我們繼續對我們在墨西哥和巴西取得的進展感到滿意。本季度，我們在墨西哥開設了 3 家新店，最終達到 673 家，在巴西開設了 3 家新店，最終達到 58 家。按固定匯率計算，我們看到這兩個國家的銷售增長都在加快，實際上增長速度更高率比我們看到的整體。

We remain committed to our store opening schedules in both markets and expect both countries to be significant contributors to sales and earnings growth in the future. With 12% of our total store base now outside the U.S., and our commitment to continue expansion in a disciplined way, international growth will be an attractive and meaningful contributor to AutoZone's future growth.

我們將繼續致力於我們在這兩個市場的開店時間表，並預計這兩個國家都將成為未來銷售和盈利增長的重要貢獻者。現在，我們 12% 的總門店基礎在美國以外，並且我們致力於以有紀律的方式繼續擴張，國際增長將成為 AutoZone 未來增長的有吸引力和有意義的貢獻者。

Now let me spend a few minutes on the P&L and gross margins. For the quarter, our gross margin was down 54 basis points, driven primarily by the accelerated growth in our commercial business, where mix drove margin pressure, but increased our total gross profit dollars 4.8%, a welcome trade-off that is a net positive for our business. As Bill mentioned earlier in the call, we're continuing to see cost inflation in certain product categories, along with rising transportation and distribution center costs. We are continuing to take pricing actions to offset inflation, and consistent with prior inflationary cycles, the industry pricing remains rational.

現在讓我花幾分鐘了解損益和毛利率。本季度，我們的毛利率下降了 54 個基點，主要是由於我們的商業業務加速增長，其中混合推動了利潤率壓力，但我們的總毛利潤增加了 4.8%，這是一個值得歡迎的權衡，是一個淨正數為我們的業務。正如比爾早些時候在電話會議中提到的那樣，我們繼續看到某些產品類別的成本膨脹，以及運輸和配送中心成本的上升。我們將繼續採取定價行動來抵消通脹，並且與之前的通脹週期一致，行業定價仍然合理。

Moving to operating expenses. Our expenses were up 9.8% versus last year Q3 as SG&A, as a percentage of sales, deleveraged 114 basis points. The deleverage was driven by payroll as last year's historic DIY comp drove significant and more than appropriate leverage on SG&A, where we simply couldn't staff to the accelerated sales growth fast enough. We also continue to invest at an accelerated pace in IT to underpin our growth initiatives, and these investments will pay dividends in user experience, speed and productivity. We will continue to be disciplined on SG&A growth as we move forward and manage expenses in line with sales growth over time.

轉向運營費用。我們的費用與去年第三季度相比增長了 9.8%，因為 SG&A 佔銷售額的百分比降低了 114 個基點。去槓桿是由工資單驅動的，因為去年曆史性的 DIY 組合對 SG&A 產生了顯著且超過適當的槓桿作用，我們根本無法以足夠快的速度為加速的銷售增長配備人員。我們還將繼續加快對 IT 的投資，以支持我們的增長計劃，這些投資將在用戶體驗、速度和生產力方面帶來紅利。隨著時間的推移，我們將繼續對 SG&A 增長進行嚴格控制，並根據銷售增長管理費用。

Moving to the rest of the P&L. EBIT for the quarter was $786 million, down 2.2% versus the prior year's quarter, driven by last year's strong sales performance in DIY. Interest expense for the quarter was $41.9 million, down 7% from Q3 a year ago, although our debt outstanding at the beginning of the quarter was $6.1 million versus $5.3 billion in Q3 last year. We're planning interest in the $61 million range for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022 versus $58.1 million in last year's fourth quarter.

轉到損益表的其餘部分。本季度息稅前利潤為 7.86 億美元，較上年同期下降 2.2%，主要受去年 DIY 強勁銷售業績的推動。本季度的利息支出為 4190 萬美元，比去年第三季度下降 7%，儘管我們在本季度初的未償債務為 610 萬美元，而去年第三季度為 53 億美元。我們計劃對 2022 財年第四季度的 6100 萬美元感興趣，而去年第四季度為 5810 萬美元。

For the quarter, our tax rate was 20.3% versus 21.4% in last year's third quarter. This quarter's rate benefited 284 basis points from stock options exercised, while last year, it benefited 211 basis points. For the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022, we suggest investors model us at approximately 23.5% before any assumptions on credits due to stock option exercises.

本季度，我們的稅率為 20.3%，而去年第三季度為 21.4%。本季度的利率從行使的股票期權中受益 284 個基點，而去年則受益 211 個基點。對於 2022 財年第四季度，我們建議投資者在因股票期權行使而對信貸做出任何假設之前將我們建模為大約 23.5%。

Moving to net income and EPS. Net income for the quarter was $593 million, down [0.6%] versus last year's third quarter. Our diluted share count of 20.4 million was 9.3% lower than last year's third quarter. The combination of lower net income offset by lower share count drove earnings per share for the quarter to $29.03, up 9.6% over the prior year's third quarter.

轉向淨收入和每股收益。本季度的淨收入為 5.93 億美元，與去年第三季度相比下降了 [0.6%]。我們稀釋後的股票數量為 2040 萬股，比去年第三季度減少了 9.3%。較低的淨收入被較低的股票數量所抵消，使該季度的每股收益達到 29.03 美元，比去年第三季度增長 9.6%。

Now let me talk about our free cash flow for Q3. For the third quarter, we generated $843 million of operating cash flow and spent $161 million in capital expenditures, allowing us to generate $682 million in free cash flow. Year-to-date, we've generated $1.6 billion in free cash flow, down 13% versus the prior year. The primary reason for the decline in free cash flow versus last year is the timing of merchandise inventories and payments this year versus last year. We expect to continue being an incredibly strong free cash flow generator going forward. We remain committed to returning meaningful amounts of cash to our shareholders.

現在讓我談談我們第三季度的自由現金流。第三季度，我們產生了 8.43 億美元的運營現金流和 1.61 億美元的資本支出，使我們能夠產生 6.82 億美元的自由現金流。年初至今，我們產生了 16 億美元的自由現金流，比上一年下降了 13%。與去年相比，自由現金流下降的主要原因是今年商品庫存和付款的時間與去年相比。我們預計未來將繼續成為一個非常強大的自由現金流發生器。我們仍然致力於向股東返還大量現金。

Regarding our balance sheet, our liquidity position remains very strong and our leverage ratios remain below our historic norms. Our inventory per store was up 10.7% versus Q3 last year. Total inventory increased 13.9% over the same period last year, driven primarily by inflation and our growth initiatives. Net inventory, defined as merchandise inventories less accounts payable on a per store basis, was a negative $216,000 versus negative $167,000 last year and negative $198,000 last quarter. As a result, accounts payable, as a percent of gross inventory, finished the quarter at 127.9% versus last year's Q3 of 123.9%.

關於我們的資產負債表，我們的流動性狀況仍然非常強勁，我們的槓桿率仍然低於我們的歷史標準。與去年第三季度相比，我們每家商店的庫存增加了 10.7%。總庫存比去年同期增長 13.9%，主要受通貨膨脹和我們的增長計劃的推動。淨庫存（定義為商品庫存減去每家商店的應付賬款）為負 216,000 美元，而去年為負 167,000 美元，上一季度為負 198,000 美元。因此，應付賬款佔總庫存的百分比在本季度末為 127.9%，而去年第三季度為 123.9%。

Lastly, I'll spend a moment on capital allocation and our share repurchase program. We repurchased $900 million of AutoZone stock in the quarter. At quarter end, we had just under $2.1 billion remaining under our share buyback authorization. The strong earnings, balance sheet and powerful free cash flow we generated this year has allowed us to buy back over 8% of the shares outstanding since the beginning of the fiscal year. We've bought back over 90% of the shares outstanding of our stock since our buyback inception in 1998, while investing in our existing assets and growing our business.

最後，我將花一點時間討論資本配置和我們的股票回購計劃。我們在本季度回購了 9 億美元的 AutoZone 股票。到季度末，我們的股票回購授權僅剩不到 21 億美元。我們今年產生的強勁收益、資產負債表和強大的自由現金流使我們能夠回購自本財年初以來超過 8% 的流通股。自 1998 年開始回購以來，我們已經回購了超過 90% 的已發行股票，同時投資於我們現有的資產並發展我們的業務。

We remain committed to this disciplined capital allocation approach that will enable us to invest in the business and return meaningful amounts of cash to shareholders. We finished Q3 at 2.1x EBITDA, which is below our historical objective of 2.5x EBITDA. However, we remain committed to this objective, and we expect to return to the 2.5x target when appropriate.

我們仍然致力於這種嚴格的資本分配方法，這將使我們能夠投資於業務並向股東返還大量現金。我們以 2.1 倍 EBITDA 結束第三季度，低於我們 2.5 倍 EBITDA 的歷史目標。但是，我們仍然致力於實現這一目標，並希望在適當的時候回到 2.5 倍的目標。

To wrap up, we had another very successful quarter. We're driving long-term shareholder value by investing in our growth initiatives, driving robust earnings in cash and returning excess cash to our shareholders. Our strategy continues to work. We're growing our market share and improving our competitive positioning in a disciplined way. I continue to have tremendous confidence in our ability to drive significant and ongoing value for our shareholders. Now I'll turn it back to Bill.

最後，我們又迎來了一個非常成功的季度。我們通過投資於我們的增長計劃，推動強勁的現金收益並將多餘的現金返還給我們的股東，從而推動長期股東價值。我們的策略繼續有效。我們正在以有紀律的方式增加我們的市場份額並提高我們的競爭地位。我繼續對我們為股東帶來重大和持續價值的能力充滿信心。現在我把它轉回給比爾。

Thank you, Jamere. We had very solid results so far in fiscal '22, and we remain focused on superior execution and customer service. Our culture was built on providing exceptional service, and this is what we'll continue to define our success well into the future. And looking to the future, it is still very difficult to predict the next 6 to 12 months. But our perspective has meaningfully morphed over the last 2 quarters. On last quarter's call, we discussed how most, if not all, of the growth in sales we experienced since the start of the pandemic was sustainable. We believed our competitive positioning was materially improved, as indicated by our significant retail share gains and rapidly accelerated commercial sales growth. We believe customer behavior may have permanently changed. We continue to believe all of this today. If this holds true, it will be the fourth time, the fourth time in the last 30 years that the economy and society have been through significant shocks, leading to material acceleration in our growth in sales and profits without a corresponding decline back to prerecessionary or pre-pandemic levels.

謝謝你，傑米爾。到目前為止，我們在 22 財年取得了非常穩健的業績，我們仍然專注於卓越的執行和客戶服務。我們的文化建立在提供卓越服務的基礎上，這也是我們在未來將繼續定義成功的原因。而展望未來，未來 6 到 12 個月仍然很難預測。但我們的觀點在過去兩個季度發生了有意義的變化。在上個季度的電話會議上，我們討論了自大流行開始以來我們所經歷的大部分（如果不是全部）銷售增長是可持續的。我們相信我們的競爭地位得到了實質性的改善，這從我們顯著的零售份額增長和快速加速的商業銷售增長中可以看出。我們相信客戶的行為可能已經永久改變。我們今天仍然相信這一切。如果這是真的，這將是過去 30 年來經濟和社會第四次、第四次經歷重大衝擊，導致我們的銷售和利潤大幅加速增長，而沒有相應地回落到衰退前或大流行前的水平。

Our industry is unique, and it has a very long track record of strong performance with high return and cash flow characteristics. As we have now lapped the second anniversary of the pandemic, some of the measurements we have all used recently to measure our performance will become skewed. Remember, at the beginning of the pandemic, our sales dropped radically. Our retail sales rebounded quickly with the April 2020 stimulus, but commercials rebound lagged and took several months.

我們的行業是獨一無二的，它有著長期的強勁業績記錄，具有高回報和現金流的特點。由於我們現在已經過去了大流行的兩週年，我們最近用來衡量我們績效的一些衡量標準將會出現偏差。請記住，在大流行開始時，我們的銷售額急劇下降。在 2020 年 4 月的刺激政策下，我們的零售額迅速反彈，但商業廣告的反彈滯後並持續了幾個月。

For Q4, in light of the amazing performance in the back half of 2020, the 2-year comparison for overall comps won't be comparable. We would encourage you to migrate to studying 3-year comps to gauge our fourth quarter performance.

對於第四季度，鑑於 2020 年下半年的驚人表現，整體比較的 2 年比較將無法比較。我們會鼓勵您遷移到學習 3 年的比較來衡量我們第四季度的表現。

That said, soon, we look forward to returning to focusing solely on 1 year comparisons. We continue to be bullish on our industry and, in particular, on our own opportunities for 2022. We believe the macro backdrop is in our favor for near and long term. Our customers across the Americas, they want to get out and drive, and we are here when they need helpful advice. Our team has worked diligently and collaboratively with our suppliers. And together, they've done a very good job dealing with the enormous supply chain challenges that exist for everyone.

也就是說，很快，我們期待重新專注於一年的比較。我們繼續看好我們的行業，特別是看好我們自己在 2022 年的機遇。我們相信宏觀背景在近期和長期都對我們有利。我們遍布美洲的客戶，他們想出去開車，當他們需要有用的建議時，我們就在這裡。我們的團隊一直在努力與供應商合作。他們一起在應對每個人都面臨的巨大供應鏈挑戰方面做得非常好。

We continue to believe we are better in stock than most retailers, and I think our results obviously support that belief. I'd like to share a few other points with you.

我們仍然相信我們的庫存比大多數零售商都要好，我認為我們的結果顯然支持了這一信念。我想和你分享一些其他的觀點。

It has been a rather noisy earnings season for retailers, and I want to be clear, crystal clear about our business and the environment. First, I believe AutoZone can manage effectively through this inflationary environment. Historically, our industry has been disciplined and rational about passing along cost increases with higher retails and that is true today. Second, we feel our store staffing levels are appropriate, and we can, and we will manage expenses appropriately for either stronger or weaker sales environments.

對於零售商來說，這是一個相當嘈雜的財報季，我想對我們的業務和環境一清二楚。首先，我相信 AutoZone 可以有效地度過這個通貨膨脹的環境。從歷史上看，我們的行業在通過更高的零售額傳遞成本增加方面一直是自律和理性的，今天也是如此。其次，我們認為我們的商店人員配備水平是合適的，我們可以，並且我們將針對更強勁或更弱的銷售環境適當管理費用。

Our business and our industry has been remarkably resilient and, frankly, robust. For the remainder of fiscal '22, we are focused on further growing share, but as always, doing so on a very profitable basis. Last quarter, we announced we would begin construction on 3 new distribution centers to fuel continued growth, 2 in the U.S. and 1 in Mexico. Expected to open in fiscal '24, these new distribution centers represent a meaningful acceleration in our historic investments in DCs as during the pandemic, we've learned we need to have more excess capacity.

我們的業務和我們的行業一直非常有彈性，坦率地說，是穩健的。在 22 財年的剩餘時間裡，我們專注於進一步增加份額，但與往常一樣，這樣做是在非常有利可圖的基礎上。上個季度，我們宣布將開始建設 3 個新的配送中心以推動持續增長，其中 2 個在美國，1 個在墨西哥。這些新的配送中心預計將在 24 財年開放，代表了我們對配送中心的歷史性投資的有意義的加速，因為在大流行期間，我們了解到我們需要擁有更多的過剩產能。

Secondly, we are targeting to open 11 more new domestic Mega-Hubs in the U.S. in this quarter, Q4. These Mega-Hubs will enhance our availability and support growth in both our retail and commercial businesses. As we have mentioned many times before, our Mega-Hub strategy is at the core of materially improving our inventory availability, and our results show that they are working. For the fiscal year, we continue to expect to open more than 200 new stores throughout the Americas with notable acceleration in our Brazil business. Our fourth quarter will be a busy one from a store development standpoint. These capacity expansion investments reflect our bullishness on our industry and our own growth prospects.

其次，我們的目標是在本季度第四季度在美國再開設 11 個新的國內大型樞紐。這些巨型樞紐將提高我們的可用性並支持我們的零售和商業業務的增長。正如我們之前多次提到的，我們的 Mega-Hub 戰略是實質性提高庫存可用性的核心，我們的結果表明它們正在發揮作用。在本財年，我們繼續預計將在整個美洲開設 200 多家新店，我們的巴西業務將顯著加速。從商店發展的角度來看，我們的第四季度將是一個忙碌的季度。這些產能擴張投資反映了我們看好我們的行業和我們自身的增長前景。

We are being disciplined, yet we are being aggressive. Lastly, I want to reiterate how proud I am of our AutoZoners across the stores and distribution centers, in particular, for their commitment to servicing our customers and doing so in a very safe manner. First and foremost, our focus will be on keeping our AutoZoners and customers safe while providing our customers with their automotive needs. And secondly, we must continuously challenge ourselves during these extraordinary times to position our company for even greater future success. We know that investors will ultimately measure us by what our future cash flows look like 3 to 5 years from now, and we very much welcome that challenge.

我們正在受到紀律處分，但我們正在積極進取。最後，我想重申我為我們在商店和配送中心的 AutoZoners 感到多麼自豪，特別是他們致力於以非常安全的方式為我們的客戶提供服務。首先，我們的重點將是確保我們的 AutoZoners 和客戶的安全，同時為我們的客戶提供他們的汽車需求。其次，我們必須在這個非常時期不斷挑戰自我，為我們的公司在未來取得更大的成功做好準備。我們知道，投資者最終將通過我們未來 3 到 5 年的現金流量來衡量我們，我們非常歡迎這一挑戰。

I continue to be bullish on our industry and, in particular, on AutoZone. Now we'd like to open up the call for questions.

我繼續看好我們的行業，尤其是 AutoZone。現在我們想打開提問的電話。

(Operator Instructions) Your first question for today is coming from Bret Jordan with Jefferies.

（操作員說明）您今天的第一個問題來自 Bret Jordan 和 Jefferies。

On the Mega-Hubs, could you talk maybe about the geographic reach? You noted that the DIFM is accelerating in their markets. I mean how far can they support smaller stores geographically?

在 Mega-Hubs，你能談談地理範圍嗎？您注意到 DIFM 在他們的市場中正在加速發展。我的意思是他們可以在多大程度上支持地理上的小型商店？

Well, frankly, Bret, they're supporting smaller and smaller radius of geography today than they did before because we were getting so many of them. When we first built them, it was not uncommon for them to be supporting stores that were 2, 3, maybe even 400 miles away. A lot of times, that would be on an overnight basis. The real crux of it is, how do we get the stores that are in, call it, 30 or 40 miles away from the Mega-Hub, and how can we get them serviced 3 times a day. That's when we really performed well. But the biggest part of the Mega-Hub performance is the Mega-Hub itself. The 4 walls of the Mega-Hubs are just continuing. Every time we look at them, and every time we open some and open more, they continue to outperform our expectations. And one of the remarkable things is they're not cannibalizing close-in stores like we thought they would.

好吧，坦率地說，布雷特，他們現在支持的地理半徑比以前越來越小，因為我們得到了這麼多。當我們第一次建造它們時，它們支持 2、3 甚至 400 英里外的商店並不少見。很多時候，那將是一夜之間。真正的癥結在於，我們如何獲得距離 Mega-Hub 30 或 40 英里以外的商店，以及如何讓它們每天提供 3 次服務。那是我們真正表現出色的時候。但 Mega-Hub 性能的最大部分是 Mega-Hub 本身。 Mega-Hubs 的 4 面牆還在繼續。每次我們看它們，每次我們打開一些並打開更多時，它們都繼續超出我們的預期。值得注意的是，他們並沒有像我們想像的那樣蠶食封閉式商店。

So as we talked on the last call, remember when we first launched the Mega-Hubs, we said we would have 25 to 40. We're now in the 60s, and we're headed to 200. That just goes to show you the power of these Mega-Hubs.

所以當我們在最後一次電話會議上談到時，記得當我們第一次推出 Mega-Hubs 時，我們說我們將擁有 25 到 40 個。我們現在已經 60 年代，我們將達到 200 個。這只是向你展示這些巨型集線器的力量。

Great. And then 1 quick follow-up. You noted some impact on hard parts maybe correlated to higher fuel prices year-to-date. Are you seeing any trade down, whether it be in the Do-It-For-Me or the DIY space, given what's going on in inflationary to the consumer?

偉大的。然後 1 次快速跟進。您注意到對硬零件的一些影響可能與年初至今較高的燃油價格有關。考慮到消費者的通脹情況，您是否看到任何交易下降，無論是在 Do-It-For-Me 還是 DIY 領域？

Sure. Yes. We're hearing a lot of questions about what's going on with the low-end consumer, are people trading down? Our hard parts business, I don't want to overstate that. I mean, I think I said it was off about 1% during that. It is very difficult right now to get clarity on the comparisons. Let's remember -- some people are talking about weather. We're saying we don't think weather was a meaningful impact on our business. What was meaningful was, we went up against stimulus from March of last year that lasted for 4 to 6 weeks. That is really the story. And so it's hard to say the low-end consumer, sure their purchases are down versus last year, of course, they are. They had a massive amount of stimulus in their pocket. I think it will be interesting to see what happens over the fourth quarter. Are we watching what happens with the low-end consumer? Absolutely.

當然。是的。我們聽到很多關於低端消費者的問題，人們是否在交易？我們的硬零件業務，我不想誇大其詞。我的意思是，我想我說在那期間它下降了大約 1%。現在很難弄清楚這些比較。讓我們記住——有些人在談論天氣。我們是說我們認為天氣不會對我們的業務產生有意義的影響。有意義的是，我們從去年 3 月開始反對持續 4 到 6 週的刺激措施。這真的是故事。所以很難說低端消費者肯定他們的購買量比去年有所下降，當然，他們確實如此。他們的口袋裡有大量的刺激物。我認為看看第四季度會發生什麼會很有趣。我們是否正在關注低端消費者的情況？絕對地。

But I also want to remind you the comment that I made at the end. If you think about the -- over the last 30 years, there's been 4 significant shocks to the economy. In all 4 of those shocks, our performance and our industry's performance has made a meaningful step up during those shocks, recessions and pandemics that our business has gone up, and it's never stepped back down.

但我也想提醒你我最後發表的評論。如果你想想——在過去的 30 年裡，經濟受到了 4 次重大衝擊。在所有這 4 次沖擊中，我們的業績和我們行業的業績在那些衝擊、衰退和大流行期間取得了有意義的進步，我們的業務已經上升，而且從未退縮。

Your next question for today is coming from Christopher Horvers with JPMorgan.

您今天的下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Christopher Horvers。

So a few questions on the gross margin front. As you look ahead, there are some headwinds that seem to be emerging on the fuel side. How do you think about pricing and fuel cost pressures in terms of product pricing? And then your success in commercial obviously has some expense on gross margin rate. So given those 2 factors, would you think that gross margin continues to see the type of year-over-year headwinds that you saw in the current quarter and the past couple of quarters?

所以有幾個關於毛利率的問題。展望未來，燃料方面似乎出現了一些不利因素。您如何看待產品定價方面的定價和燃料成本壓力？然後你在商業上的成功顯然會在毛利率上付出一些代價。因此，鑑於這兩個因素，您是否認為毛利率會繼續出現您在本季度和過去幾個季度看到的同比逆風類型？

Yes. On the first part of your question, I mean, there's no question, we're seeing cost inflation in certain categories. We're also seeing higher transportation costs. We're seeing higher fuel costs. However, as we reiterated on the call, the industry pricing is rational, and we're actually pricing to recover all of those inflationary impacts, just as we've done in the past. So you've seen us move retail prices up. As inflation has moved up mid-single digits, our pricing has moved. I think our entire industry has done that. And as I've said before, inflation has been a little bit of our friend in terms of what we see in terms of retail pricing.

是的。關於你問題的第一部分，我的意思是，毫無疑問，我們看到某些類別的成本膨脹。我們還看到更高的運輸成本。我們看到更高的燃料成本。然而，正如我們在電話會議上重申的那樣，行業定價是合理的，我們實際上是在定價以恢復所有這些通脹影響，就像我們過去所做的那樣。所以你已經看到我們提高了零售價格。隨著通貨膨脹率上升到個位數中位數，我們的定價也發生了變化。我認為我們整個行業都這樣做了。正如我之前所說，就我們在零售定價方面看到的情況而言，通貨膨脹一直是我們的朋友。

Now as it relates to our commercial business, we want to be crystal clear. Our goal is to create a faster-growing business with higher margin dollars. This is a much more sustainable way for us to grow our cash and, ultimately, shareholder value. Our domestic commercial business grew 26%. It's a mix headwind. We expect our domestic commercial business to continue to outgrow our DIY business, and that's a trade-off that we welcome. We'll continue to run a very disciplined playbook on margin expansion opportunities across all of our business, which includes things that we're doing from a cost standpoint, raising our prices and managing our expenses accordingly. But we like the fact that we've got a commercial business with very strong operating margins that is accretive to the overall business.

現在，由於它與我們的商業業務有關，我們希望清楚。我們的目標是創建一個增長更快、利潤更高的業務。對於我們來說，這是一種更可持續的方式來增加我們的現金並最終增加股東價值。我們的國內商業業務增長了 26%。這是一個混合逆風。我們預計我們的國內商業業務將繼續超過我們的 DIY 業務，這是我們歡迎的權衡。我們將繼續在我們所有業務中運行一個非常有紀律的關於利潤率擴張機會的手冊，其中包括我們從成本角度所做的事情，提高我們的價格和相應地管理我們的費用。但我們喜歡這樣一個事實，即我們的商業業務具有非常強大的營業利潤率，可以增加整體業務。

Understood. That's great. And then my other question is somewhat technical. As you think about the fuel impact of the trucks and the cars going from the store to the shops and the mechanics, - where does that show up in your P&L? Is that an SG&A item? And how do you think about your -- the ability to maybe price that in or offset that impact? Because clearly, diesel and gas accelerated over the quarter, and that impact should be bigger as you look forward.

明白了。那太棒了。然後我的另一個問題有點技術性。當您考慮卡車和從商店到商店的汽車和機械師對燃料的影響時， - 這在您的損益表中體現在哪裡？那是 SG&A 項目嗎？你如何看待你的 - 可能定價或抵消這種影響的能力？因為很明顯，柴油和天然氣在本季度加速，並且隨著您的期待，這種影響應該會更大。

Yes. If you look at diesel in particular, it's up probably 50% versus a year ago. That does show up in our SG&A expenses. So as we're running the cost playbook and we're running our pricing playbook, we have to take all of those things into account. And as I said before, when we look at our business in total, and look at all of the inflationary impacts, we're pricing our retails accordingly to make sure that we maintain our margin structure going forward.

是的。如果你特別看柴油，它可能比一年前上漲了 50%。這確實顯示在我們的 SG&A 費用中。因此，當我們運行成本手冊和定價手冊時，我們必須考慮所有這些事情。正如我之前所說，當我們全面審視我們的業務並審視所有通脹影響時，我們會相應地為零售定價，以確保我們保持未來的利潤率結構。

Yes. Just for clarity, there's pressure in both gross margin and SG&A. The majority of the diesel is in the warehouse and distribution costs, which is in gross profit. And then our -- we have one of the largest light-duty fleets in our commercial and field management folks. And so there's a lot of pressure in SG&A as well.

是的。只是為了清楚起見，毛利率和 SG&A 都存在壓力。大部分柴油在倉庫和分銷成本中，這是在毛利中。然後我們的 - 我們擁有商業和現場管理人員中最大的輕型車隊之一。所以SG&A也有很大的壓力。

Right. And then the idea is you're going to manage pricing to help offset that the light-duty expense pressure in SG&A?

正確的。然後的想法是您將管理定價以幫助抵消 SG&A 中的輕型費用壓力？

That's right.

這是正確的。

Both of them, both the light-duty and the heavy-duty.

兩者都是輕型和重型。

Your next question for today is coming from Simeon Gutman with Morgan Stanley.

您今天的下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Simeon Gutman。

My first question is on some of the margin and growth comments Jamere just made. Given the success you have in DIFM, are you making trade-offs between how much quicker you can grow and the margin dilution? And then meaning can you grow even quicker at maybe a bigger detriment to margin or are you seeing less detriment to margin as this expansion is happening in commercial?

我的第一個問題是關於 Jamere 剛剛發表的一些利潤和增長評論。鑑於您在 DIFM 取得的成功，您是否在增長速度和利潤稀釋之間進行權衡？然後意味著您能否在可能對利潤率造成更大損害的情況下更快地增長，或者隨著這種擴張在商業領域發生，您是否看到對利潤率的損害更小？

I'll say it crystal clear. No, we are not constraining our growth based upon the margin characteristics of the DIFM business. We set it for 1 million years. DIFM today operates at lower gross margins and lower operating margins. but it grows -- it operates in operating margins the way we look at it on generally an incremental basis in the mid-teens. We will grow that business as fast as humanly possible.

我會說得很清楚。不，我們不會根據 DIFM 業務的利潤率特徵來限制我們的增長。我們設定了 100 萬年。今天的 DIFM 以較低的毛利率和較低的營業利潤率運營。但它會增長——它的營業利潤率就像我們看待它的方式一樣，通常是在十幾歲中期的增量基礎上。我們將盡可能快地發展該業務。

If we could add another $4 billion in sales and the corresponding operating income that comes with that tomorrow, with the limited amount of incremental capital that we have to deploy, we would do it tomorrow. We were very focused on operating profit dollars. And as we look forward, I would just encourage you all to look at our business from a gross margin point of view, how are we doing in DIY? And how are we doing in commercial? And our goals will be to marginally increase those gross margins over time. If we do that and that puts -- and the commercial business grows at 26% and it puts pressure on the overall gross margin, so be it.

如果我們明天可以再增加 40 億美元的銷售額和相應的營業收入，而我們必須部署的增量資本數量有限，我們明天就會做到。我們非常關注營業利潤。在我們向前看的時候，我只是鼓勵大家從毛利率的角度來看待我們的業務，我們在 DIY 方面做得如何？我們在商業方面做得如何？我們的目標是隨著時間的推移略微增加這些毛利率。如果我們這樣做，那麼商業業務將以 26% 的速度增長，並對整體毛利率造成壓力，就這樣吧。

Fair enough. And Bill, I was intrigued by some of the comments you made about some permanent changes to the industry. Were you underscoring how resilient the business is? Or are you also thinking that maybe the business or the industry can grow at a faster rate than it has historically?

很公平。還有比爾，我對你對行業的一些永久性變化發表的一些評論很感興趣。您是否強調了業務的彈性？或者您是否也認為業務或行業的增長速度可能比歷史上更快？

I don't know that I would say it can grow at a faster rate the industry itself. I clearly think that we can, and maybe some of our close-in competitors can grow faster in the commercial business because that is still so fragmented. But the bigger part of my point is this is the most remarkably resilient business I've ever seen. And I don't understand why, when we have a recession, our business goes up and we come out of it and our business never goes down. It seems to flat line and then grow from there. It's amazing to me.

我不知道我會說它可以在行業本身以更快的速度增長。我清楚地認為我們可以，也許我們的一些緊密競爭對手可以在商業業務中增長得更快，因為那仍然如此分散。但我更重要的一點是，這是我見過的最具彈性的業務。而且我不明白為什麼，當我們遇到經濟衰退時，我們的業務會上升，然後我們會擺脫困境，而我們的業務卻永遠不會下降。它似乎是平線，然後從那裡生長。這對我來說太棒了。

Your next question for today is coming from Michael Lasser with UBS.

您今天的下一個問題來自瑞銀的 Michael Lasser。

The roads on the topic of recessionary environments and the impact that it has on the auto aftermarket. Is one of the drivers during those periods that people shift away from buying new cars and are more interested and need to maintain their existing cars? And so the dynamic this time around could be influenced by the fact that new cars that might lease used car sales have been depressed because of supply constraints, so the industry might not see as much of a countercyclical boost as it's seen in the past?

關於衰退環境主題的道路及其對汽車售後市場的影響。在那些人們不再購買新車而是更感興趣並需要維護現有汽車的時期，其中一位驅動因素是什麼？因此，這一次的動態可能會受到這樣一個事實的影響，即可能出租二手車的新車銷售由於供應限製而受到抑制，因此該行業可能不會像過去那樣看到逆週期提振？

Yes. I think all that makes perfect sense, Michael. I wish we had empirical evidence that could tell us that's exactly what's happened. I will tell you, if you asked me a year ago if we were going to retain the kind of sales gains that we had grown over the first 2 years of the pandemic, I would have said I doubt it. But there's also been other pressures that have happened. Clearly, the lack of new cars and the elevation of pricing, the radical elevation of pricing of used cars has our customers view on how long they're going to have that vehicle changing to much longer than it normally is. When that happens, they seem to take better care of their cars.

是的。我認為這一切都說得通，邁克爾。我希望我們有經驗證據可以告訴我們這正是發生的事情。我會告訴你，如果你在一年前問我，我們是否會保持在大流行的頭兩年中增長的那種銷售收益，我會說我懷疑。但也發生了其他壓力。顯然，新車的缺乏和定價的提升，以及二手車定價的急劇提升，讓我們的客戶看到他們將把這輛車換成比平時長得多的時間。當這種情況發生時，他們似乎會更好地照顧他們的汽車。

I think we also didn't envision the inflation impact that we're seeing. And clearly, that's -- I talked about some traffic declines, some significant traffic declines, 8.5% in the retail business. That was up against 16% traffic growth last year. I'll take a 2-year comp of 7.5% traffic all day long, but inflation and the ability to pass that inflation on has helped us. That's another key element of this industry is the inelasticity of demand in this sector of retail is probably unparalleled. And so as this inflation has come through, it's helped us get through that period of time as well.

我認為我們也沒有預見到我們所看到的通脹影響。很明顯，那是——我談到了一些流量下降，一些顯著的流量下降，零售業務下降了 8.5%。這與去年 16% 的流量增長相比。我將全天接受 7.5% 流量的 2 年補償，但通貨膨脹和傳遞通貨膨脹的能力幫助了我們。這個行業的另一個關鍵因素是這個零售行業的需求缺乏彈性可能是無與倫比的。因此，隨著通貨膨脹的發生，它也幫助我們度過了那段時間。

My follow-up question is, you've clearly gained market share. If we compare your results to a variety of indicators, that's pretty obvious. And your messaging is that it's as a result of many different factors, one of which does seem to be that you've made some price investments initially on the DIY side, more recently on the DIFM side. One of your competitors has been vocal about making similar price investments on -- especially on the DIFM side.

我的後續問題是，您顯然已經獲得了市場份額。如果我們將您的結果與各種指標進行比較，那就很明顯了。您的信息是，這是許多不同因素的結果，其中一個似乎是您最初在 DIY 方面進行了一些價格投資，最近在 DIFM 方面進行了投資。您的一個競爭對手一直在公開表示要進行類似的價格投資——尤其是在 DIFM 方面。

So at this point, do you feel the need to make further price investments, either on the DIY side or on the commercial side, either -- in an effort to either maintain or grow all the share that you've gained in the last couple of years?

所以在這一點上，你是否覺得有必要進行進一步的價格投資，無論是在 DIY 方面還是在商業方面——以努力保持或增加你在上一對夫婦中獲得的所有份額年？

The short answer is absolutely no. The longer answer is, we made very marginal price investments on the retail business. We've far lapped those probably 6 months or so ago. They were very targeted to specific highly-visible, commodity-related items, and we're focused on our comparisons versus mass. That's in the past.

簡短的回答絕對不會。更長的答案是，我們對零售業務進行了非常邊際的價格投資。我們已經遠遠超過了大約 6 個月前的那些。它們非常針對特定的高度可見的商品相關項目，我們專注於我們與大眾的比較。那是過去。

About this time last year, in fact, we have now annualized it. We completed rolling out the pricing changes that we made in our commercial business. Again, I want to be crystal clear. The growth that we saw in commercial over the last couple of years is not a result of pricing investments alone. They are an element. There's many other elements, the Mega-Hubs and Hubs, the Duralast brand. We've rolled out -- we had the single largest technology investment in the company's history focused on commercial and commercial deliveries. Our delivery times are dropping. So we've done a lot of different things, and we lowered our pricings to make sure that we were focused on pricing versus a different competitive set. All that together has worked and has worked really, really well.

大約在去年的這個時候，事實上，我們現在已經將它年化了。我們完成了在商業業務中所做的定價更改。再說一次，我想清楚。我們在過去幾年看到的商業增長不僅僅是定價投資的結果。它們是一個元素。還有許多其他元素，Mega-Hubs 和 Hubs，Duralast 品牌。我們已經推出了——我們擁有公司歷史上最大的一筆技術投資，專注於商業和商業交付。我們的交貨時間正在下降。所以我們做了很多不同的事情，我們降低了定價，以確保我們專注於定價而不是不同的競爭組合。所有這一切都奏效了，而且效果非常非常好。

At this point in time, we do not have any additional pricing actions being tested nor being considered. We believe -- we're very happy with our prices today in retail and commercial except that we need to pass inflation costs along as they come in. We will be very focused on trying to keep the same kinds of competitive positioning, but we need to pass on the inflation as it comes through us in costs.

目前，我們沒有任何額外的定價措施正在測試或考慮。我們相信——我們對今天的零售和商業價格非常滿意，只是我們需要在通脹成本進入時將其轉嫁。我們將非常專注於保持相同的競爭定位，但我們需要傳遞通貨膨脹，因為它通過我們的成本。

Your next question for today is coming from Mike Baker with Davidson.

您今天的下一個問題來自戴維森的 Mike Baker。

I don't know if you can answer this, but just curious, why do you think weather didn't have an impact on your business? It had an impact on all your competitors' businesses and many other seasonal businesses. Why would your business be different, particularly as you over-index to DIY, which I think is probably a little bit more weather-sensitive than the commercial business?

我不知道您是否可以回答這個問題，但只是好奇，您為什麼認為天氣對您的業務沒有影響？它對您所有競爭對手的業務和許多其他季節性業務產生了影響。為什麼您的業務會有所不同，尤其是當您對 DIY 過度索引時，我認為這可能比商業業務對天氣更敏感？

It's a very fair question. The information we have was, it was, as I said, slightly cooler and slightly weather. The real question -- or the real discussion for this quarter was not weather, it was stimulus. And I don't know how you fared out a 0.5 point or 1 point change in weather dynamics when you're talking about 2-year comps of 30% that were driven by stimulus. So we are trying to focus on the major elements and make sure we communicate to you what we think are the real drivers, and frankly, the drivers that will help you understand our long-term trends. The weather was marginally different and I can't ferret it out in a 30% 2-year comp.

這是一個非常公平的問題。我們得到的信息是，正如我所說，天氣稍微涼爽一些。真正的問題——或者本季度真正的討論不是天氣，而是刺激。而且我不知道當您談論由刺激驅動的 30% 的 2 年補償時，您是如何在天氣動態中發生 0.5 點或 1 點的變化。因此，我們正努力關注主要因素，並確保我們向您傳達我們認為真正的驅動因素，坦率地說，這些驅動因素將幫助您了解我們的長期趨勢。天氣略有不同，我無法在 30% 的 2 年補償中找出它。

Okay. That's fair enough. And then 1 other follow-up. You did say hard parts are down, you said only 100 basis points. So you don't want to make too big of a deal of it, but you did say you thought it was because of gas prices. So are you implying there -- again, I don't want to make a big deal but did you -- are you -- do you think people are just driving less on the higher gas prices? And then you said that should get better, does it get better only when gas prices come back down? Or should we...

好的。這很公平。然後是另外 1 次跟進。你確實說硬部分下降了，你說只有 100 個基點。所以你不想把它看得太大，但你確實說過你認為這是因為汽油價格。所以你是在暗示那裡 - 再說一遍，我不想做大事，但你 - 你是 - 你認為人們只是因為更高的汽油價格而減少駕駛嗎？然後你說應該會好起來，只有當gas價格回落時才會好起來嗎？或者我們應該...

I think you had 2 elements that happened. You had 2 elements that happened to miles driven. We're still rebounding from the pandemic decrease of miles driven. Now you've got the gas prices implications. What we've seen historically in the past, Mike, is when gas prices hit $4 a gallon, you can see a direct correlation with those prices and a decline in miles driven. What we said historically as we've seen people when it gets to those elevated levels, they change their behavior. They change where they live, they change where they work. Obviously, with remote work and those kind of things, there could be different nuances this time. A lot of people are saying, yes, but $4 a gallon back then would be the equivalent to $5 whatever today, that may be true. I don't know if that's the case or not. This has happened in pretty short order. And I think we need to watch what happens to miles driven over time.

我認為你有兩個因素發生了。您有 2 個要素發生在行駛里程數上。我們仍在從大流行的行駛里程減少中反彈。現在您已經了解了汽油價格的影響。邁克，我們在過去歷史上看到的是，當汽油價格達到每加侖 4 美元時，您可以看到與這些價格的直接相關性以及行駛里程的下降。我們在歷史上所說的話，當我們看到人們達到這些更高的水平時，他們會改變他們的行為。他們改變他們居住的地方，他們改變他們工作的地方。顯然，對於遠程工作和類似的事情，這次可能會有不同的細微差別。很多人都說，是的，但當時每加侖 4 美元相當於今天的 5 美元，這可能是真的。我不知道是不是這樣。這發生在很短的時間內。我認為我們需要觀察隨著時間的推移行駛里程會發生什麼。

As we think about it, it will be a short-term phenomenon, just like it has been in the past. Our focus isn't about next quarter or even the quarter after that. Our focus, as I said, is how do we think about driving this business to drive long-term cash flow at really high return rates and think out 3 to 5 years. Gas prices will come and go, and it doesn't really impact how we manage the business day to day.

在我們看來，這將是一個短期現象，就像過去一樣。我們的重點不是下個季度，甚至不是下個季度。正如我所說，我們的重點是我們如何考慮推動這項業務以非常高的回報率推動長期現金流，並考慮 3 到 5 年。汽油價格會來來去去，它不會真正影響我們日常管理業務的方式。

Your next question for today is coming from Scot Ciccarelli with Truist Securities.

您今天的下一個問題來自於 Truist Securities 的 Scot Ciccarelli。

So you've mentioned, obviously, the Mega-Hubs quite a few times and the positive impact that you see on your sales. Is there a way to potentially quantify the sales lift that you experienced in a market when you open a Mega-Hub?

因此，您顯然已經多次提到 Mega-Hubs 以及您看到的對銷售的積極影響。當您開設 Mega-Hub 時，有沒有辦法量化您在市場中體驗到的銷售提升？

Yes. A couple of things stand out to us. As we said, as we've tested greater density, we're seeing 2 dynamics. One is the business plan that we build usually justifies the Mega-Hub based on what happens inside the 4 walls. And so we're seeing those sales be largely incremental, as Bill mentioned. We're not seeing the cannibalization. What we've tested is as we put more Mega-Hubs into the market and jam more parts in the market, those satellite stores are benefiting tremendously because they're leveraging the inventory and the availability from those Mega-Hubs, and they're seeing an overall lift as well.

是的。有幾件事對我們來說很突出。正如我們所說，當我們測試了更大的密度時，我們看到了 2 個動態。一個是我們建立的商業計劃通常根據 4 堵牆內發生的情況來證明 Mega-Hub 的合理性。正如比爾所說，我們看到這些銷售額在很大程度上是增量的。我們沒有看到自相殘殺。我們測試的是，當我們將更多的 Mega-Hubs 投放市場並在市場上堵塞更多零件時，這些衛星商店受益匪淺，因為它們利用了這些 Mega-Hubs 的庫存和可用性，而且它們是也看到了整體提升。

We haven't talked specifically about what the quantification is. But I can tell you that it's significant, and it is what's given us confidence to take our target from [110 to 200.] And quite honestly, we'll likely go beyond that as we continue to test and learn more in the future.

我們還沒有具體談到量化是什麼。但我可以告訴你，這很重要，這讓我們有信心將目標從 [110 提高到 200]。老實說，隨著我們將來繼續測試和了解更多，我們可能會超越這個目標。

And Jim, as the Mega-Hubs kind of mature, do they follow a new store maturity type curve?

Jim，隨著 Mega-Hubs 的成熟，他們是否遵循新的商店成熟度曲線？

They do. But one of the things that we're experiencing right now, particularly with the growth in our commercial business, is that the ramp for the Mega-Hubs has been faster than what we've seen in the past. And that is because as we have put those additional parts into the marketplace, while we are doing all the work that Bill mentioned on our commercial acceleration initiatives, those Mega-Hubs are ramping up faster than we ever anticipated.

他們是這樣。但我們現在正在經歷的一件事，尤其是隨著我們商業業務的增長，是 Mega-Hubs 的增長速度比我們過去看到的要快。那是因為當我們將這些額外的部件投放市場時，在我們完成比爾提到的商業加速計劃中的所有工作時，這些巨型集線器的發展速度比我們預期的要快。

Your next question for today is coming from Daniel Imbro with Stephens.

您今天的下一個問題來自 Daniel Imbro 和 Stephens。

Congrats on the quarter. Bill, I wanted to ask a higher-level question on the Do-It-For-Me side. So obviously, you've been gaining share. But when you're not winning the business, from an operational standpoint, is there a consistent area of feedback you hear from customers where you need to improve? Or any consistent learnings that you're seeing where you can still improve to gain more share when you're not winning that business?

祝賀本季度。比爾，我想在 Do-It-For-Me 方面問一個更高級別的問題。很明顯，你一直在獲得份額。但是，當您沒有贏得業務時，從運營的角度來看，您從客戶那裡聽到的反饋是否一致，您需要改進？或者你看到的任何一致的學習，當你沒有贏得那項業務時，你仍然可以改進以獲得更多份額？

Yes. It's a really great question. I mentioned it in the call, and I've been out in the field a whole lot in the last 3 months. And the tone of the conversations with our commercial customers, be that national accounts at the senior leader level or in our commercial shops, has just -- the tenor of the conversations have changed. It's a question of how can I give you more business versus the age-old things of, it was about availability, it was about the Duralast brand.

是的。這是一個非常好的問題。我在電話中提到過，在過去的 3 個月裡，我一直在外地工作。與我們的商業客戶對話的基調，無論是高級領導層的國民賬戶還是我們的商業商店，都剛剛改變了對話的基調。這是一個問題，與古老的東西相比，我怎樣才能給你更多的業務，這是關於可用性的，它是關於 Duralast 品牌的。

The Duralast brand conversation has turned from a significant negative to a positive. And now, with our availability, it has meaningfully changed. So I'm not really hearing -- we always can get better on delivery times. And if anybody wants to tell you why they're not giving you business, that's a very easy one. Well, now we have actual data that says, you're right, we are delivering to you too slow. Your average deliveries are 31 minutes and 37 seconds, and we apologize for that. We're going to work to get that better.

Duralast 品牌對話已從重大負面轉變為正面。現在，隨著我們的可用性，它發生了有意義的變化。所以我並沒有真正聽到——我們總是可以在交貨時間上做得更好。如果有人想告訴你他們為什麼不給你生意，那很容易。好吧，現在我們有實際數據表明，您是對的，我們交付給您的速度太慢了。您的平均送達時間為 31 分 37 秒，對此我們深表歉意。我們將努力讓它變得更好。

And so we've got new tools at our disposal. We've got much better inventory assortments. The Duralast brand is amazing. And so the tenor of those conversations is really radically different than they were just 3 or 4 years ago.

因此，我們可以使用新工具。我們有更好的庫存分類。 Duralast 品牌令人驚嘆。因此，這些對話的基調與 3 或 4 年前完全不同。

Got it. That's helpful. And then Jamere, maybe more financial question. I know you just talked about the maturity curve of the new Mega-Hubs and DCs. But with 3 DCs coming online at 11 Mega-Hubs, I guess in the near term, what kind of SG&A pressure should we expect? I would assume there's inherent deleverage just from preopening costs and then as they ramp. So kind of what kind of headwinds should we anticipate that puts on the SG&A line over the coming quarters?

知道了。這很有幫助。然後是 Jamere，也許是更多的財務問題。我知道你剛剛談到了新的 Mega-Hub 和 DC 的成熟度曲線。但隨著 3 個 DC 在 11 個 Mega-Hubs 上線，我想在短期內，我們應該期待什麼樣的 SG&A 壓力？我會假設開盤前的成本會隨著成本的上升而產生內在的去槓桿化。那麼在接下來的幾個季度裡，我們應該預計 SG&A 會遇到什麼樣的逆風？

I mean it will clearly be some pressure on SG&A, but what I'll say is that we've been very disciplined about managing our SG&A expenses. And quite frankly, when we have to make these kind of investments, #1, they have great payoffs associated -- paybacks associated with them.

我的意思是，這顯然會給 SG&A 帶來一些壓力，但我要說的是，我們在管理 SG&A 費用方面一直非常自律。坦率地說，當我們必須進行此類投資時，#1，它們會帶來巨大的回報——與它們相關的回報。

But #2, we look for bill payers elsewhere in the P&L to be able to go do that. But what we've done over time, and what we'll continue to do is, we invest in a very disciplined way in growth, and we're not afraid to delever SG&A if we need to, to support that growth because in the long term, it's the right thing for our business. So we have a plan over time to manage SG&A in line with our sales growth.

但是＃2，我們在損益表的其他地方尋找賬單支付者能夠做到這一點。但隨著時間的推移，我們所做的以及我們將繼續做的是，我們以非常有紀律的方式投資於增長，如果需要，我們不害怕去槓桿化 SG&A，以支持這種增長，因為在從長遠來看，這對我們的業務來說是正確的。因此，我們制定了一項計劃，以根據我們的銷售增長來管理 SG&A。

But in the short term, you may see us spike it up from time to time to support the investments in growth. And we've done that not only with the capacity investments that you talked about, we've done it with our IT expenses over time, and we'll continue to do that going forward.

但在短期內，您可能會看到我們不時加碼以支持增長投資。我們不僅通過您談到的容量投資做到了這一點，而且隨著時間的推移，我們已經通過我們的 IT 開支做到了這一點，我們將繼續這樣做。

Your next question is coming from Liz Suzuki with Bank of America.

您的下一個問題來自美國銀行的 Liz Suzuki。

Great. Regarding the comment you made about gross margin and just a hyper focus on mix and how that impacts your overall gross margin. How can we think about tracking improvements in margin in each of your categories? Like where will we see that show up in metrics?

偉大的。關於您對毛利率的評論，以及對組合的高度關注以及這如何影響您的整體毛利率。我們如何考慮跟踪每個類別的利潤率改進？比如我們會在哪裡看到它出現在指標中？

Yes. I think 2 things you'll see. #1, we'll continue to have mix pressure associated with our commercial business going forward. And we'll be very transparent about what we see there. But all the playbook that we've historically run on managing gross margin, taking pricing actions in categories, driving down costs in certain categories, all those tactics will still be at play. And you'll see us over time make positive improvements in gross margin. It's just that we're starting off in an environment where our commercial business is growing significantly faster than DIY, and that's going to be a margin pressure that we welcome because of the nature of the business and the fact that it's growing our overall gross profit dollars. So we'll be very transparent about it as we move forward, and it's a trade-off that we welcome.

是的。我想你會看到兩件事。 #1，我們將繼續面臨與我們的商業業務相關的混合壓力。我們將對我們在那裡看到的內容非常透明。但是，我們歷來在管理毛利率、在類別中採取定價行動、降低某些類別的成本方面所採用的所有策略，所有這些策略仍將發揮作用。隨著時間的推移，你會看到我們在毛利率方面取得了積極的進步。只是我們是在一個商業業務增長明顯快於 DIY 的環境中起步的，這將是我們歡迎的利潤壓力，因為業務的性質以及它正在增加我們的整體毛利潤的事實美元。因此，在我們前進的過程中，我們將對此保持透明，這是我們歡迎的權衡。

Yes. That makes sense. And I mean, is there a rule of thumb that we should think about is the differential in gross margin between commercial and retail in general?

是的。那講得通。我的意思是，我們是否應該考慮一個經驗法則是商業和零售之間的毛利率差異？

Well, it will depend on how fast the commercial business actually grows. If you look at the differential this quarter, it was significant, which actually drove gross margin deleverage this quarter. What I would say that if you were on an apples-to-apples basis in terms of growth rate, we would have actually seen gross margin be positive this quarter. But you've got the mix headwind there. It's a welcome trade-off and we're delivering.

嗯，這將取決於商業業務的實際增長速度。如果您查看本季度的差異，就會發現差異很大，這實際上推動了本季度的毛利率去槓桿化。我想說的是，如果您在增長率方面以蘋果對蘋果為基礎，我們實際上會看到本季度的毛利率為正。但是你在那裡遇到了混合逆風。這是一個受歡迎的權衡，我們正在交付。

Your next question for today is coming from Zach Fadem with Wells Fargo.

您今天的下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Zach Fadem。

With the elevated used vehicle pricing and lack of new cars available, just curious how you think that's impacted your addressable market? And to what extent scrap rates have declined out there with your customers? And as we inevitably go back to an environment where new cars come back on, or used vehicle prices start to come back down. To what extent do you think that would be a headwind for the industry?

隨著二手車價格的上漲和新車的缺乏，您認為這對您的潛在市場有何影響？您的客戶的廢品率下降到什麼程度？隨著我們不可避免地回到新車重新上市或二手車價格開始回落的環境。您認為這將在多大程度上對該行業造成不利影響？

Well, I think you've got a dynamic here where, clearly, the macro environment associated with used cars is -- has a significant impact on what you're seeing in the car park. The dynamic associated with new cars is similar. I mean our -- if you look at the data on used cars, they're up 23% year-over-year, up 50% and pre-pandemic. If you look at what's happening with dealer lots right now, they're probably carrying about 1/3 of the inventory that they were pre-pandemic. So it is a significant driver.

嗯，我認為你在這裡有一個動態，很明顯，與二手車相關的宏觀環境對你在停車場看到的東西有重大影響。與新車相關的動態是相似的。我的意思是我們的——如果你看一下二手車的數據，它們同比增長 23%，增長 50%，並且在大流行之前。如果你看看現在經銷商批次的情況，他們可能攜帶的庫存大約是大流行前的 1/3。所以它是一個重要的驅動因素。

What you're seeing, though, is that the car park is actually aging. People are hanging on to the vehicles longer. In fact, the data that came out this morning shows that it's now ticked up to 12.2 years is the average age of a vehicle on the road. And those things are all producing a tailwind for us.

但是，您所看到的是停車場實際上正在老化。人們在車輛上的停留時間更長。事實上，今天早上出來的數據顯示，它現在已經上升到 12.2 年，這是一輛汽車在路上的平均年齡。這些事情都為我們帶來了順風。

I think what we are focused on as a business is: one, managing our business associated with the vehicles that are in operations, making sure that we have the assortment to go deal with that. And as there are changes in the car park, there are changes in technology, there are changes in consumer behavior, we just manage our business accordingly, and we've done that historically over time, and it's been a good outcome for us.

我認為作為一家企業，我們關注的重點是：第一，管理與運營中的車輛相關的業務，確保我們有足夠的資源來處理這些問題。隨著停車場的變化，技術的變化，消費者行為的變化，我們只是相應地管理我們的業務，隨著時間的推移，我們一直在這樣做，這對我們來說是一個很好的結果。

And then with the step-up in Mega-Hub density, is it fair to assume that double-digit commercial growth remains the norm for your business through fiscal '23? And do you view the opportunity ahead more about getting denser with existing customers or expanding your reach to newer customers that maybe you haven't been able to serve at this point?

然後隨著 Mega-Hub 密度的提高，是否可以假設兩位數的商業增長在 23 財年仍然是您業務的常態？您是否更多地看待未來的機會，即擴大現有客戶的密度，或將您的業務範圍擴大到您目前可能無法服務的新客戶？

We'll continue to see our commercial business have very strong growth. And the initiatives that we've talked about, whether it's the things that we're doing with assortment, the things that we've done with technology, the things that we've done with pricing, all of those things are driving significant growth in our commercial business, and we expect that trend to continue for us.

我們將繼續看到我們的商業業務有非常強勁的增長。我們討論過的舉措，無論是我們在分類方面所做的事情，我們在技術方面所做的事情，我們在定價方面所做的事情，所有這些事情都在推動顯著增長在我們的商業業務中，我們預計這種趨勢將繼續存在。

Before we conclude the call, I want to take a moment to reiterate. We believe our industry is in a strong position and our business model is solid. We are excited about our growth prospects for the year, but we will take nothing for granted as we understand our customers have alternatives. We have exciting plans that should help us succeed for the future, but I want to stress that this is a marathon and not a sprint. As we continue to focus on the basics and strive to optimize shareholder value for the remainder of FY '22, we are confident AutoZone can continue to be successful.

在結束通話之前，我想花點時間重申一下。我們相信我們的行業處於強勢地位，我們的商業模式也很穩固。我們對今年的增長前景感到興奮，但我們不會認為任何事情都是理所當然的，因為我們了解我們的客戶有其他選擇。我們有令人興奮的計劃，可以幫助我們在未來取得成功，但我想強調這是一場馬拉松，而不是短跑。隨著我們繼續關注基礎並努力在 22 財年剩餘時間內優化股東價值，我們相信 AutoZone 可以繼續取得成功。

Lastly, as we celebrate Memorial Day next Monday, we should remember all of our country's heroes, both past and present. We owe these Americans, a tremendous debt of gratitude. Thank you for participating in today's call. Have a great day.

最後，在我們下週一慶祝陣亡將士紀念日時，我們應該記住我們國家過去和現在的所有英雄。我們欠這些美國人一份巨大的感激之情。感謝您參加今天的電話會議。祝你有美好的一天。

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This does conclude today's conference call. You may disconnect your phone lines at this time, and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.

謝謝你們，女士們，先生們。這確實結束了今天的電話會議。你可以在這個時候斷開你的電話線，並有一個美好的一天。感謝您的參與。