(GNRC) 2023 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the First Quarter 2023 Generac Holdings Inc. Earnings Conference Call.

美好的一天，謝謝你的支持。歡迎來到 Generac Holdings Inc. 2023 年第一季度收益電話會議。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. And I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Mr. Mike Harris, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Investor Relations. Sir, please go ahead.

請注意，今天的會議正在錄製中。我現在想把會議交給今天的演講者，公司發展和投資者關係高級副總裁 Mike Harris 先生。先生，請繼續。

Good morning, and welcome to our first quarter 2023 earnings call. I'd like to thank everyone for joining us this morning. With me today is Aaron Jagdfeld, President and Chief Executive Officer; and York Ragen, Chief Financial Officer. We will begin our call today by commenting on forward-looking statements. Certain statements made during this presentation as well as other information provided from time to time by Generac or its employees may contain forward-looking statements and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in these forward-looking statements.

早上好，歡迎來到我們 2023 年第一季度的財報電話會議。我要感謝大家今天早上加入我們。今天和我在一起的是總裁兼首席執行官 Aaron Jagdfeld；和首席財務官 York Ragen。今天，我們將通過評論前瞻性陳述來開始我們的電話會議。本演示文稿中的某些陳述以及 Generac 或其員工不時提供的其他信息可能包含前瞻性陳述，並涉及可能導致實際結果與這些前瞻性陳述中的結果大不相同的風險和不確定性。

Please see our earnings release or SEC filings for a list of words or expressions that identify such statements and the associated risk factors. In addition, we will make reference to certain non-GAAP measures during today's call. Additional information regarding these measures, including reconciliation to comparable U.S. GAAP measures, is available in our earnings release and SEC filings. I will now turn the call over to Aaron.

請參閱我們的收益發布或美國證券交易委員會備案文件，以獲取識別此類陳述和相關風險因素的單詞或表達列表。此外，我們將在今天的電話會議中提及某些非 GAAP 措施。有關這些措施的更多信息，包括與可比較的美國 GAAP 措施的調節，可在我們的收益發布和美國證券交易委員會備案文件中找到。我現在將把電話轉給 Aaron。

Thanks, Mike. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Our first quarter net sales, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS were higher than expected, primarily due to continued strong shipments of our commercial and industrial products globally. Adjusted EBITDA margins were also better than expected due to favorable price cost dynamics. Additionally, field inventory levels of home standby generators declined at a rate consistent with our expectations in the quarter.

謝謝，邁克。大家早上好，感謝您今天加入我們。我們第一季度的淨銷售額、調整後的 EBITDA 和調整後的每股收益高於預期，這主要是由於我們的商業和工業產品在全球的出貨量持續強勁。由於有利的價格成本動態，調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率也好於預期。此外，本季度家用備用發電機的現場庫存水平下降速度與我們的預期一致。

Year-over-year, overall net sales decreased 22% to $888 million, and core sales declined 24% during the quarter. Residential product sales decreased 46% as compared to a strong prior year quarter that included the benefit of significant excess backlog for home standby generators and was also impacted by elevated levels of field inventory for home standby generators as well as a decline in clean energy products.

與去年同期相比，本季度整體淨銷售額下降 22% 至 8.88 億美元，核心銷售額下降 24%。與強勁的去年同期相比，住宅產品銷售額下降了 46%，其中包括家用備用發電機大量積壓的好處，還受到家用備用發電機現場庫存水平升高以及清潔能源產品下降的影響。

Global C&I product sales increased approximately 30% to an all-time quarterly record with strength in most regions internationally and all channels domestically. Adjusted EBITDA margin was negatively affected by significant unfavorable sales mix and reduced operating leverage driven by lower home standby shipments and continued energy technology growth investments.

全球 C&I 產品銷售額增長約 30%，創下季度歷史新高，在國際大部分地區和國內所有渠道均表現強勁。調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率受到嚴重不利的銷售組合以及較低的家庭備用出貨量和持續的能源技術增長投資導致的運營槓桿降低的負面影響。

These margin headwinds were mostly offset by favorable price cost dynamics. Now discussing our first quarter results in more detail. While home standby shipments declined significantly in the quarter, leading indicators of demand for the category were exceptionally strong during the first quarter. Baseline power outage activity in the U.S. was well above the long-term average during the quarter with several larger localized outages in multiple regions, marking the highest level of baseline power outage activity for our first quarter since we began tracking outages in 2010.

這些利潤逆風大部分被有利的價格成本動態所抵消。現在更詳細地討論我們的第一季度業績。雖然本季度家庭備用出貨量大幅下降，但該類別需求的領先指標在第一季度異常強勁。本季度美國的基線停電活動遠高於長期平均水平，多個地區發生了幾次較大的局部停電，這是我們自 2010 年開始跟踪停電以來第一季度基線停電活動的最高水平。

Home consultations or sales leads were up significantly over the prior year period with broad-based growth experienced in almost all states. Additionally, home consultations were approximately flat sequentially during the quarter, which is highly unusual for the seasonally softer first quarter, particularly as we are coming off of a record fourth quarter, and this strength continued in the month of April.

家庭諮詢或銷售線索比去年同期顯著增加，幾乎所有州都出現了廣泛的增長。此外，本季度房屋諮詢量環比持平，這對於季節性疲軟的第一季度來說是非常不尋常的，尤其是當我們即將結束創紀錄的第四季度時，這種勢頭在 4 月份繼續存在。

For historical perspective, first quarter home consultations were more than 4x higher than the comparable period in 2019, supporting our belief that the home standby generator category has reached a new and higher baseline level of demand. Our residential dealer count was more than 8,600 at the end of the quarter, an increase of over 500 dealers from the prior year.

從歷史角度來看，第一季度的家庭諮詢量比 2019 年同期高出 4 倍以上，這支持了我們的信念，即家庭備用發電機類別已達到新的更高的需求基準水平。本季度末，我們的住宅經銷商數量超過 8,600 家，比上年增加了 500 多家。

While this is a slight decline on a sequential basis due to seasonal headwinds, we expect our dealer count to grow significantly over the coming years as we continue to focus on expanding our installation bandwidth. Activations, which are a proxy for installs, were impacted by severe weather in multiple regions and declined slightly from the prior year period, which included a challenging comparison in the South Central region that saw a notable strength in the prior year due to the backlog of activations related to the Texas deep freeze in 2021.

雖然由於季節性逆風，這在連續的基礎上略有下降，但我們預計我們的經銷商數量在未來幾年將顯著增長，因為我們將繼續專注於擴大我們的安裝帶寬。作為安裝指標的激活量受到多個地區惡劣天氣的影響，與去年同期相比略有下降，其中中南部地區的比較具有挑戰性，由於積壓，該地區在去年表現強勁與 2021 年德克薩斯州深度凍結相關的活動。

The number of home standby generators in field inventory continued to decline towards more normalized levels during the first quarter with the number of units falling meaningfully and ending the quarter approximately in line with our prior expectations. Days of field inventory relative to historical norms also decreased sequentially in the quarter but remained elevated. We expect field inventory to decline further in the second quarter, resulting in another quarter of lower home standby orders and shipments relative to the higher end market demand before returning to more normalized levels as we enter the second half of the year.

第一季度現場庫存中的家用備用發電機數量繼續下降至更正常的水平，單位數量大幅下降，本季度末大致符合我們之前的預期。相對於歷史標準的現場庫存天數在本季度也環比下降，但仍處於高位。我們預計現場庫存將在第二季度進一步下降，導致另一個季度的家庭備用訂單和出貨量相對於高端市場需求下降，然後在我們進入下半年時恢復到更正常的水平。

Our initiative to increase home standby generator installation capacity remains a top priority for the company. We recently launched our dealer talent network, which is showing early signs of momentum as we help our dealers find the talent needed to successfully grow their businesses. We also recently announced a partnership with the Independent Electrical Contractors Trade Group aimed at further elevating the Generac brand within the electrical contractor community and providing additional training resources in key markets, including Texas and Florida.

我們提高家用備用發電機安裝能力的舉措仍然是公司的首要任務。我們最近推出了我們的經銷商人才網絡，隨著我們幫助我們的經銷商找到成功發展業務所需的人才，該網絡顯示出發展勢頭的早期跡象。我們最近還宣布與 Independent Electrical Contractors Trade Group 建立合作夥伴關係，旨在進一步提升 Generac 品牌在電氣承包商社區中的地位，並在包括德克薩斯州和佛羅里達州在內的主要市場提供額外的培訓資源。

Additionally, we have identified a number of project management improvement opportunities that we believe can help dealers optimize overall project time lines in addition to several product-related enhancements to further simplify the installation process. These initiatives are not only focused on solving near-term installation capacity challenges, but are also designed to provide sustainable solutions for tighter-skilled labor markets.

此外，我們還確定了一些項目管理改進機會，我們相信這些機會可以幫助經銷商優化整個項目時間線，此外還有一些與產品相關的增強功能，可以進一步簡化安裝過程。這些舉措不僅側重於解決近期的安裝能力挑戰，而且還旨在為技術更緊缺的勞動力市場提供可持續的解決方案。

We believe these solutions as well as continuing to expand overall distribution could further increase Generac's competitive advantage given our unparalleled scale, focus and expertise in the home standby market. Consistent with the comments provided on our fourth quarter earnings call in mid-February, we expect that the first quarter marked the trough for home standby shipments in the current channel destocking process.

我們相信，鑑於我們在家庭備用市場上無與倫比的規模、專注度和專業知識，這些解決方案以及繼續擴大整體分銷可以進一步提高 Generac 的競爭優勢。與我們在 2 月中旬的第四季度財報電話會議上提供的評論一致，我們預計第一季度標誌著當前渠道去庫存過程中家庭備用出貨量的低谷。

We continue to anticipate a return to year-over-year sales growth in the second half of the year as field inventory returns to more normalized levels. The above-average outage environment and robust growth in home consultations thus far in 2023 further support this expectation. The range of threats that utilities and grid operators face was on full display in recent quarters as the outage environment has been driven by severe weather, power supply shortfalls and unanticipated spikes in demand. Outage events are no longer limited to one-off major storms. And as reliance on electricity continues to grow, consumers and businesses have demonstrated that they are less willing to accept a deteriorating level of power liability and they are taking actions to improve their own resiliency.

隨著現場庫存恢復到更正常的水平，我們繼續預計下半年銷售額將恢復同比增長。到 2023 年為止，高於平均水平的停電環境和家庭諮詢的強勁增長進一步支持了這一預期。公用事業和電網運營商面臨的威脅範圍在最近幾個季度得到了充分展示，因為停電環境受到惡劣天氣、電力供應短缺和意外需求激增的驅動。停電事件不再局限於一次性大風暴。隨著對電力的依賴持續增長，消費者和企業已經表明，他們不太願意接受不斷惡化的電力責任水平，他們正在採取行動提高自身的彈性。

I'd now like to provide some commentary on our residential energy technology products and solutions. While we're facing temporary headwinds for our residential clean energy offerings, our commitment to success in these markets has not changed. This strategically important area of our business gives us access to a number of highly attractive market opportunities that are supported by strong end demand and further reinforced by unprecedented levels of policy support.

我現在想就我們的住宅能源技術產品和解決方案發表一些評論。雖然我們的住宅清潔能源產品面臨暫時的阻力，但我們對在這些市場取得成功的承諾並未改變。我們業務的這一具有戰略意義的重要領域使我們能夠獲得許多極具吸引力的市場機會，這些機會得到了強勁的終端需求的支持，並得到了前所未有的政策支持水平的進一步加強。

We expect that the combined served addressable market for residential solar MLPEs, storage, EV charging, home energy monitoring and management and grid services will grow at strong double-digit CAGR through 2026, resulting in a domestic market opportunity of more than $10 billion.

我們預計，到 2026 年，住宅太陽能 MLPE、存儲、EV 充電、家庭能源監控和管理以及電網服務的綜合服務目標市場將以兩位數的複合年增長率強勁增長，從而帶來超過 100 億美元的國內市場機會。

During the first quarter, shipments of power cell energy storage systems remained under pressure as we continue to rebuild and add to our distribution for these products following the loss of a large customer that ceased operations in the third quarter of last year. Additionally, we continue to make good progress on our SnapRS upgrade campaign in the quarter, and we remain committed to taking care of our customers and the channel partners that are participating in this program.

在第一季度，動力電池儲能係統的出貨量仍然面臨壓力，因為在去年第三季度失去一個大客戶後，我們繼續重建並增加這些產品的分銷。此外，我們在本季度的 SnapRS 升級活動中繼續取得良好進展，我們將繼續致力於照顧我們的客戶和參與該計劃的渠道合作夥伴。

In addition to our residential storage efforts, our energy monitoring and management capabilities remain well positioned as positive momentum in ecobee's device sales, together with a number of product awards are resulting in continued market share gains and highlight the consumer appeal of our feature-rich smart thermostat offerings. ecobee's already strong customer satisfaction scores have improved further since the 2022 release of our latest generation devices, validating ecobee's expertise in user interface and user experience development.

除了我們在住宅存儲方面的努力，我們的能源監控和管理能力在 ecobee 的設備銷售中保持著積極的勢頭，加上多項產品獎項，導致市場份額持續增長，並凸顯了我們功能豐富的智能產品對消費者的吸引力恆溫器產品。自 2022 年發布我們最新一代設備以來，ecobee 已經很高的客戶滿意度得分進一步提高，驗證了 ecobee 在用戶界面和用戶體驗開發方面的專業知識。

We are heavily leveraging that expertise in our single-pane-of-glass initiative, which will act as the central hub of our residential energy ecosystem. It's also worth noting that customer interest in our grid services offerings remained strong with another quarter of robust sales growth off of a low prior year base.

我們在我們的單一管理平台計劃中大力利用這些專業知識，該計劃將作為我們住宅能源生態系統的中心樞紐。還值得注意的是，客戶對我們的網格服務產品的興趣依然強勁，在去年較低的基數基礎上又實現了強勁的銷售增長。

We recently announced a strategic minority investment enrolling energy resources and EV load management software provider as part of our effort to be the leading solution for EV load management to utilities and consumers. We believe this innovative area of our business will help facilitate the transition to the next-generation grid and ongoing policy support remains a potential tailwind as regulators and policymakers increasingly recognize the value of flexible digital solutions to the challenges facing our evolving power grid.

我們最近宣布了一項戰略少數股權投資，包括能源資源和 EV 負載管理軟件供應商，作為我們努力成為公用事業和消費者 EV 負載管理領先解決方案的一部分。我們相信我們業務的這一創新領域將有助於促進向下一代電網的過渡，並且隨著監管機構和政策制定者越來越認識到靈活的數字解決方案對我們不斷發展的電網面臨的挑戰的價值，持續的政策支持仍然是一個潛在的順風。

We continue to expect gross sales from residential energy technology products and services to deliver between $300 million and $350 million for the full year 2023. Operating expenses as a percentage of sales are expected to be elevated in 2023 as we continue to build a home energy technology foundation for growth to position our combination of hardware and software solutions for long-term success. With new leadership running this part of our business, our teams are focused on more deeply integrating the products and platforms we've acquired over the past 4 years. With an eye towards tightening our focus on the solutions where we believe we can create the most value for the consumer as part of the residential energy ecosystem.

我們繼續預計 2023 年全年住宅能源技術產品和服務的總銷售額將在 3 億至 3.5 億美元之間。隨著我們繼續構建家庭能源技術，預計 2023 年營業費用佔銷售額的百分比將會上升增長的基礎，使我們的硬件和軟件解決方案組合能夠取得長期成功。隨著新的領導層負責我們這部分業務，我們的團隊專注於更深入地整合我們在過去 4 年中收購的產品和平台。著眼於加強我們對解決方案的關注，我們認為我們可以作為住宅能源生態系統的一部分為消費者創造最大價值。

With improved focus and execution and by leveraging our core competencies around sales and marketing, lead generation, distribution, customer support and global sourcing and logistics, we believe we can create competitive advantages with our residential energy technology products and services that will become evident over time as we continue to develop the smart energy home in the future.

通過提高專注力和執行力，並利用我們在銷售和營銷、潛在客戶開發、分銷、客戶支持以及全球採購和物流方面的核心競爭力，我們相信我們可以通過我們的住宅能源技術產品和服務創造競爭優勢，隨著時間的推移，這些優勢將變得明顯隨著我們在未來繼續開發智能能源家居。

Switching gears, and I want to provide some commentary on our C&I products which have experienced significant growth over the last 2 years and once again outperformed our expectations in the quarter. Global C&I product sales grew 30% over the prior year to an all-time quarterly record. And backlog for these products also remained at record levels at the end of the quarter as multiple megatrends support demand for backup power and mobile products around the world.

切換齒輪，我想對我們的 C&I 產品發表一些評論，這些產品在過去 2 年中經歷了顯著增長，並再次超出了我們在本季度的預期。全球 C&I 產品銷售額比上一年增長 30%，創歷史季度記錄。由於多個大趨勢支持全球對備用電源和移動產品的需求，這些產品的積壓在本季度末也保持在創紀錄的水平。

Shipments for domestic C&I products grew in the first quarter, highlighted by strength across all channels, including national rental equipment, industrial distributors, telecom and other direct customers for beyond standby applications.

第一季度國內 C&I 產品的出貨量有所增長，突出表現在所有渠道的強勁增長，包括國家租賃設備、工業分銷商、電信和其他直接客戶的超備用應用。

Shipments of C&I generators through our North American distributor channel grew significantly again in the first quarter and order trends and channel backlog also increased at a strong rate. Quoting activity remains robust and close rates improved nicely on a year-over-year basis, highlighting our sustained market share gains and the ongoing strength in demand for backup power in this important channel.

通過我們的北美分銷商渠道的工商業發電機出貨量在第一季度再次顯著增長，訂單趨勢和渠道積壓也以強勁的速度增長。報價活動依然強勁，收盤價同比有很好的改善，突顯出我們持續的市場份額增長以及這一重要渠道對備用電源的需求持續強勁。

As a leading provider of backup power to the North American telecom market, shipments to national telecom customers also increased at a robust rate during the first quarter as compared to the prior -- the strong prior year comparison, as several of our larger national customers continue to deploy generators to harden their existing sites and build out their fifth generation or 5G networks.

作為北美電信市場備用電源的領先供應商，第一季度對全國電信客戶的出貨量與上一季度相比也以強勁的速度增長——去年同期比較強勁，因為我們的幾個較大的全國客戶繼續部署發電機以加強其現有站點並構建其第五代或 5G 網絡。

While shipment and order patterns for certain customers in this channel are expected to be lumpy in the second half of the year, investment in telecom infrastructure remains a secular trend as global tower and network hub counts further expand and the increasingly critical nature of wireless communications requires backup power for resiliency.

儘管下半年該渠道某些客戶的出貨量和訂單模式預計會起伏不定，但隨著全球塔和網絡樞紐數量的進一步增加以及無線通信日益重要的性質要求，對電信基礎設施的投資仍然是一個長期趨勢彈性的備用電源。

We also experienced another quarter of tremendous growth for our national and independent rental equipment customers as they continue to refresh and expand their fleets. This end market is supported by the secular trend of critical need for significant infrastructure investments that will require years to complete, and mobile power products and light towers will be necessary in these essential construction projects.

隨著我們的國家和獨立租賃設備客戶繼續更新和擴大他們的車隊，我們還經歷了另一個季度的巨大增長。這一終端市場受到長期趨勢的支持，即對重大基礎設施投資的迫切需求將需要數年才能完成，而移動電源產品和燈塔將是這些重要建設項目所必需的。

Natural gas generators used in applications beyond traditional emergency standby projects also continued to see increased traction during the first quarter as shipments of these products once again grew at an exceptional rate. We believe we are in the very early innings of growth for this exciting new market opportunity as grid stability concerns and volatile energy markets are expected to further drive demand for these solutions.

用於傳統應急備用項目以外應用的天然氣發電機在第一季度也繼續受到更多關注，因為這些產品的出貨量再次以驚人的速度增長。我們相信，由於電網穩定性問題和動蕩的能源市場預計將進一步推動對這些解決方案的需求，因此我們正處於這個令人興奮的新市場機會的早期增長階段。

Additionally, the business models of our direct customers in this vertical are innovating in the generator marketplace by developing as-a-service offerings, which dramatically reduces the need for the large initial capital outlays that have traditionally been required for businesses to add resiliency to their operations.

此外，我們在這個垂直領域的直接客戶的商業模式正在通過開發即服務產品在發電機市場中進行創新，這大大減少了傳統上企業為增加其彈性所需的大量初始資本支出的需求操作。

Internationally, robust momentum continued as shipments increased 17% year-over-year during the first quarter with 19% core sales growth when excluding the net impact of contributions from acquisitions and the unfavorable impact of foreign currency. Core total sales growth was driven by strength across key regions, most notably in Europe, where power security for homes and businesses remain the top priority amid ongoing geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty.

在國際上，第一季度出貨量同比增長 17%，核心銷售額增長 19%（不包括收購貢獻的淨影響和外彙的不利影響），繼續保持強勁勢頭。核心總銷售額的增長是由主要地區的實力推動的，尤其是在歐洲，在持續的地緣政治和宏觀經濟不確定性的情況下，家庭和企業的電力安全仍然是重中之重。

International segment EBITDA margins also increased meaningfully during the quarter, primarily due to favorable price cost dynamics and improved operating leverage on higher sales volumes. Supplementing our international performance, we're also beginning to see long-term growth potential emerge in new and developing regions such as India, where we are experiencing positive sales momentum for our backup power solutions.

國際業務部門的 EBITDA 利潤率在本季度也有顯著增長，這主要是由於有利的價格成本動態和更高銷量帶來的運營槓桿改善。除了我們的國際業績，我們還開始看到印度等新興和發展中地區出現長期增長潛力，我們在這些地區的備用電源解決方案銷售勢頭良好。

This rapidly growing market has unique characteristics for a developing country with the size of its population, broad electrical infrastructure coverage and an increasing number of homes and businesses with direct natural gas connections.

對於一個人口眾多、電力基礎設施覆蓋面廣、越來越多的家庭和企業直接連接天然氣的發展中國家來說，這個快速增長的市場具有獨特的特徵。

We are currently building out our full range of residential and C&I gas solutions to address this large market opportunity. Additionally, during the quarter, we acquired the remaining 20% minority ownership interest in Pramac, bringing our total ownership to 100%. Pramac is a leading designer and manufacturer of stationary, mobile and portable generators along with energy storage solutions sold through a broad distribution network across the world and it has been a key driver of our successful international expansion since we first acquired a majority interest in the company in early 2016.

我們目前正在構建全系列的住宅和工商業燃氣解決方案，以應對這一巨大的市場機遇。此外，在本季度，我們收購了 Pramac 剩餘的 20% 少數股權，使我們的總所有權達到 100%。 Pramac 是固定式、移動式和便攜式發電機以及儲能解決方案的領先設計商和製造商，通過遍布全球的廣泛分銷網絡銷售，自我們首次收購該公司的多數股權以來，它一直是我們成功進行國際擴張的關鍵驅動力2016年初。

Through the combination of focused investment and Pramac's global presence, this has become an important strategic element of our international growth aspirations. As we've been experiencing on the residential side of our business, our global C&I product category is similarly in the very early innings of its own energy technology evolution and we've made meaningful progress towards that evolution here in 2023.

通過重點投資與奔邁的全球佈局相結合，這已成為我們實現國際增長願望的重要戰略要素。正如我們在業務的住宅方面所經歷的那樣，我們的全球 C&I 產品類別同樣處於其自身能源技術發展的早期階段，我們在 2023 年的發展中取得了有意義的進展。

In addition to our advanced controls and connectivity solutions, beyond standby natural gas generators and mobile energy storage systems, we've now added stationary energy storage solutions for behind-the-meter applications, both domestically and internationally to our product portfolio.

除了我們先進的控制和連接解決方案、備用天然氣發電機和移動儲能係統之外，我們現在還在我們的產品組合中添加了用於國內和國際表後應用的固定儲能解決方案。

In February, we acquired REFU Storage Systems, a German-based developer and supplier of energy storage hardware products, advanced software and platform services for international commercial and industrial customers. We also recently announced our new series of Generac branded stationary energy storage systems for the North American C&I market in partnership with a leading supplier of behind-the-meter storage solutions.

2 月，我們收購了 REFU Storage Systems，這是一家總部位於德國的儲能硬件產品開發商和供應商，為國際商業和工業客戶提供先進的軟件和平台服務。我們最近還與一家領先的用戶側存儲解決方案供應商合作，為北美 C&I 市場推出了新系列的 Generac 品牌固定式儲能係統。

These developments represent our initial foray into this rapidly growing market and advancing our C&I storage capabilities will remain a key initiative for Generac in the coming years. The long-term opportunity for Energy Technology solutions within our C&I product category is extremely robust, and I'm confident in our ability to leverage our existing position of strength around the world to compete in these markets.

這些發展代表我們首次涉足這個快速增長的市場，提高我們的 C&I 存儲能力仍將是 Generac 在未來幾年的一項重要舉措。我們的 C&I 產品類別中能源技術解決方案的長期機會非常強勁，我相信我們有能力利用我們在全球的現有優勢地位在這些市場中競爭。

In closing this morning, we believe our first quarter performance represents a trough in the current cycle as we continue to focus on reducing home standby field inventory levels and as we work to rebuild sales momentum for our power cell residential energy storage systems. That said, we're extremely pleased with the continued execution in our global C&I product categories that drove overall results ahead of our prior expectations, and we're encouraged by the progress we're making in addressing the near-term challenges that are impacting our residential product categories.

在今天上午結束時，我們認為我們第一季度的業績代表了當前週期的低谷，因為我們繼續專注於降低家庭備用現場庫存水平，並努力重建我們的電池住宅儲能係統的銷售勢頭。也就是說，我們對全球 C&I 產品類別的持續執行感到非常高興，這些產品類別的整體業績超出了我們之前的預期，我們對我們在解決影響近期挑戰方面取得的進展感到鼓舞我們的住宅產品類別。

In addition, the robust level of power outage activity and resulting strength in home consultations for home standby generators so far here in 2023, provides incremental support for our expectations to return to year-over-year sales growth in the residential product category in the second half of the year.

此外，到 2023 年為止，停電活動的強勁水平以及由此帶來的家用備用發電機的家庭諮詢強度，為我們在第二個季度住宅產品類別恢復同比銷售增長的預期提供了增量支持半年。

Importantly, we're maintaining our full year net sales and adjusted EBITDA margin guidance as we execute on our near-term initiatives and position Generac for sustained long-term success in our mission to lead the evolution to more resilient, efficient and sustainable energy solutions. I'd now like to turn the call over to York to provide additional details on our first quarter results and discuss our outlook for 2023. York?

重要的是，我們將維持全年淨銷售額和調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率指導，因為我們執行我們的近期計劃並定位 Generac 在我們的使命中取得持續的長期成功，以引領向更具彈性、高效和可持續的能源解決方案的發展.我現在想把電話轉給約克，以提供有關我們第一季度業績的更多詳細信息，並討論我們對 2023 年的展望。約克？

Thanks, Aaron. Looking at first quarter 2023 results in more detail. Net sales decreased 22% to $888 million during the first quarter of 2023 as compared to $1.14 billion in the prior year first quarter. The combination of contributions from recent acquisitions and the unfavorable impact from foreign currency had an approximate 2% net favorable impact on revenue growth during the quarter. Briefly looking at consolidated net sales for the first quarter by product class.

謝謝，亞倫。更詳細地查看 2023 年第一季度的結果。 2023 年第一季度淨銷售額下降 22% 至 8.88 億美元，而去年第一季度為 11.4 億美元。近期收購的貢獻和外彙的不利影響對本季度的收入增長產生了約 2% 的淨有利影響。按產品類別簡要查看第一季度的合併淨銷售額。

Residential product sales declined 46% to $419 million as compared to $777 million in the prior year. As Aaron discussed in detail, lower shipments of home standby generators and power cell energy storage systems drove this decline in residential product sales. Commercial and industrial product sales for the first quarter of 2023 increased 30% to $363 million as compared to $279 million in the prior year quarter.

住宅產品銷售額下降 46% 至 4.19 億美元，而去年同期為 7.77 億美元。正如 Aaron 詳細討論的那樣，家用備用發電機和電池儲能係統的出貨量下降推動了住宅產品銷售額的下降。 2023 年第一季度工商業產品銷售額增長 30% 至 3.63 億美元，而去年同期為 2.79 億美元。

Contributions from recent acquisitions were nearly fully offset by the unfavorable impact of foreign currency during the quarter. The very strong core sales growth was broad-based across most regions internationally and all channels domestically with particular strength in the domestic national rental equipment, industrial distributors, telecom and other direct customers for beyond standby applications.

本季度外彙的不利影響幾乎完全抵消了近期收購的貢獻。非常強勁的核心銷售增長基礎廣泛，遍及國際大部分地區和國內所有渠道，尤其是國內租賃設備、工業分銷商、電信和其他超待機應用的直接客戶。

Net sales for other products and services increased 32% to $106 million as compared to $80 million in the first quarter of 2022. The acquisition of electronic environments contributed approximately 28% of this growth given their additional service capabilities. Core sales growth for the category was approximately 4%, primarily due to growth in our Energy Technology Service offerings, along with continued growth in aftermarket service parts and extended warranty revenue recognition.

與 2022 年第一季度的 8000 萬美元相比，其他產品和服務的淨銷售額增長了 32%，達到 1.06 億美元。鑑於其額外的服務能力，電子環境的收購貢獻了這一增長的約 28%。該類別的核心銷售額增長約為 4%，主要是由於我們的能源技術服務產品的增長，以及售後服務零件的持續增長和延長保修收入的確認。

Gross profit margin was 30.7% compared to 31.8% in the prior year first quarter due to the significant impact of unfavorable sales mix given the sharp decline in home standby mix compared to the prior year. This was mostly offset by realization of previously implemented pricing actions, together with lower input costs from improved commodities, logistics, plant efficiency and other cost reduction efforts.

毛利率為 30.7%，而去年第一季度為 31.8%，這是由於家庭備用產品組合與去年同期相比大幅下降，不利的銷售組合產生了重大影響。這在很大程度上被之前實施的定價行動的實現以及商品、物流、工廠效率和其他成本削減措施的改善所帶來的投入成本降低所抵消。

Operating expenses increased $22 million or 11% as compared to the first quarter of 2022. This increase was primarily driven by higher marketing, promotion and employee costs, certain legal and regulatory expenses and the impact of recurring operating expenses from recent acquisitions. Adjusted EBITDA before deducting for noncontrolling interest, as defined in our earnings release, was $100 million, or 11.3% of net sales in the first quarter as compared to $196 million and 16.3% of net sales in the prior year.

與 2022 年第一季度相比，運營費用增加了 2200 萬美元或 11%。這一增長主要是由於營銷、促銷和員工成本增加、某些法律和監管費用以及近期收購產生的經常性運營費用的影響。根據我們的收益發布中的定義，扣除非控股權益之前的調整後 EBITDA 為 1 億美元，佔第一季度淨銷售額的 11.3%，而去年同期為 1.96 億美元和淨銷售額的 16.3%。

The lower EBITDA percent was primarily driven by the higher operating expenses as a percent of sales, given the lower sales compared to the prior year. I will now briefly discuss financial results for our 2 reporting segments. Domestic segment total sales including intersegment sales decreased 26% to $720 million in the quarter as compared to $975 million in the prior year, with the impact of acquisitions contributing approximately 3% revenue growth for the quarter.

較低的 EBITDA 百分比主要是由於營業費用佔銷售額的百分比較高，因為與上一年相比銷售額較低。我現在將簡要討論我們 2 個報告部門的財務業績。本季度國內部門總銷售額（包括部門間銷售額）下降 26% 至 7.2 億美元，而去年同期為 9.75 億美元，收購的影響為本季度貢獻了約 3% 的收入增長。

Adjusted EBITDA for the segment was $68 million, representing a 9.4% margin as compared to $170 million in the prior year or 17.5% of total sales. The lower domestic EBITDA margin in the quarter was primarily due to unfavorable sales mix and reduced operating leverage on lower shipments. In addition, the impact of acquisitions and continued Energy Technology growth investments negatively affected margins during the quarter.

該部門調整後的 EBITDA 為 6800 萬美元，利潤率為 9.4%，而去年同期為 1.7 億美元，佔總銷售額的 17.5%。本季度較低的國內 EBITDA 利潤率主要是由於不利的銷售組合和較低的出貨量導致運營槓桿降低。此外，收購和持續的能源技術增長投資對本季度的利潤率產生了負面影響。

These factors were partially offset by the realization of previously implemented pricing actions and lower input costs. International segment total sales, including intersegment sales, increased 17% to $216 million in the quarter as compared to $185 million in the prior year quarter.

這些因素部分被先前實施的定價行動的實現和較低的投入成本所抵消。本季度國際部門總銷售額（包括部門間銷售額）增長 17% 至 2.16 億美元，而去年同期為 1.85 億美元。

Core sales, which exclude the impact of acquisitions and currency, increased approximately 19% compared to the prior year. Adjusted EBITDA for the segment before deducting for noncontrolling interests was $32 million or 15% of net sales as compared to $26 million or 14% of sales in the prior year. This margin increase was driven primarily by favorable price/cost dynamics and improved operating leverage on higher volumes.

排除收購和匯率影響的核心銷售額比上年增長約 19%。該部門扣除非控股權益前的調整後 EBITDA 為 3200 萬美元或淨銷售額的 15%，而上一年為 2600 萬美元或銷售額的 14%。利潤率的增長主要是由於有利的價格/成本動態和更高產量的經營槓桿的提高。

Now switching back to our financial performance for the first quarter of 2023 on a consolidated basis. As disclosed in our earnings release, GAAP net income for the company in the quarter was $12 million, as compared to $114 million for the first quarter of 2022.

現在回到我們 2023 年第一季度的綜合財務業績。正如我們在財報中披露的那樣，本季度公司的 GAAP 淨收入為 1200 萬美元，而 2022 年第一季度為 1.14 億美元。

The current year net income includes approximately $13 million of additional interest expense compared to the prior year due to higher borrowings and interest rates. Income taxes during the current year first quarter were $8 million or an effective tax rate of 35.7% as compared to $29 million or an effective tax rate of 19.7% for the prior year.

由於較高的借款和利率，與上一年相比，本年度淨收入包括約 1300 萬美元的額外利息支出。本年度第一季度的所得稅為 800 萬美元或 35.7% 的有效稅率，而上一年為 2900 萬美元或 19.7% 的有效稅率。

The increase in effective tax rate was primarily due to a lower benefit from equity compensation on a low pretax earnings base in the current year quarter. Diluted net income per share for the company on a GAAP basis was $0.05 for the first quarter of 2023 compared to $1.57 in the prior year.

有效稅率的增加主要是由於本年度季度稅前收益基數較低，股權補償收益較低。 2023 年第一季度，公司按 GAAP 計算的稀釋後每股淨收益為 0.05 美元，而去年同期為 1.57 美元。

Adjusted net income for the company as defined in our earnings release, was $39 million in the current year quarter or $0.63 per share. This compares to adjusted net income of $128 million in the prior year or $1.98 per share. Cash flow used in operations was negative $19 million as compared to negative $10 million in the prior year first quarter.

根據我們的收益發布定義，公司調整後的淨收入在本年度季度為 3900 萬美元或每股 0.63 美元。相比之下，去年調整後的淨收入為 1.28 億美元或每股 1.98 美元。運營中使用的現金流為負 1900 萬美元，而去年第一季度為負 1000 萬美元。

And free cash flow, as defined in our earnings release, was negative $42 million as compared to negative $37 million in the same quarter last year. The modest decline in free cash flow was primarily due to lower operating earnings and a $36 million one-time cash tax payment for tax planning related to a recent acquisition.

我們的收益發布中定義的自由現金流為負 4200 萬美元，而去年同期為負 3700 萬美元。自由現金流的小幅下降主要是由於較低的營業收入和 3600 萬美元的一次性現金稅，用於與最近的收購相關的稅收籌劃。

This was mostly offset by lower working capital investment in the current year quarter as we reduce our material receipts and production rates for residential products and stabilized inventory levels. Total debt outstanding at the end of the quarter was $1.61 billion, resulting in a gross debt leverage ratio at the end of the first quarter of 2.25x on an as-reported basis.

這主要被本年度季度較低的營運資本投資所抵消，因為我們減少了住宅產品的材料收據和生產率，並穩定了庫存水平。本季度末的未償債務總額為 16.1 億美元，導致第一季度末的總債務槓桿率為報告基礎的 2.25 倍。

Outstanding debt increased $179 million during the current year quarter as we used proceeds from those borrowings to fund the $105 million Pramac buyout, the $36 million onetime cash tax paid for tax plan purposes and a $16 million REFU Storage acquisition.

未償債務在本年度季度增加了 1.79 億美元，因為我們使用這些借款的收益為 1.05 億美元的 Pramac 收購、為稅收計劃目的支付的 3600 萬美元一次性現金稅和 1600 萬美元的 REFU Storage 收購提供資金。

With that, I will now provide further comments on our outlook for 2023. As disclosed in our press release this morning, we are maintaining our prior outlook for the full year 2023. We continue to expect the residential product category will be impacted by higher home standby field inventory levels in the second quarter before returning to year-over-year sales growth in the second half of the year, resulting in a full year decline in the high-teens range compared to the prior year.

有了這個，我現在將對我們對 2023 年的展望提供進一步的評論。正如我們今天上午的新聞稿中所披露的那樣，我們維持之前對 2023 年全年的展望。我們繼續預計住宅產品類別將受到更高的住宅價格的影響第二季度的備用現場庫存水平在下半年恢復同比銷售增長之前，導致全年與去年同期相比下降了十幾歲的高位。

Our outlook for C&I product sales to grow at a mid- to high single-digit rate during the year remains unchanged as we come up against increasingly challenging prior year comparisons in the second half of the year. As a result, we continue to expect overall net sales for the full year to decline between minus 6% to minus 10% as compared to the prior year which includes approximately 1% to 2% favorable impact from acquisitions and foreign currency.

我們對 C&I 產品銷售額在這一年中以中高個位數的速度增長的前景保持不變，因為我們在今年下半年遇到了越來越具有挑戰性的前一年比較。因此，我們繼續預計全年的整體淨銷售額與上年相比將下降 -6% 至 -10%，其中包括來自收購和外彙的約 1% 至 2% 的有利影響。

Importantly, this guidance assumes a level of power outage activity during the remainder of the year that is in line with the longer-term baseline average. Consistent with our historical approach, this outlook does not assume the benefit of a major power outage event during the year. Additionally, this outlook does not assume a prolonged deep recessionary environment that meaningfully impacts consumer spending during 2023.

重要的是，本指南假設今年剩餘時間的停電活動水平與長期基準平均值一致。與我們的歷史方法一致，這一展望並未假設年內發生重大停電事件的好處。此外，這一前景並未假設長期的深度衰退環境會對 2023 年的消費者支出產生重大影響。

Having said that, demand for our home standby products tends to be driven more by power outages rather than overall macroeconomic conditions. We continue to expect sales to be more weighted to the back half of the year as field inventory normalizes and consistent with normal seasonality, excluding excess backlog. With overall net sales in the first half now being approximately 45% weighted and sales in the second half being approximately 55% weighted.

話雖如此，對我們家庭備用產品的需求往往更多地受到停電而不是整體宏觀經濟狀況的推動。我們繼續預計，隨著現場庫存正常化並與正常的季節性一致（不包括過多積壓），今年下半年的銷售將更加重要。目前上半年整體淨銷售額的權重約為 45%，下半年的銷售額權重約為 55%。

Our gross margin expectations for the full year 2023 are also unchanged as we anticipate approximately 150 basis points of gross margin improvement over 2022 levels. From a seasonality perspective, we continue to expect that first quarter gross margins will mark the low point for the year.

我們對 2023 年全年的毛利率預期也保持不變，因為我們預計毛利率將比 2022 年水平提高約 150 個基點。從季節性角度來看，我們繼續預計第一季度毛利率將創下今年的低點。

We anticipate sequential quarterly improvements resulting from improved sales mix with higher shipments of home standby generators along with lower input costs, improved overhead absorption and realization of cost reduction initiatives as we move throughout the year. Gross margins are expected to progressively improve throughout the year with second half 2023 gross margins to be approximately 500 basis points higher than first half 2023 margins.

我們預計，隨著銷售組合的改善、家用備用發電機出貨量的增加以及投入成本的降低、管理費用吸收的改善以及我們全年移動時成本削減計劃的實現，我們預計將出現連續的季度改善。預計全年毛利率將逐步提高，2023 年下半年的毛利率將比 2023 年上半年的毛利率高出約 500 個基點。

The continued strength of our end markets gives us the confidence to continue to focus heavily on supporting innovation, executing on strategic initiatives and investing for future growth. As a result of these continued investments, we expect operating expenses as a percentage of net sales, excluding intangible amortization expense to be approximately 20% for the full year 2023, with operating leverage improving throughout the year.

我們終端市場的持續強勁讓我們有信心繼續重點支持創新、執行戰略計劃和投資未來增長。由於這些持續投資，我們預計 2023 年全年運營費用占淨銷售額（不包括無形攤銷費用）的百分比約為 20%，全年運營槓桿率將有所改善。

Given these gross margin and operating expense expectations, adjusted EBITDA margins before deducting for noncontrolling interests are still expected to be approximately 17% to 18% for the full year. From a seasonality perspective, we expect adjusted EBITDA margins to improve significantly throughout the year, primarily driven by sequentially improving gross margins as previously discussed, and, to a lesser extent, improved leverage of operating expenses on the expected higher sales volumes in the second half of 2023.

鑑於這些毛利率和運營費用預期，全年扣除非控股權益前的調整後 EBITDA 利潤率預計仍約為 17% 至 18%。從季節性的角度來看，我們預計全年調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率將顯著提高，這主要是由於如前所述毛利率的連續提高，以及在較小程度上提高了運營費用對下半年預期更高銷量的影響2023 年。

Accordingly, we continue to expect second half adjusted EBITDA margin to be approximately 800 basis points higher than first half margins. We're also providing updated guidance feed sales to assist with modeling adjusted earnings per share and free cash flow for the full year 2023. For 2023, our GAAP effective tax rate is expected to be approximately 25% as compared to our previous guidance of 24% to 25% and the 19.6% full year GAAP tax rate for 2022.

因此，我們繼續預計下半年調整後的 EBITDA 利潤率將比上半年利潤率高出約 800 個基點。我們還提供更新的飼料銷售指導，以協助對 2023 年全年的調整後每股收益和自由現金流進行建模。2023 年，我們的 GAAP 有效稅率預計約為 25%，而我們之前的指導為 24% % 至 25% 以及 2022 年 19.6% 的全年 GAAP 稅率。

The year-over-year increase is driven primarily by expectations for lower share-based compensation deductions, increased mix of income in higher tax jurisdictions and higher tax and foreign income in 2023 compared to 2022. Interest expense is still expected to be approximately $90 million, assuming no additional term loan principal prepayments during the year and assuming elevated SOFR rates throughout 2023.

同比增長的主要原因是對較低股權薪酬扣除的預期、較高稅收管轄區的收入組合增加以及 2023 年與 2022 年相比更高的稅收和外國收入。利息支出預計仍約為 9000 萬美元，假設年內沒有額外的定期貸款本金提前還款，並假設 SOFR 利率在整個 2023 年升高。

Interest expense is expected to moderate in the back half of the year and cash flows on our interest rate swaps become more favorable, and we paid down a portion of our outstanding revolver indebtedness. Our capital expenditures are projected to be approximately 3% of our forecasted net sales for the year. Depreciation expense is now forecast to be approximately $60 million compared to the previous guidance of $56 million to $58 million in 2023 due to the addition of REFU Storage-related depreciation expense.

預計下半年利息支出將減少，我們的利率掉期現金流變得更加有利，我們還清了部分未償還的循環債務。我們的資本支出預計約為我們今年預測淨銷售額的 3%。由於增加了與 REFU 存儲相關的折舊費用，現在預計折舊費用約為 6000 萬美元，而此前的指導是 2023 年的 5600 萬至 5800 萬美元。

GAAP intangible amortization expense expectations are unchanged at approximately $100 million during the year. Importantly, to arrive at appropriate estimates for adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share, this add-back item should be reflected net of tax using the expected 25% tax rate. Stock compensation expense is still expected to be between $40 million to $43 million for the year.

GAAP 無形攤銷費用預期在這一年保持不變，約為 1 億美元。重要的是，為了對調整後的淨收入和調整後的每股收益做出適當的估計，應該使用預期的 25% 稅率反映這一追加項目的稅後淨額。今年的股票補償費用預計仍將在 4000 萬至 4300 萬美元之間。

Operating and free cash flow generation is expected to follow historical seasonality of being disproportionately weighted towards the second half of the year in 2023. For the full year, we expect adjusted net income to free cash flow conversion to be strong at well over 100% as working capital levels moderate off of peak levels. Our full year weighted average diluted share count is still expected to decrease to approximately 63 million shares as compared to 64.7 million shares in 2022, which reflects the share repurchases that were completed in 2022. Finally, this 2023 outlook does not reflect potential additional acquisitions or share repurchases that could drive incremental shareholder value. This concludes our prepared remarks. At this time, we'd like to open up the call for questions.

經營和自由現金流的產生預計將遵循歷史季節性，即在 2023 年下半年獲得不成比例的權重。對於全年，我們預計調整後的淨收入與自由現金流的轉換率將超過 100%，因為營運資本水平從峰值水平回落。我們的全年加權平均稀釋股數預計仍將從 2022 年的 6470 萬股減少至約 6300 萬股，這反映了 2022 年完成的股票回購。最後，2023 年的展望並不反映潛在的額外收購或股票回購可以增加股東價值。我們準備好的發言到此結束。在這個時候，我們想打開問題的電話。

(Operator Instructions)

（操作員說明）

Our first question will come from Tommy Moll of Stephens, Inc.

我們的第一個問題將來自 Stephens, Inc. 的 Tommy Moll。

Aaron, it's good to hear some of the constructive updates on IHCs in the period. And on a related topic, I wanted to talk about the close rates there. Can you update us on what those look like maybe compared to the prior year of pre-pandemic? And as you progress through the year, do you see it landing somewhere in the range of a pre-pandemic kind of level? Or is there something structurally different here?

Aaron，很高興在此期間聽到有關 IHC 的一些建設性更新。在相關主題上，我想談談那裡的收盤價。與大流行前的前一年相比，您能否向我們介紹一下這些情況？隨著這一年的進展，您是否看到它落在大流行前水平範圍內的某個地方？或者這裡有什麼結構上的不同？

Thanks, Tommy. We actually were very encouraged by the sales lead volume that we saw, as we said in Q1, it was -- in fact, it would have been a record Q1, if not for the comp being -- the last record Q1 was 2021 when we had Texas, the deep freeze. So if you take that out, Q1 would have been a record for consultations just for the baseline, yes. So I mean it was pretty robust. And in fact, that carried through here in April as well. Close rates, interestingly enough, like we've talked about this on previous calls. So we're still well off our pre-pandemic close rates, but those -- they have been recovering. They kind of bottomed the beginning of last year, so about a year ago. So from a comp perspective, we're up nicely off those close rates from a year ago.

謝謝，湯米。正如我們在第一季度所說的那樣，我們實際上對所看到的銷售線索數量感到非常鼓舞，事實上，如果不是因為競爭，那將是創紀錄的第一季度——最後一個創紀錄的第一季度是 2021 年，當時我們有得克薩斯州，深度凍結。所以如果你把它去掉，第一季度將是僅針對基準的磋商記錄，是的。所以我的意思是它非常強大。事實上，這也在四月份在這裡進行。有趣的是，收盤價就像我們在之前的電話會議上討論過的那樣。因此，我們仍遠低於大流行前的收盤價，但那些——它們一直在恢復。他們在去年年初觸底，大約一年前。因此，從比較的角度來看，我們與一年前的收盤價相比有了很大的提高。

As far as do we think we'll recover to pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year, we've still got a ways to go. We continue to see progress and we think that a big part of that story, as we've mentioned previously, is just getting the lead times back down, which clearly isn't an issue anymore. So the thing we'll watch, of course, with close rates is where the softening economy potentially in the back half of the year, how does that impact close rates. We are seeing a -- just as a side note there, we're seeing continued uptake in our financing options for homeowners.

就我們認為到今年年底我們會恢復到大流行前的水平而言，我們還有很長的路要走。我們繼續看到進展，我們認為這個故事的很大一部分，正如我們之前提到的，只是讓交貨時間倒退，這顯然不再是問題了。因此，當然，我們要關注的是收盤利率是今年下半年經濟可能走軟的地方，這將如何影響收盤利率。我們看到了——就像那裡的旁註一樣，我們看到我們為房主提供的融資選擇繼續被採納。

In fact, we had incredible growth on our financing program in Q1. And that's in spite of the residential category being down 46%. Financing was up dramatically in the quarter. So we see -- we do know that there are consumers out there that are looking at financing as an option as a way to improve the affordability of these products in spite of maybe their concerns around a slowdown in the economy. So again, not giving specific guidance on the close rates, but we are continuing to see improvements there kind of sequentially or at least over the prior year. And I don't think that will return quite to prepandemic levels by this year. I don't think that -- that's not what our guide contemplates. So maybe that's upside for us as we continue to recover there.

事實上，我們在第一季度的融資計劃取得了令人難以置信的增長。儘管住宅類別下降了 46%。本季度融資急劇增加。所以我們看到——我們確實知道，儘管他們可能擔心經濟放緩，但有些消費者正在將融資視為一種提高這些產品負擔能力的選擇。再次重申，沒有給出收盤價的具體指導，但我們繼續看到那裡有所改善，或者至少比前一年有所改善。而且我認為到今年這不會完全恢復到大流行前的水平。我不這麼認為——這不是我們的指南所考慮的。因此，隨著我們繼續在那裡恢復，這對我們來說可能是有利的。

Our next question will come from Michael Halloran of Baird.

我們的下一個問題將來自 Baird 的 Michael Halloran。

So Aaron, let's stick on that train of thought, Aaron, because obviously, there's a lot of concern and questions just around the sustainability of that home standby piece from an underlying demand perspective. And we've certainly seen the positive -- we've heard -- certainly heard the positive commentary on the IHC side. Would love to understand why the confidence level is so high that you can maintain that. And also maybe put in a historical perspective, how you've tracked when you had kind of negative economy but positive storms in the past. I know New York made a quick reference to it in the prepared remarks, but just kind of laying out why you think things are going to be, from an underlying perspective, pretty stable moving into the back half would be great.

所以亞倫，讓我們堅持這個思路，亞倫，因為很明顯，從潛在需求的角度來看，圍繞家庭備用產品的可持續性存在很多擔憂和問題。我們當然看到了積極的——我們聽到了——當然聽到了 IHC 方面的積極評論。很想了解為什麼置信度如此之高以至於您可以保持它。也可能從歷史的角度來看，你是如何追踪過去經濟出現負面但出現正面風暴的情況的。我知道紐約在準備好的發言中快速提到了它，但只是說明為什麼你認為事情會是這樣，從潛在的角度來看，相當穩定地進入後半部分會很棒。

Yes. Obviously, an area of deep focus for us, Mike, and we've got some experience around that, and I'll talk to that here in a second. But I think just talking to the trends and what gives us confidence in the second half of the year. So the way we think about it, those sales leads, which are an important leading indicator in the category for us, they mature over a period of 90 to 120 days, call it, from when you do the consultation to when the product actually gets installed. So we think that in terms of near-term visibility, right, next quarter, 1.5 quarters, perhaps, we think we have a pretty good view on the kind of the end market demand as it were. That, coupled with the fact that we're underserving the market right now, right? Like we're under-shipping to end market demand because we're allowing this destock process to take place.

是的。顯然，邁克，這是我們非常關注的一個領域，我們在這方面有一些經驗，我稍後會在這裡討論。但我認為只是談論趨勢以及是什麼讓我們對下半年充滿信心。所以我們認為，那些銷售線索，對我們來說是該類別中的重要領先指標，他們在 90 到 120 天的時間內成熟，從你進行諮詢到產品實際收到安裝。因此，我們認為就近期可見性而言，下個季度，也許是 1.5 個季度，我們認為我們對終端市場需求的類型有很好的看法。再加上我們現在對市場的服務不足，對吧？就像我們對終端市場需求的出貨量不足一樣，因為我們允許進行這種去庫存過程。

So I would just say that Q1 artificially low relative to what home standby shipments could have been had we been matching kind of the shipping pace with the demand pace, right? So we were out of step with that because of the field inventory challenges that we've talked much about here. So you put those together, and those we're pacing to have that abate as we enter the second half of the year. We think that, that's something that's going to improve. As we said, we're going to get back to more normal levels there. So we return to more normal levels there. You also have normal seasonality, right? The first half of the year, Q1 in particular, is always a challenging quarter for the category because it's just difficult to do installations.

所以我只想說，如果我們將出貨速度與需求速度相匹配，第一季度相對於家庭備用出貨量的人為降低，對嗎？因此，由於我們在這裡討論過很多的現場庫存挑戰，我們與此脫節了。所以你把它們放在一起，我們正在努力在進入下半年時減少這種情況。我們認為，這會有所改善。正如我們所說，我們將在那裡恢復到更正常的水平。所以我們在那裡回到更正常的水平。你也有正常的季節性，對吧？今年上半年，尤其是第一季度，對於該類別來說始終是一個充滿挑戰的季度，因為很難進行安裝。

And in fact, this Q1, some of the reason why we saw so many home consultations with the outage environment being driven by weather also provided some challenges to our install crews in terms of them being able to actually install product in Q1. So it's a little bit of a kind of a bit of an irony there. But -- so if you take that out of it, though, and we look to the future and then kind of just speaking more broadly, I think, to our experience in the category when you have maybe a softening economic backdrop, I can point to the last kind of pull back economically back in 2008, 2009, when you look at housing in particular. And I would say, I would argue this recessionary, I got to be careful on the term I use, but the slowdown in the economy right now that we're -- that people are concerned about or experiencing is not necessarily the same type of experience that happened in '08, '09, where it was directly related to housing prices, home values, mortgage obviously, the value of your home relative to your mortgage with housing prices kind of collapsing back then.

事實上，在第一季度，我們看到如此多的家庭諮詢與天氣驅動的停電環境有關的部分原因也給我們的安裝人員帶來了一些挑戰，因為他們能夠在第一季度實際安裝產品。所以這有點諷刺意味。但是 - 所以如果你把它排除在外，我們展望未來，然後更廣泛地談論我們在經濟背景可能疲軟的類別中的經驗，我可以指出到 2008 年、2009 年的最後一次經濟回落，尤其是在住房方面。我會說，我會爭辯說這次衰退，我必須謹慎使用我使用的術語，但我們現在的經濟放緩 - 人們擔心或經歷的不一定是同一類型的發生在 08 年、09 年的經歷，它與房價、房屋價值、抵押貸款直接相關，很明顯，你的房屋相對於你的抵押貸款的價值，當時房價有點崩潰。

And if there was ever a time when you think that like what we get pegged at in this category, really pegged is a big-ticket discretionary item, right, tied to residential investment. You would have thought that would have been the worst environment ever for this category back in '08, '09, we actually grew our residential part of our business back then.

如果曾經有一段時間你認為我們在這個類別中被盯住的東西，真正被盯住的是一個大件的可自由支配的項目，對，與住宅投資有關。你可能會認為這將是 08 年、09 年這一類別有史以來最糟糕的環境，那時我們實際上發展了我們業務的住宅部分。

So -- and there's a bunch of reasons for that. I mean first of all, the category does skew older, right? So 65% of the buyers of the category are over age 60. And so I don't want to say they're insulated necessarily from economic pullbacks, but I would say that they probably are less affected, right? I also mentioned the use of our financing tools. We're seeing an increase in the use of those financing tools. So I think we have something today that help homeowners who are still interested in the category shop the category and still become buyers.

所以 - 有很多原因。我的意思是首先，這個類別確實偏舊，對吧？所以該類別的買家中有 65% 的年齡在 60 歲以上。所以我不想說他們一定不受經濟回落的影響，但我想說他們可能受到的影響較小，對吧？我還提到了我們融資工具的使用。我們看到這些融資工具的使用有所增加。所以我認為我們今天有一些東西可以幫助仍然對該類別感興趣的房主購買該類別並仍然成為買家。

And I think the biggest thing over my time here, almost 3 decades at the company is that power outages trump the economy every day of the week. I mean when your power is out, the generator categories go right to the top of the list, we maybe get reshuffled, maybe that kitchen remodel or that new pool you were thinking about or even a family vacation gets further down the list and a generator becomes the priority in terms of what you're going to spend your discretionary income on or your home -- going to put value in your home into a home equity infusion. So anyway, that's just kind of how we think about it largely. And I think why I think the category has been relatively resilient over the last 3 decades.

我認為在我在這裡的時間裡最重要的事情是，在公司將近 3 年的時間裡，停電在一周中的每一天都超過了經濟。我的意思是，當你停電時，發電機類別直接排在列表的頂部，我們可能會重新洗牌，也許廚房改造或你正在考慮的新游泳池，甚至家庭度假都會在列表的下方和發電機就你將把可自由支配的收入花在什麼或你的房子上而言，成為優先事項——將你的房子的價值投入到房屋淨值注入中。所以無論如何，這就是我們在很大程度上思考它的方式。而且我認為為什麼我認為該類別在過去 3 年中相對具有彈性。

Our next question will come from Jeff Hammond of KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc.

我們的下一個問題將來自 KeyBanc Capital Markets Inc. 的 Jeff Hammond。

Just can you quantify maybe how much inventory you think came out of the channel in 1Q? And what you think that number looks like in 2Q? And if I could just sneak in a commercial one, just what prevents you from kind of raising the bar there given the strong start?

您能否量化您認為第一季度從渠道流出的庫存量？你認為第二季度的數字是什麼樣的？而且，如果我可以偷偷加入一個商業廣告，那麼考慮到良好的開端，是什麼阻止了您提高那裡的標準？

Yes. No, thanks, Jeff. All good questions. I think on the field inventory, the way we described it, it was a meaningful decrease in the inventory numbers there. And I think there's really -- the big thing to look at and we've mentioned this before, the days of field inventory, right? So we mentioned, I think in the third quarter of last year, we were about double where we thought we needed to be, right? That was kind of -- and we made progress down to about 1.7x when we got to kind of the Q4 call here in February. Now we think that range is somewhere in the 1.4 to 1.5x kind of "normal", right? There's some debate about what normal means, but we're looking at our history in the categories, and we're making good progress. It's all in line.

是的。不，謝謝，傑夫。所有的好問題。我認為在現場庫存方面，按照我們描述的方式，那裡的庫存數量出現了有意義的減少。而且我認為確實有 - 值得關注的大事，我們之前已經提到過，現場盤點的日子，對吧？所以我們提到，我認為在去年第三季度，我們在我們認為需要的地方大約翻了一番，對吧？那有點——當我們在 2 月份在這裡進行第四季度電話會議時，我們取得了大約 1.7 倍的進展。現在我們認為這個範圍在 1.4 到 1.5 倍的“正常”範圍內，對吧？關於正常意味著什麼存在一些爭論，但我們正在研究我們在類別中的歷史，並且我們正在取得良好進展。一切都井井有條。

We also said it wasn't going to be a linear pull down here because of the seasonality, primarily the way Q1 works, just installs being normally seasonally lower in Q1, we just knew that it wasn't going to kind of linearly drop from 1.7 to 1.35 to 1x at the end of Q2. But we feel like we're progressing right where we want to be. And again, we're buoyed by the fact that we see the end market demand remaining very robust. So we feel like this is going to be -- we're going to get to where we need to get to there down the line.

我們還說過，由於季節性因素，這裡不會出現線性下降，主要是第一季度的工作方式，只是安裝量通常在第一季度季節性下降，我們只知道它不會從以下位置線性下降第二季度末為 1.7 至 1.35 至 1 倍。但我們覺得我們正在朝著我們想要的方向前進。再一次，我們看到終端市場需求仍然非常強勁，這讓我們感到鼓舞。所以我們覺得這將是——我們將到達我們需要到達那裡的地方。

Now I would just say the reason you kind of pointed out why not take up kind of the guidance based on the outperformance in Q1. The outperformance primarily came from C&I, right? So our C&I business is crushing it, which is awesome, especially internationally. The Pramac team, we were able to acquire now. We own 100% of that business, which is awesome, and they've been a significant part of our global expansion here as a company over the last 7 years. But that said, one of the big kind of drivers, one of the big verticals in there that we've always talked about is our telecom business. And we are seeing some lumpiness in kind of the back half of the year relative to some of our channel partners there, right? We serve all the major wireless telecom companies as well as the co-locators in the marketplace.

現在我只想說一下你指出為什麼不根據第一季度的出色表現採取某種指導的原因。出色的表現主要來自 C&I，對吧？所以我們的 C&I 業務正在粉碎它，這太棒了，尤其是在國際上。 Pramac 團隊，我們現在能夠獲得。我們擁有該業務的 100%，這太棒了，在過去的 7 年裡，他們一直是我們公司全球擴張的重要組成部分。但話雖如此，我們一直在談論的最大驅動力之一，其中最大的垂直行業之一就是我們的電信業務。相對於我們那裡的一些渠道合作夥伴，我們看到今年下半年有些起伏，對吧？我們為所有主要的無線電信公司以及市場上的協同定位器提供服務。

And a couple of those accounts for us. We've delivered a lot of product, and they've got to get that product installed now. So they're working through, they've got -- so they maybe pulled some of that in is what it maybe looks like. But all indications as we talk to them about their CapEx spending and kind of what they need to do to harden their networks going forward as they think about the next-generation technology or fifth-generation 5G technologies. They're all -- this is a secular cycle right now for telecom in terms of CapEx spending and building out networks. And so we think it's just kind of just the lumpiness that we see from time to time. And that's really why we didn't take up the guide in the back half. It's really related to that. That's kind of a simple answer. There's some moving pieces underneath that, but that's really it.

其中一些對我們來說很重要。我們已經交付了很多產品，他們現在必須安裝該產品。所以他們正在努力，他們已經 - 所以他們可能會把其中的一些納入其中，這可能看起來像這樣。但是，當我們與他們談論他們的資本支出支出以及他們在考慮下一代技術或第五代 5G 技術時需要做些什麼來加強他們的網絡時，所有跡像都表明了這一點。他們都是——就資本支出和建設網絡而言，這對電信來說是一個長期週期。所以我們認為這只是我們不時看到的腫塊。這就是為什麼我們沒有在後半部分使用指南的原因。這真的與此有關。這是一個簡單的答案。下面有一些活動部件，但僅此而已。

Our next question will come from Christopher Glynn of Oppenheimer.

我們的下一個問題將來自奧本海默的克里斯托弗格林。

Wanted to ask about the -- you mentioned the home consultations for HSB were up significantly in almost all the states. So I wanted you to dive into that a little bit. And then also, clarify the expectation for residential growth in the second half. Does that explicitly include growth in 3Q? Or if not, are you biased in that respect to see at least a bit of topline positive from resi in 3Q?

想問一下 - 你提到幾乎所有州的 HSB 家庭諮詢都顯著增加。所以我想讓你深入了解一下。然後，澄清下半年住宅增長的預期。這是否明確包括第三季度的增長？或者，如果不是，您是否在這方面有偏見，認為 3Q 的 resi 至少有一點積極的頂線？

Yes. Thanks, Chris. Maybe just I'll address that first. Yes, we are seeing a return to growth starting in the third quarter. So that is the expectation and the way we get the guidance around residential. More specifically to the commentary about home consultations being very broad-based, right, almost all states. I think what was really encouraging again in this, this is what I think is different from kind of the pre-pandemic period to today. And as you may recall, we mentioned that just consultations in general, up dramatically from that pre-pandemic period, almost -- really more than 4x off of that base. And I think when you step back and you look at that kind of pre-pandemic to today, it is the broad-based nature of that growth that's really encouraging for us.

是的。謝謝，克里斯。也許我會先解決這個問題。是的，我們看到從第三季度開始恢復增長。這就是我們獲得住宅指導的期望和方式。更具體地說，關於家庭諮詢的評論基礎非常廣泛，對，幾乎所有州。我認為這再次真正令人鼓舞的是，我認為這與大流行前時期到今天有所不同。你可能還記得，我們提到過一般的磋商，比大流行前的時期大幅增加，幾乎——實際上是該基數的 4 倍多。而且我認為，當你退後一步，看看大流行前到今天的那種情況時，正是這種增長的廣泛性對我們來說才是真正令人鼓舞的。

And I think it speaks to just again, I can't stress enough just where we're at in this journey. This is a category of product, home standby generators, still less than 6% penetrated. Single-family U.S. house is greater than $150,000 in value. Every 1% of penetration is a $3 billion market opportunity. And we have 75% share of the market. So when we think about the opportunity ahead of us, and we look at the growth that we're experiencing in states, I'll just give you a couple of examples. And also Canada in there as well, right? So we can talk territories and provinces as well as states because Canada has been just on fire for us because they have also been experiencing much as we have here in the U.S., an increasing frequency of outages and the duration of those outages.

而且我認為這再次說明了，我不能強調我們在這段旅程中所處的位置。這是一類產品，家用備用發電機，普及率還不到 6%。美國單戶住宅價值超過 150,000 美元。每 1% 的滲透率就是 30 億美元的市場機會。我們擁有 75% 的市場份額。因此，當我們思考擺在我們面前的機會，並審視我們在各州所經歷的增長時，我將舉幾個例子。還有加拿大，對吧？因此，我們可以談論地區、省份和州，因為加拿大一直在為我們著火，因為他們也經歷了我們在美國所經歷的很多事情，停電頻率和停電持續時間不斷增加。

And I think what's different today from the outages 4 years ago and what drove people in the category 4 years ago, is what's causing those outages. Weather is still kind of largely the cause behind most outages. But I think what we're also seeing and what homeowners and business owners are seeing is that the grid is struggling to deliver, right? So -- and what I mean by that is, as we race to electrify everything, heating, cooking, cooling, transportation, right, you're seeing demand, you're seeing supply be outstripped by demand and it happens very rapidly.

而且我認為今天與 4 年前的中斷以及 4 年前促使人們進入該類別的不同之處在於導致這些中斷的原因。天氣仍然是大多數停電背後的主要原因。但我認為我們也看到的以及房主和企業主看到的是電網正在努力交付，對吧？所以——我的意思是，當我們競相使一切電氣化，供暖、烹飪、製冷、交通，對，你看到需求，你看到供應被需求超過，而且這種情況發生得非常快。

This was on full display in the Carolinas over Christmas -- over the Christmas holiday, right? So the utility companies in the Carolinas were struggling to keep up with the demand surge because it got so cold that everybody turned on their heat pumps and their electric baseboard heaters, which created an enormous amount of demand on the system that was unplanned, and that system had it struggled to keep up with it. So they had to resort, so rolling brownouts, rolling blackouts in order to keep the system up. And that's the kind of difference, I think, between today and 4 years ago that we look at and we see as being, I think, a basic part of the story going forward. And I just think when you talk about the states where we're seeing the most growth, right?

這在聖誕節期間在卡羅來納州得到了充分展示——在聖誕節假期期間，對吧？因此，卡羅來納州的公用事業公司正在努力跟上需求激增的步伐，因為天氣太冷了，以至於每個人都打開了熱泵和底板電加熱器，這在計劃外對系統產生了巨大的需求，而且系統很難跟上它。所以他們不得不求助，所以輪流停電，輪流停電以保持系統正常運行。我認為，這就是我們所看到的今天和 4 年前之間的差異，我認為，我們認為這是未來故事的基本部分。我只是想當你談論我們看到增長最快的州時，對嗎？

So let's just step back. Our top 5 states from a penetration standpoint, are also our top 5 growth states in terms of the penetration rate accelerating highest growth rates. So like it's not like you get to a point of kind of where you saturated the market in these states, they're continuing to grow. In fact, I would say you might question whether maybe there's a tipping point that a state gets to. Is it 10% penetrated and then it accelerates? We definitely have seen evidence over the last several years that if you just look at the top 5 states from a pen rate standpoint, they are also almost always the top 5 growth states over time. So it's very interesting to see how this continues to -- almost the penetration rate continue to accelerate as awareness for the category deepens. And as these challenges around grid reliability, continue to become more apparent to homeowners and businesses.

所以讓我們退後一步。從滲透率的角度來看，我們排名前 5 位的州也是滲透率加速最高增長率的前 5 位增長州。因此，就像你沒有達到在這些州使市場飽和的程度一樣，它們還在繼續增長。事實上，我想說你可能會質疑一個州是否會達到一個臨界點。是不是打了10%然後加速了？在過去的幾年裡，我們肯定已經看到證據表明，如果你只從筆率的角度來看前 5 個州，隨著時間的推移，它們幾乎總是增長前 5 個州。因此，看到這種情況如何繼續是非常有趣的——隨著對該類別的認識加深，幾乎滲透率繼續加速。隨著這些圍繞電網可靠性的挑戰，對房主和企業來說變得越來越明顯。

Our next question will come from Mark Strouse of JPMorgan.

我們的下一個問題將來自摩根大通的 Mark Strouse。

York, I wanted to go back to your comments on pricing, the pricing action kind of benefiting gross margin. How broad-based of a comment is that? Is that resi and C&I? And then kind of what does the guidance imply regarding future price action this year?

約克，我想回到你對定價的評論，定價行為有利於毛利率。那條評論的基礎有多廣泛？那是 resi 和 C&I 嗎？那麼該指導對今年未來的價格走勢意味著什麼？

Yes, at least for the first quarter, it applied for the most across the board. On the resi side, in particularly home standby side, the last price increase that kicked in with June 1, 2022. So we're still in the process of annualizing that price increase on the home standby side. And then on the C&I side, there were a number of price increases that came through here in the beginning of 2023. We had them in 2022, but there was another round in 2023 that should continue on. So I'd say more of a price impact in the first half as you -- as we haven't annualized the home standby side yet, but still yet some benefit in the back half on the C&I side.

是的，至少在第一季度，它是全線申請最多的。在 resi 方面，特別是家庭備用方面，上一次價格上漲是在 2022 年 6 月 1 日開始的。因此，我們仍在對家庭備用方面的價格上漲進行年化處理。然後在 C&I 方面，2023 年初這裡出現了一些價格上漲。我們在 2022 年有過，但 2023 年還有另一輪應該繼續。所以我想說的是上半年對價格的影響更大——因為我們還沒有對家庭備用方面進行年度化，但 C&I 方面的後半部分仍然有一些好處。

Our next question will come from the line of Brian Drab of William Blair.

我們的下一個問題將來自 William Blair 的 Brian Drab。

This is Tyler on for Brian. So I just want to kind of transition to the clean energy products. And what are you doing there to improve the distribution capabilities? And then a follow up with that, the $300 million to $350 million guide for the full year in clean -- resi, clean energy. Can you kind of give some direction to each of the products like ecobee, power cell and grid services and what their potential is for the full year?

這是布萊恩的泰勒。所以我只想過渡到清潔能源產品。你在那裡做什麼來提高分銷能力？然後跟進，即 3 億至 3.5 億美元的全年清潔能源指南。您能否為 ecobee、電池和電網服務等每種產品提供一些指導，以及它們全年的潛力是什麼？

Yes. Thanks, Tyler. So yes, so we're working very hard to rebuild not only the distribution, obviously, to replace the loss of that customer in the third quarter last year but also confidence, right, in the marketplace. I mean we stumbled with execution with this -- one of the companies we acquired that had a component that we've struggled with the overall longevity of that component, and we're going through that upgrade campaign, the SnapRS upgrade campaign that we've talked about at length. And we took the charge for last 3Q making good progress there, by the way.

是的。謝謝，泰勒。所以是的，所以我們正在非常努力地重建分銷，顯然，以取代去年第三季度客戶的流失，而且還重建了對市場的信心。我的意思是我們在執行時遇到了這個問題——我們收購的一家公司有一個組件，我們一直在為該組件的整體壽命而苦苦掙扎，我們正在進行升級活動，我們的 SnapRS 升級活動我們已經詳細討論過了。順便說一句，我們負責最後一個第三季度，在那裡取得了良好的進展。

And I would tell you that we're getting high marks from the distribution partners that we're involved with on that campaign in terms of standby products, taking care of the issues. They've seen different OEMs, deal with different issues over the course of kind of the solar markets early days to today, right? Like I mean, a lot of OEMs, I think they can struggle. It's a challenging environment, rooftop-mounted electronics that have a long warranty period and duty cycle that we're constantly running for the most part.

我會告訴你，我們在備用產品方面從我們參與該活動的分銷合作夥伴那裡得到了很高的評價，解決了這些問題。他們見過不同的原始設備製造商，在太陽能市場早期到今天的過程中處理不同的問題，對吧？就像我的意思，很多原始設備製造商，我認為他們可以掙扎。這是一個充滿挑戰的環境，屋頂安裝的電子設備具有很長的保修期和工作週期，我們大部分時間都在不斷運行。

So they run a lot. So it's something that we learned a lot doing and I think we're making really good strides rebuilding that. We've got some, I think, some pretty good green shoots that we're excited about there, probably more towards the back half of the year. There was a little bit of field inventory to work through there as well, as you can imagine, with kind of the abrupt closure of that distribution partner in Q3 last year and kind of the way the market kind of ground to a halt for us. We had to work through some of the inventory that was in the field there, too. It wasn't nearly to the same degree as what we had with our home standby business but we're working through that.

所以他們經常跑。所以這是我們學到了很多東西，我認為我們在重建它方面取得了很大的進步。我認為，我們有一些非常好的萌芽，我們對此感到興奮，可能會在今年下半年出現。正如您可以想像的那樣，那裡也有一些現場庫存需要處理，去年第三季度該分銷合作夥伴突然關閉，並且市場對我們來說有點停滯不前。我們還必須處理那裡現場的一些庫存。這與我們的家庭備用業務的程度幾乎不一樣，但我們正在努力解決這個問題。

And that market also has had some, I would say, some jobs lessen right around some of the new rules around NEM 3.0 and waiting for the IRA to be finalized. What does that really mean in terms of what's available for tax credits and things. So as that gets clearer to homeowners and to distribution partners going forward, we see that market continue to recover throughout the year. We're not going to give specific breakdowns on the different pieces, but we can tell you that obviously, ecobee, which we called out specifically in the prepared remarks today, has been doing really well. I mean they are -- their smart thermostat product line is doing great. They're going to be launching a smart doorbell cam alongside of that here in the second half of the year, which we're really excited about. Already being very well received by some of the channel partners that today sell our smart thermostats.

而且那個市場也有一些，我想說，一些工作減少了圍繞 NEM 3.0 的一些新規則並等待 IRA 最終確定。就可用於稅收抵免和其他事項而言，這到底意味著什麼。因此，隨著房主和分銷合作夥伴的未來變得更加清晰，我們看到市場在全年繼續復甦。我們不會對不同的部分進行具體細分，但我們可以告訴你，很明顯，我們在今天準備好的評論中特別提到的 ecobee 一直做得很好。我的意思是他們 - 他們的智能恆溫器產品線做得很好。他們將在今年下半年同時推出智能門鈴攝像頭，我們對此感到非常興奮。今天銷售我們的智能恆溫器的一些渠道合作夥伴已經很好地接受了它。

They're very excited to carry these products as well. And we've had a couple of nice wins there that will have some placement where we'll do some load-ins in the second half of the year. So we're talking about -- that's a part of the story here in the 300 to 350 guide and then also grid services off of a low base, but a nice rate of growth here in Q1. And we continue to see that growing still again, small base, but there's a lot of discussion with a lot of utilities and grid operators about the importance of meeting these types of digital solutions to help them manage these potential bridge shortfalls that I talked about previously.

他們也很高興攜帶這些產品。我們在那裡取得了一些不錯的勝利，我們將在今年下半年進行一些加載。所以我們正在談論 - 這是 300 到 350 指南中故事的一部分，然後也是低基數的網格服務，但第一季度的增長率很高。我們繼續看到它再次增長，基數很小，但是與許多公用事業和電網運營商進行了很多討論，討論了滿足這些類型的數字解決方案以幫助他們管理我之前談到的這些潛在橋樑短缺的重要性.

And they see something like our Concerto platform that is at the heart of our grid services team. They see that Concerto platform as a way to -- just another tool in the toolkit to deal with potential shortfalls in supply when you see spikes in demand. So more to come on all that, but I think we bottomed. I guess it's the message here. We feel like we're going to come off the bottom in Q1, green shoots ahead for those businesses and good momentum in things like ecobee and the good services team.

他們看到了像我們的 Concerto 平台這樣的東西，它是我們網格服務團隊的核心。他們將 Concerto 平台視為一種方式 - 只是工具包中的另一種工具，可以在您看到需求激增時處理潛在的供應短缺。所以還有更多的事情要做，但我認為我們已經觸底了。我想這是這裡的消息。我們覺得我們將在第一季度走出低谷，這些業務前景光明，ecobee 和優質服務團隊等方面的勢頭良好。

Our next question will come from Jerry Revich of Goldman Sachs.

我們的下一個問題將來自高盛的 Jerry Revich。

I'm wondering if you could just talk about the fourth quarter margin outlook and maybe just outline your expectations for year-over-year cost declines that are embedded in the guidance within the context of pricing as well as you folks go back towards doing some level of promotions versus not doing them a year ago. Just wondering how much does that pressure price realization? And if we could just bridge how much of the year-over-year margin improvement in 4Q we expect from price cost? That would be helpful, if you don't mind.

我想知道你是否可以談談第四季度的利潤率前景，也許只是概述你對定價背景下指導中嵌入的同比成本下降的預期，以及你們回去做一些事情晉升水平與一年前不晉升相比。只是想知道這種壓力價格實現多少？如果我們能夠彌補我們預期價格成本帶來的第 4 季度利潤率同比增長多少？如果你不介意的話，那會很有幫助。

Yes. Jerry, this is York. I know we're contemplating that EBITDA margins get back to those low 20% range that we're used to by Q4, as we talked about. Specifically, we talked about at least first half, second half, that EBITDA margin should improve about 800 basis points sequentially, first half, second half with, I'd say, roughly, let's say, 3% of that 800 -- 300 of the 800 basis points just as a function of mix in that home standby as we normalize inventory and seasonally increase first half, second half. Home standby mix is going to improve dramatically relative to the first quarter and first half so you get about 3% improvement in margin just right there, first half, second half.

是的。傑里，這是約克。我知道我們正在考慮 EBITDA 利潤率回到我們在第四季度習慣的 20% 的低範圍，正如我們所說的那樣。具體來說，我們至少談到了上半年、下半年，EBITDA 利潤率應該依次提高大約 800 個基點，上半年、下半年，我想說，大概是 800 的 3% - 300 800 個基點只是家庭備用混合的函數，因為我們將庫存正常化並在上半年和下半年季節性增加。與第一季度和上半年相比，家庭備用組合將顯著改善，因此您可以在上半年、下半年獲得約 3% 的利潤率改善。

We are anticipating about 2% improvement in just input costs with commodities, logistics, continued improvement there. We've got a number of cost reductions we're working on plant inefficiencies, its better absorption, again, sequentially first half, second half, that will improve about 2% of that 800, first half, second half improvement. And then the remaining 3% is really just operating leverage on the much higher sales volumes on our -- leveraging that OpEx infrastructure. So that's really the bridge at least sequentially. Year-over-year, like I said, they'll probably be modest. Most of the pricing will have lapped on a year-over-year basis by Q4. So a lot of that is just more cost improvement and mix improvements year-over-year will drive that as well as -- that will drive most of the year-over-year improvement from Q4 last year to Q4 this year.

我們預計商品、物流和持續改進的投入成本將提高約 2%。我們已經降低了一些成本，我們正在努力解決工廠效率低下的問題，它更好地吸收，再一次，連續上半年，下半年，這將提高 800 的 2%，上半年，下半年的改進。然後剩下的 3% 實際上只是對我們更高銷量的運營槓桿——利用 OpEx 基礎設施。所以這確實是一座橋樑，至少在順序上是這樣。年復一年，就像我說的，他們可能會很謙虛。到第四季度，大部分價格將同比上漲。因此，其中很多只是更多的成本改進和混合改進同比將推動這一點以及 - 這將推動從去年第四季度到今年第四季度的大部分同比改進。

Our next question will come from Joseph Osha of Guggenheim.

我們的下一個問題將來自古根海姆的約瑟夫奧沙。

I wanted to return to the Residential Clean Energy business a little bit. Obviously, as you go through this reset. One of the questions, I think, that's come up is around the residential home architecture and the fact that you're advancing sort of 2 parallel inverter architectures at the same time, which drives a lot of complexity in the other parts of the system. So I'm wondering if you're able to maybe give us any clarity today or when we might have some clarity in terms of how you intend to move forward with those multiple architectures.

我想稍微回到住宅清潔能源業務。顯然，當您進行此重置時。我認為，出現的問題之一是圍繞住宅建築以及您同時推進 2 個並聯逆變器架構這一事實，這導致系統其他部分變得非常複雜。所以我想知道您今天是否可以給我們任何清晰的信息，或者我們什麼時候可以清楚地說明您打算如何推進這些多重架構。

Yes, Joe, it's a great question. We talked a little bit about this, maybe not publicly but maybe one on one with you in particular because I think you've been focused on this space quite a bit, which is great. We've got a brand-new team that's running that business. And we bought a lot of technology and platform over the last 4 years. And so I think the viewpoint on how best to deploy that technology, the first order of kind of focus, if you will, is integrating as much of it as we can, right? Like I think that is -- we always knew there was a heavy lift coming there with all of the companies that we've acquired. Some of them start up, some of them more at a scale level like ecobee and trying to figure out what is the -- where can we add the most value, right?

是的，喬，這是一個很好的問題。我們談了一點這個，也許不是公開的，但也許是與你一對一的，因為我認為你已經很關注這個領域了，這很好。我們有一個全新的團隊來經營這項業務。在過去的 4 年裡，我們購買了很多技術和平台。所以我認為關於如何最好地部署該技術的觀點，如果你願意的話，第一個重點是盡可能多地整合它，對吧？就像我認為的那樣——我們一直都知道，我們收購的所有公司都會帶來沉重的提升。他們中的一些人開始了，其中一些人更像 ecobee 的規模水平，並試圖弄清楚什麼是 - 我們可以在哪裡增加最大的價值，對吧？

I think we're a little bit agnostic about which -- if you're speaking strictly about inverter technologies, which inverter technology is going to "win", right? I mean, I don't know that we see this as a VHS Betamax kind of fight as much as we just see it as 2 different paths to achieve a similar outcome, right? There's just different technologies that are different -- are available. And I do think that it's -- your point about having -- if you have to cover too much ground, if I can just kind of paraphrase it, too much ground that might -- is that really the right way to go? Is that the most efficient path in terms of how much calorie burn we use to support 2 different architectures? I think over time, I think we'll become -- it will become clearer which architectures or which architecture may be the best for us.

我認為我們對哪個有點不可知——如果你嚴格地談論逆變器技術，哪種逆變器技術將“獲勝”，對吧？我的意思是，我不知道我們是否將其視為 VHS Betamax 類型的戰鬥，我們只是將其視為實現相似結果的 2 條不同途徑，對吧？只有不同的技術是可用的。我確實認為這是——你關於擁有的觀點——如果你必須覆蓋太多領域，如果我可以解釋一下，太多的領域可能——這真的是正確的方法嗎？就我們用來支持 2 種不同架構的卡路里燃燒量而言，這是最有效的途徑嗎？我認為隨著時間的推移，我認為我們會變得——哪種架構或哪種架構可能最適合我們會變得更加清晰。

And this is as we go through and we start thinking about as we have been working on our next-generation storage products, you have to be cognizant though that there's a huge market out there where we want to be able to add storage to existing homes that are already invested in solar. And those homes may have -- they could be DC-coupled, they could be AC-coupled in terms of their architecture from an inverter standpoint. So how do we put that -- how do we make sure that we keep a -- and then we get a product to market that can serve the entire existing solar market.

這就是我們經歷的過程，我們開始思考，因為我們一直在開發下一代存儲產品，你必須認識到，儘管有一個巨大的市場，我們希望能夠在現有家庭中添加存儲已經投資於太陽能。這些家庭可能有——它們可能是直流耦合的，從逆變器的角度來看，它們的架構可能是交流耦合的。那麼我們如何把它 - 我們如何確保我們保持 - 然後我們將產品推向市場，可以服務於整個現有的太陽能市場。

So we're looking at that. And then we know that we need to be in the market or we need to have a product that keeps us in the market for solar only, right? If we just focus on solar plus storage, that's going to limit -- too limiting for us, we believe. Today, attachment rates are 15% to 20%, that's -- and they're growing, which is great. That still means there's a high percentage of new solar installs that don't have storage being installed. We just -- we want to participate in that market. So finding a pathway that gets us there and get us there most economically and where we can add the most value is really important.

所以我們正在研究。然後我們知道我們需要進入市場，或者我們需要有一種產品讓我們只進入太陽能市場，對嗎？如果我們只專注於太陽能加儲能，那將是有限的——我們認為對我們來說太有限了。今天，依戀率是 15% 到 20%，也就是說——而且還在增長，這很好。這仍然意味著有很大比例的新太陽能裝置沒有安裝儲能裝置。我們只是 - 我們想參與那個市場。因此，找到一條讓我們到達那裡並以最經濟的方式到達那里以及我們可以增加最大價值的途徑非常重要。

So more to come on that. We do have an Investor Day that we've got scheduled here for September. So I think we'll be prepared to discuss that in more detail in September, but know that the team is continuing to look at that and figure out just exactly strategically what's going to make the most sense for us long term.

所以還有更多的事情要做。我們確實有一個投資者日，我們已經安排在 9 月。所以我認為我們將準備在 9 月更詳細地討論這個問題，但要知道團隊正在繼續研究這個問題，並從戰略上準確地弄清楚什麼對我們的長期最有意義。

Our next question will come from Kashy Harrison of Piper Sandler.

我們的下一個問題將來自 Piper Sandler 的 Kashy Harrison。

So there's a lot of uncertainty in the market from a banking and financing perspective. Just curious if you could give us a sense of how the uncertain financing environment is impacting operations for your dealer and channel partners.

因此，從銀行和融資的角度來看，市場存在很多不確定性。只是好奇您能否讓我們了解不確定的融資環境如何影響您的經銷商和渠道合作夥伴的運營。

It's a great question. We -- obviously, you would think that they might be impacted by that, but largely they're not. They pays by credit card, a lot of dealers are -- they like the points that they accumulate on their American Express and their different card programs. And so we tend to see credit card payments being kind of one big path to paying us. They also use our floor plan financing program very aggressively, and that's been a program that has been a very successful program for us. It allows the dealer to kind of derisk their ability to bring product in. We want to have them have some inventory level, and we have subsidized the cost out for 180 days.

這是一個很好的問題。我們 - 顯然，你會認為他們可能會受到影響，但在很大程度上他們不會。他們用信用卡支付，很多經銷商都是——他們喜歡在美國運通和不同的信用卡項目上積累的積分。因此，我們傾向於將信用卡支付視為支付給我們的一種重要途徑。他們還非常積極地使用我們的平面圖融資計劃，這對我們來說是一個非常成功的計劃。它允許經銷商在某種程度上降低他們引進產品的能力。我們希望他們有一定的庫存水平，我們已經補貼了 180 天的成本。

Exactly. They don't bear that cost. So it's really our cost for the first 180 days, they get free floor plan financing. So we kind of derisk that for them. So in terms of like their overall direct exposure, we haven't heard much in the way of them seeing any kind of compression. There is more of a project-based business and where they're probably going to see more challenges if housing were to slow down, right? And that's a real risk out there, of course, as we've talked. But in terms of like their projects flow, because they're paid kind of as they go, right, on a progress basis. So if that kind of progress flow or that project flow were to dry up, that's probably where they would feel more pain. But we haven't heard any or seen any evidence directly around that. That is our view.

確切地。他們不承擔這筆費用。所以這真的是我們前 180 天的成本，他們獲得免費的平面圖融資。所以我們有點為他們開玩笑。因此，就他們的整體直接曝光率而言，我們沒有聽到太多關於他們看到任何壓縮的方式。有更多基於項目的業務，如果住房放緩，他們可能會看到更多挑戰，對吧？當然，正如我們所說，這是一個真正的風險。但就他們的項目流程而言，因為他們的報酬是按進度支付的，對吧。因此，如果那種進度流程或項目流程枯竭，他們可能會感到更痛苦。但我們還沒有直接聽到或看到任何證據。這是我們的看法。

Our next question will come from George Gianarikas of Canaccord Genuity.

我們的下一個問題將來自 Canaccord Genuity 的 George Gianarikas。

And believe it or not, I actually had a power outage during this call, and I'm not a Generac customer yet. So my question actually just to jump on the previous one with regards to that there's spasms that we're seeing in financial markets. How does that impact your C&I business? How much of it is project-related that we may see some sort of impact if this continues on projects related to renewables?

信不信由你，我實際上在這次通話期間停電了，而且我還不是 Generac 客戶。所以我的問題實際上只是跳到上一個關於我們在金融市場上看到的痙攣的問題。這對您的 C&I 業務有何影響？如果這種情況繼續發生在與可再生能源相關的項目上，我們可能會看到某種影響，其中有多少是與項目相關的？

Yes, that's a great question. Typically -- so you want to look at nonresidential construction spending. It's an interesting indicator for us. And I would tell you that the -- that business tends to be late cycle, right? So we typically see our res business is more of an early-cycle business in terms of how it reacts to economic cycles, even though as we've mentioned here today, both prepared remarks and on the Q&A, it's probably less sensitive because as power outages happen, homeowners, they react, right? It's a more emotional category. Although in the C&I side, I think that as nonres construction may slow down in the future and that category is late cycle, you could see that breakdown. You have to think about the megatrend, if you step back for a second, telecom has one really major important vertical for us there.

是的，這是一個很好的問題。通常 - 所以你想看看非住宅建築支出。這對我們來說是一個有趣的指標。而且我會告訴你 - 該業務往往是後期週期，對嗎？因此，就其對經濟周期的反應方式而言，我們通常會看到我們的資源業務更像是一個早期週期業務，儘管正如我們今天在這裡提到的，準備好的評論和問答環節，它可能不那麼敏感，因為作為權力發生停電，房主，他們會做出反應，對嗎？這是一個更情緒化的類別。儘管在 C&I 方面，我認為由於非資源建設在未來可能會放緩，而且該類別屬於後期週期，你可以看到這種細分。你必須考慮大趨勢，如果你退後一步，電信對我們來說有一個非常重要的垂直領域。

As I said in the prepared remarks and in some of the Q&A, very much in a secular up-cycle market here in terms of CapEx spending for the telcos. And so that's a really important vertical for us. The other one is, I think, the -- just the increasing penetration rate of backup power, much the same as what's been occurring in residential, businesses just like yourself, they're struggling with outages, right? Like they're having outages happen more frequently. It's interrupting their revenue streams. It's causing spoilage of inventory or destruction of processes when things are in process, if you're a manufacturer in particular. So we're seeing power -- backup power being added to businesses that in the past hadn't thought about it as part of their strategy around resiliency, right, or a lot of businesses referred to it as disaster recovery strategies, right?

正如我在準備好的評論和一些問答中所說的那樣，就電信公司的資本支出支出而言，這裡的長期上升週期市場非常重要。所以這對我們來說是一個非常重要的垂直領域。另一個是，我認為，備用電源的普及率不斷提高，就像住宅、企業中發生的情況一樣，就像您一樣，他們正在努力應對停電，對吧？就像他們更頻繁地發生停電一樣。它正在中斷他們的收入來源。如果您是製造商，這會導致庫存損壞或過程破壞。因此，我們看到了電源 - 備份電源被添加到過去沒有考慮過的企業，作為他們圍繞彈性的戰略的一部分，對，或者很多企業將其稱為災難恢復戰略，對吧？

So their DR strategies didn't include backup power or a generator. We're now seeing backup power be added to that. We're also seeing increasing codes and standards that are driving generators as a requirement. We saw in California with the requirement for 48 hours of backup in telecommunications sites. We also are seeing certain states adopt what Florida adopted several years ago in the elderly care spaces and the health care spaces, a requirement that those facilities -- those types of facilities have a minimum of 48 hours of backup power. Those are new codes and standards. So you're seeing kind of maybe some of the softness in nonresidential construction spend in the future, I think it's going to be potentially more than offset by the increasing need for resiliency.

所以他們的 DR 策略不包括備用電源或發電機。我們現在看到備用電源被添加到其中。我們還看到越來越多的規範和標準將發電機作為一項要求。我們在加利福尼亞州看到電信站點需要 48 小時的備份。我們還看到某些州採用佛羅里達幾年前在老年護理空間和醫療保健空間採用的方法，要求這些設施——這些類型的設施至少有 48 小時的備用電源。這些是新的規範和標準。所以你會看到未來非住宅建築支出可能會出現一些疲軟，我認為這可能會被日益增長的彈性需求所抵消。

And some of these megatrends as we refer to them are the secular trends that you're seeing in telecom and in infrastructure spending for that matter.

我們提到的一些大趨勢是您在電信和基礎設施支出方面看到的長期趨勢。

And on the renewables side, we're not necessarily focused on utility scale or front-of-the-meter project. So any financing breakdowns with those projects wouldn't necessarily impact that.

在可再生能源方面，我們不一定專注於公用事業規模或前端項目。因此，這些項目的任何融資故障都不一定會影響到這一點。

Our next question will come from Donovan Schafer of Northland Capital Markets.

我們的下一個問題將來自 Northland Capital Markets 的 Donovan Schafer。

So I had this thesis going into these results that I was thinking again following all the outage events that the geographic diversification of them in East Coast, West Coast, Canada, even Gulf Coast that could help drive down channel inventory like actually faster than you expected, kind of the logic was maybe there will be a pocket here or there where the labor -- the installation bottleneck would be weaker, and it's kind of like more roles of the dice, if you will, like probabilistically, you get more rolls, these different geographies you might find under the right characteristics. You're pretty clear in the call that the inventory drawdown was in line with your expectations, but also clear that, yes, in fact, based on your analysis, outage activity in aggregate was well above the historical average.

所以我有這篇論文來研究這些結果，我在所有停電事件之後再次思考它們在東海岸、西海岸、加拿大，甚至墨西哥灣沿岸的地理多樣化，這可能有助於降低渠道庫存，實際上比你預期的要快，某種邏輯是，這里或那裡可能會有一個口袋，在那裡勞動力——安裝瓶頸會更弱，這有點像骰子的更多角色，如果你願意，就像概率一樣，你會得到更多的擲骰，這些不同的地理位置，您可能會在正確的特徵下找到。你在電話中很清楚庫存減少符合你的預期，但也很清楚，是的，事實上，根據你的分析，總體停電活動遠高於歷史平均水平。

So I'm figuring the disconnect there probably comes down to the installation bottleneck and that it is perhaps more uniform than I was thinking. But if you could just kind of like if you have the above-average activity in the first quarter, is it that continuing labor bottleneck that doesn't lead you to having more optimistic outlook for home standby back of generators going into the second or for basically the remainder of the year? If you get that since you're already assuming baseline average kind of your typical outlook, then if we already have some of this, is it just you don't -- there's not really an end in sight on the installation restriction or just kind of what's going on there?

所以我認為那裡的脫節可能歸結為安裝瓶頸，而且它可能比我想像的更統一。但是，如果你可以說，如果你在第一季度的活動高於平均水平，那麼持續的勞動力瓶頸是否不會導致你對進入第二季度或基本上是今年剩下的時間？如果你明白了，因為你已經假設了你典型前景的基線平均類型，那麼如果我們已經有了一些這樣的東西，只是你沒有——安裝限制並沒有真正結束或只是善良那裡發生了什麼？

And then also just because these were geographically diverse, it'd be nice to just get an update on how they're unfolding because you probably have a clear signal, if you will, from your data. We've got a cluster of events, there's Hurricane Ian, the East Coast ice storms in Christmas, you talked about and you gave some interesting commentary there, the unique nature of it, the Midwest storms, there are the Quebec outages. Just any -- how are those unfolding? Have you seen the demand surge in -- from Hurricane Ian at this point and the installations are happening? I mean that was a long time ago at this point. So just kind of fleshing out that.

然後也只是因為這些在地理上是不同的，所以最好只是了解它們如何展開的更新，因為如果你願意的話，你可能會從你的數據中得到一個明確的信號。我們有一系列事件，有颶風伊恩，聖誕節的東海岸冰暴，你在那裡談論並發表了一些有趣的評論，它的獨特性，中西部風暴，還有魁北克停電。只是任何 - 這些是如何展開的？你有沒有看到颶風伊恩此時的需求激增並且正在安裝？我的意思是那是很久以前的事了。所以只是充實一下。

Yes. Thanks, Donovan. So I would say your thesis is correct. But I think what you probably aren't appreciating is that there's a time sense there that from when we get a sales lead to when it becomes sales and when it gets installed, there's permitting involved. And again, we've said anywhere between 90, 120 days, and that's down from what it used to be, mainly because that's a longer lead times and the permitting processes were elevated in some markets with COVID kind of driving that elevation or that elongated kind of permitting process. That's -- so it's shorter today than it was, say, maybe a couple of years ago, where it was out as high as 180 days or longer in some cases.

是的。謝謝，多諾萬。所以我會說你的論文是正確的。但我認為您可能沒有意識到的是，從我們獲得銷售線索到成為銷售以及安裝時，存在時間感，這涉及到許可。再一次，我們說過 90 到 120 天之間的任何時間，這比以前有所下降，主要是因為交貨時間更長，並且在某些市場中許可流程有所提升，而 COVID 會推動這種提升或延長一種許可程序。那是 - 所以今天比它更短，比如說，也許幾年前，在某些情況下它高達 180 天或更長時間。

So we really got to let those sales leads, right? It's a sales funnel. So they go in at the top of the funnel. And then there's a conversion process and that conversion process takes some time. So we would anticipate that kind of as we exit kind of Q2 and get into the second half of the year, that's going to definitely start reading through. And that's what gives us the confidence around the kind of the second half guide that we're talking about here in spite of maybe the weaker backdrop economically overall. So we feel really good about that. In terms of installation bandwidth, I would just say that Q1 is always a tough install quarter.

所以我們真的必須讓那些銷售線索，對吧？這是一個銷售漏斗。所以他們進入漏斗的頂部。然後是一個轉換過程，這個轉換過程需要一些時間。因此，我們預計當我們退出第二季度並進入今年下半年時，這肯定會開始通讀。這就是讓我們對我們在這裡談論的下半年指南充滿信心的原因，儘管整體經濟背景可能較弱。所以我們對此感覺非常好。在安裝帶寬方面，我只想說 Q1 始終是一個艱難的安裝季度。

It's always our lowest because winter weather sets in and you just can't do those installs in Northeast and the Upper Midwest in particular. But what we also saw this year was in California, in Northern Cal, even parts of Southern Cal, the weather was just so aggressive that we just think installers could not get out and get the product on the ground. So we saw those headwinds, which actually created tailwinds for us in the sales consultation and sales leads created some headwinds for us on the installation side. We -- all indications are we're making really good progress on installation bandwidth. That is going to continue to expand. It's expanded every year, by the way. Every year, we've been in this category, it's expanded.

它始終是我們最低的，因為冬天天氣開始了，你不能在東北部和中西部上部進行這些安裝。但我們今年也看到了在加利福尼亞州，在北加州，甚至是南加州的部分地區，天氣非常惡劣，我們認為安裝人員無法出去將產品放在地上。所以我們看到了那些逆風，這實際上在銷售諮詢中為我們創造了順風，而銷售線索在安裝方面為我們創造了一些逆風。我們 - 所有跡像都表明我們在安裝帶寬方面取得了非常好的進展。這將繼續擴大。順便說一句，它每年都在擴大。每年，我們都在這個類別中，它得到了擴展。

So we don't have any reason to believe that we've kind of topped out there. And we -- as we've said last year, kind of after realizing that was a constraint for the first time ever for us, we really kind of refocused our efforts around adding new distribution partners, looking for ways to make them more efficient, improving our product, right? So making it easier to install, helping them hire the talent they need. We stood up something we call our dealer talent network, which is now in full force, and we're helping dealers hire installation crews that they -- one of the reasons they told us they couldn't expand installation bandwidth last year because we couldn't find people. They said, okay, let's figure out how we solve that together, right? So when we have the kind of scale we have with 8,600 channel partners or 8,600 dealer partners, we can put a lot of effort towards those things and they can have kind of meaningful outcomes.

所以我們沒有任何理由相信我們已經達到了頂峰。我們——正如我們去年所說，在意識到這對我們來說是有史以來第一次的限制之後，我們真的重新將我們的努力集中在增加新的分銷合作夥伴上，尋找提高他們效率的方法，改進我們的產品，對嗎？因此，它更容易安裝，幫助他們聘請他們需要的人才。我們建立了我們稱之為經銷商人才網絡的東西，該網絡現在已全面投入使用，我們正在幫助經銷商僱用他們的安裝人員——這是他們去年告訴我們他們無法擴展安裝帶寬的原因之一，因為我們無法找人。他們說，好吧，讓我們一起想辦法解決這個問題，對吧？因此，當我們擁有 8,600 家渠道合作夥伴或 8,600 家經銷商合作夥伴的規模時，我們可以為這些事情付出很多努力，他們可以取得有意義的成果。

So I think we're making all the right things happen. And I think what your thesis maybe just didn't take into consideration is the time line around kind of letting those sales leads mature into kind of installation. So that's coming, and we expect to see that kind of as we exit Q2 and enter the second half of the year.

所以我認為我們正在讓所有正確的事情發生。而且我認為您的論文可能只是沒有考慮到讓這些銷售線索成熟為某種安裝的時間線。所以這即將到來，我們希望在我們退出第二季度並進入下半年時看到這種情況。

Our next question will come from Praneeth Satish of Wells Fargo.

我們的下一個問題將來自富國銀行的 Praneeth Satish。

I know you talked about eco being the single pane of glass, but I guess it's somewhat limited in terms of what it can actually display. So I'm wondering with the smart doorbell that you're launching later this year and HSB being integrated, is there a thought of maybe upgrading the display and processing capabilities of ecobee and having it really compete in the smart home with Amazon and Google and the like?

我知道您談到過 eco 是單一的玻璃面板，但我想它在實際顯示的內容方面有些受限。所以我想知道你們今年晚些時候推出的智能門鈴和集成 HSB 的產品，有沒有考慮升級 ecobee 的顯示和處理能力，讓它真正在智能家居領域與亞馬遜和谷歌競爭，類似？

Yes, absolutely. Great question. One of the great things we love about ecobee is the display is fantastic in that thing. In fact, with the doorbell cam, I have one in my house on a beta trial right now. If somebody pushes your doorbell, if you have -- if you're anywhere near your ecobee thermostat and you can have that thermostat anywhere in your house, you can have multiple thermostats. It actually displays the doorbell camera on the thermostat. It's cool. It's cool as hell, really. I mean, I got to be honest, it's like -- it is one of the more cool features of the ecobee device.

是的，一點沒錯。很好的問題。我們喜歡 ecobee 的一大優點是它的顯示效果非常棒。事實上，有了門鈴攝像頭，我現在家裡就有一個正在試用。如果有人按你的門鈴，如果你有——如果你在你的 ecobee 恆溫器附近的任何地方，並且你可以在你家裡的任何地方安裝該恆溫器，那麼你可以有多個恆溫器。它實際上在恆溫器上顯示門鈴攝像頭。這很酷。真是太酷了，真的。我的意思是，老實說，這就像——這是 ecobee 設備更酷的功能之一。

It's one of the reasons why I think this is a really key point and I'll make it that you give me the opportunity to do that. We want to use it as the central hub for energy in the home, right? So we want to use it -- I mean, we're going to use it, obviously, for the doorbell cam. But the ability to -- as we just did, we integrated, if you have a Generac generator in your home and you have an ecobee thermostat, your ecobee thermostat will tell you if your generator -- it will show you on the screen, on the display. It will tell you any fault messages you may have. It will tell you when it's running in exercise mode. It will tell you when it's running during the power outage. It will show you the status of that generator.

這就是為什麼我認為這是一個真正的關鍵點的原因之一，我會讓你給我機會這樣做。我們想將它用作家庭能源的中心樞紐，對嗎？所以我們想用它——我的意思是，我們顯然要把它用於門鈴攝像頭。但是，如果你家裡有一個 Generac 發電機並且你有一個 ecobee 恆溫器，你的 ecobee 恆溫器會告訴你你的發電機 - 它會顯示在屏幕上，顯示器。它會告訴您可能有的任何故障信息。它會告訴您何時以運動模式運行。它會在停電期間告訴您它何時運行。它將向您顯示該生成器的狀態。

We're going to be integrating our tank utility, which is our LP tank monitoring device into that next. Then we're going to look at our water heater disconnect switches and integrate those next. Other energy devices like our storage device are on -- also on the docket to be integrated into the ecobee thermostat. Our premise here has been that people looked at us and said, well, why did you buy ecobee back in December of '21. You're going into HVAC thermostat, no, we need a hub in the home, right? Only less than 6% of homes have a home standby generator and even smaller percentage have storage -- solar and storage. But almost every home has HVAC, right, the nice ones anyway.

我們將整合我們的儲罐實用程序，這是我們的 LP 儲罐監控設備。然後我們將查看我們的熱水器斷路開關，然後集成它們。其他能源設備，如我們的存儲設備，也在準備中，將集成到 ecobee 恆溫器中。我們的前提是人們看著我們說，好吧，你為什麼要在 2021 年 12 月買回 ecobee。您要使用 HVAC 恆溫器，不，我們需要在家中安裝一個集線器，對嗎？只有不到 6% 的家庭擁有家用備用發電機，擁有儲能（太陽能和儲能）的比例更少。但幾乎每個家庭都有暖通空調，對，不管怎樣都是好的。

And so -- and every home has a thermostat. So the opportunity, just the raw opportunity for us to enter the home with a device that's low cost and it has a tremendous amount of power inside of it. In fact, Stuart Lombard, who is the principal and the founder of that company would tell you that effectively, that's like your iPhone mounted on the wall in terms of the display quality, in terms of the processing power, the memory, they're fantastic, too. If you use that product and you use the app that is with the product, their -- the user experience is tremendous. Their user interface is intuitive, it's easy to use, and it's smart, right?

所以 - 每個家庭都有一個恆溫器。所以這個機會，就是我們帶著一個低成本的設備進入家庭的原始機會，而且它裡面有巨大的能量。事實上，Stuart Lombard，他是該公司的負責人和創始人，他會有效地告訴你，就顯示質量、處理能力、內存而言，這就像你的 iPhone 安裝在牆上，它們是太棒了。如果您使用該產品並使用該產品附帶的應用程序，那麼他們的用戶體驗將是巨大的。他們的用戶界面直觀、易用且智能，對吧？

Like the sensors understand where you are in the home, they can react in terms of your presence in the home, their ability to sense your presence, their ability to save you energy is well documented by installing one of these thermostats. So we just really like the product and we like the user experience. And we think that having it be the central part of our single-pane-of-glass strategy is incredibly important going forward.

就像傳感器了解您在家中的位置一樣，它們可以根據您在家中的存在、感知您的存在的能力、它們為您節省能源的能力做出反應，這些都通過安裝其中一個恆溫器得到了很好的證明。所以我們真的很喜歡這個產品，我們喜歡用戶體驗。我們認為，讓它成為我們單一管理平台戰略的核心部分對未來發展非常重要。

The next question will come from Jordan Levy of Truist.

下一個問題將來自 Truist 的 Jordan Levy。

Just a quick one for me on the M&A side. I just wanted to get a sense of after closing some of these recent deals, what segments your appetite might be directed towards as we move through the year and how you view the current opportunity landscape for M&A?

在併購方面對我來說只是一個快速的例子。我只是想了解一下在完成這些最近的一些交易後，隨著我們這一年的發展，您的胃口可能會指向哪些細分市場，以及您如何看待當前的併購機會前景？

Yes, Jordan, thanks, and thank you for hanging out. This is -- the call has been long, but glad to be able to take the question. We've been very active on the M&A front over the last decade and acquired 30-plus companies here now in total. As we've really grown, not only grown on geographic presence through those acquisitions, but our presence into adjacent spaces. And then also, as we've gone through -- and as we think about the evolution into an energy technology company going forward. And it's been very rewarding. We've learned a lot. Not all the deals have worked. Some have worked better than others. But I would tell you that we find ourselves in a much different position today than when we were only growing organically, right?

是的，喬丹，謝謝，謝謝你過來玩。這是 - 通話時間很長，但很高興能夠回答這個問題。在過去的十年裡，我們在併購方面一直非常活躍，現在在這裡總共收購了 30 多家公司。隨著我們的真正成長，不僅通過這些收購在地理影響力上有所發展，而且在鄰近空間的影響力也有所增長。然後，正如我們所經歷的那樣——以及我們思考未來向能源技術公司的演變。這是非常有益的。我們學到了很多。並非所有交易都有效。有些人比其他人工作得更好。但我會告訴你，我們發現自己今天的處境與我們僅進行有機增長時大不相同，對嗎？

We have never done an acquisition prior to our first one in 2010. As far as what we're thinking about in the future for acquisitions, we're still going to be active in this space. You've seen us do a couple here little bit more bolt-on in nature, adding some pieces like the Rolling Energy Resources acquisition, the investment we made there was really around trying to add to enhance the Concerto platform, right, around EV management -- EV charging management. The REFU Energy Storage acquisition that we did over in Germany was about C&I energy storage on a stationary basis. We had done off-grid energy last year or year before -- summer before, and that was over in the U.K., gave us a great product portfolio to go after really primarily the rental channel with those types of products.

在 2010 年第一次收購之前，我們從未進行過收購。至於我們對未來收購的考慮，我們仍將活躍在這個領域。你已經看到我們在這裡做了一些本質上更多的螺栓固定，添加了一些像 Rolling Energy Resources 收購這樣的部分，我們在那裡所做的投資實際上是圍繞著試圖增加以增強 Concerto 平台，對，圍繞 EV 管理——電動汽車充電管理。我們在德國完成的 REFU Energy Storage 收購是關於固定基礎上的 C&I 儲能。我們在去年或前一年做過離網能源——之前的夏天，那在英國結束了，這給了我們一個很好的產品組合，主要是通過這些類型的產品來追求租賃渠道。

But we knew that the C&I stationary market is a market that we've got also go after. And so REFU Storage was a way for us to enter that market. We're going to continue to look at, I think, as the energy technology space continues to evolve and in particular, there are a couple of notable areas where I think we still have -- I don't want to say gaps is not as much as I say, opportunities to accelerate our entry, EV charging, right? We're going to get to market with an EV charger here later this year on the residential side. But it's -- honestly, it's a private label effort. We're partnering with somebody. It will be unique to Generac, but we believe an organic effort there, longer term is what we need.

但我們知道 C&I 文具市場也是我們追求的市場。因此，REFU Storage 是我們進入該市場的一種方式。我認為，隨著能源技術領域的不斷發展，我們將繼續關注，特別是，我認為我們仍然有幾個值得注意的領域——我不想說差距不是就像我說的那樣，有機會加速我們進入 EV 充電，對嗎？今年晚些時候，我們將在住宅方面推出電動汽車充電器。但它 - 老實說，這是一個自有品牌的努力。我們正在與某人合作。它將是 Generac 獨有的，但我們相信在那裡進行有機的努力，從長遠來看是我們需要的。

So maybe something in that space, valuations have just been really high and remain high in that space. So we've gone after it a little bit differently, but should that picture change, we could become active there. And then on the C&I side, and then maybe anything internationally, you think about some of the things that we've done on the residential energy technology side as well as the C&I energy technology side, we were to find additional pieces that might fit internationally on the residential side. That's an area like we don't really have an energy storage product for anything outside of North America at this point.

所以也許在那個領域，估值真的很高並且在那個領域仍然很高。所以我們對它的追求有所不同，但如果情況發生變化，我們可以在那裡變得活躍。然後在 C&I 方面，然後可能是國際上的任何事情，你想想我們在住宅能源技術方面以及 C&I 能源技術方面所做的一些事情，我們要找到可能適合國際的其他部分在住宅方面。這個領域就像我們目前在北美以外的任何地方都沒有真正的儲能產品。

So if there's a way for us to enter the markets in Europe or other markets through an acquisition, that might be something to look at. And then also, just looking at acqui hire, we've done a couple of -- where we acquired a couple of development companies to help us with accelerate our acqui-hire environment. Obviously, maybe the picture has changed on the tech employment base here with some of the bigger firms pulling back, and maybe that's not going to be as challenging to hire people as it had been in the last couple of years. But we continue to look at the environment, things kind of come and go. Opportunities are put in front of us time and again, but we're going to remain active on that front.

因此，如果我們有辦法通過收購進入歐洲或其他市場，那可能值得關注。然後，就收購僱傭而言，我們已經做了一些——我們收購了幾家開發公司，以幫助我們加速我們的收購僱傭環境。顯然，隨著一些大公司的撤退，這裡的技術就業基礎可能發生了變化，也許招聘人才不會像過去幾年那樣具有挑戰性。但是我們繼續觀察環境，事情來來去去。機會一次又一次地擺在我們面前，但我們將在這方面保持活躍。

Our next question will come from (inaudible) Credit Suisse.

我們的下一個問題將來自（聽不清）瑞士信貸。

Just stepping out of the quarterly cadence here. Within the residential clean energy space, we've seen a lot of company announcements are on bidirectional chargers. How are you thinking about the effect of vehicle-to-home on home standby demand in the medium term, say, 3 to 5 years? And as you sort of alluded to in your prepared remarks, through a lot of acquisitions, you have many parts of the home-energy puzzle in your clean energy business. Could you kindly contextualize your in-house and/or M&A-based EV charging ambitions beyond the level 2 announcements that you've made?

剛剛走出這裡的季度節奏。在住宅清潔能源領域，我們已經看到很多公司公告都在雙向充電器上。您如何看待中期（比如 3 到 5 年）車到戶對家庭備用需求的影響？正如你在準備好的發言中提到的那樣，通過大量收購，你的清潔能源業務中有許多家庭能源難題。您能否將您的內部和/或基於併購的 EV 充電野心置於您所發布的 2 級公告之外？

Yes. No, great question. And obviously, we watch -- we're watching with great interest kind of the EV penetration rates. Fundamentally, I do think that EVs -- look, they're a large battery that for most people are going -- you're going to be charging at home, right? So you're going to have an EV charger in your garage or carport and you're going to want to plug that vehicle in, of course, to charge it. And as it's sitting there charging, I think that the ability to control the rate of charge, the time of charge is going to be really critical. Now you can do both of those with a level 2 charger today and some level of integration with some home energy management type of system.

是的。不，很好的問題。顯然，我們正在觀察——我們正在以極大的興趣觀察電動汽車的普及率。從根本上說，我確實認為電動汽車——看，它們是大多數人都會使用的大電池——你會在家裡充電，對吧？所以你會在你的車庫或車棚裡有一個 EV 充電器，你會想給那輛車插上電源，當然是為了給它充電。當它坐在那裡充電時，我認為控制充電速率和充電時間的能力將非常關鍵。現在，您現在可以使用 2 級充電器來完成這兩項操作，並且可以與某些家庭能源管理類型的系統進行某種程度的集成。

By directional charging, of course, would indicate that you're going to be able to use that battery for some other purpose, either to export power to the grid or perhaps use it for resiliency purposes. I do think that at least in the medium term, the 3- to 5-year window, we don't see much of an impact on the EV and bidirectional charging opportunity on home standby generators. I think it's much, much longer term as EV pen rates become more ubiquitous and perhaps as homes go from having a single EV to maybe 2 EVs, and the reason for that, in my view, is fairly simple. I don't think that homeowners are going to be willing to trade resiliency for mobility. I just -- I think, flat out that you're going to want to have some level of stationary storage or perhaps backup power available at your home for outages -- for long-duration outages in particular, a generator is going to be the way to solve that.

當然，通過定向充電將表明您將能夠將該電池用於其他目的，或者將電力輸出到電網，或者可能將其用於彈性目的。我確實認為，至少在中期，即 3 到 5 年的窗口中，我們看不到對家用備用發電機的 EV 和雙向充電機會有太大影響。我認為隨著 EV 筆率變得越來越普遍，也許隨著家庭從擁有一輛 EV 到 2 輛 EV，這是一個長期得多的長期，在我看來，原因很簡單。我認為房主不會願意用彈性來換取流動性。我只是 - 我認為，坦率地說，你會想要在家中提供一定程度的固定存儲或備用電源以備停電 - 特別是對於長時間停電，發電機將成為解決這個問題的方法。

In fact, what we're seeing and what we may see near term and perhaps even long term, depending on how people view mobility and resiliency and how they feel about that, I think that generators actually could see some level of increased interest once you buy an EV because I think your mindset goes to, okay, if my power is out, right -- first of all, bidirectional charging by the way, is a -- it's a new technology. It is a somewhat unregulated space relative to the codes and standards around it. And there's also a fairly large open question as to whether the OEMs -- the auto OEMs, how much control will they give a third party with control of their -- basically their battery, right? And in terms of what does that mean for the warranty of that battery in terms of the charge cycles, the discharge cycles, charge rates, discharge rates.

事實上，根據人們對流動性和彈性的看法以及他們對此的感受，我們正在看到的以及我們可能在近期甚至長期看到的，我認為一旦你買一輛電動汽車，因為我認為你的想法是，好吧，如果我沒電了，對——首先，順便說一句，雙向充電是——這是一項新技術。相對於它周圍的規範和標準，它是一個有點不受管制的空間。還有一個相當大的懸而未決的問題，即原始設備製造商——汽車原始設備製造商，他們會給第三方多少控制權——基本上是他們的電池，對吧？就充電週期、放電週期、充電率、放電率而言，這對電池的保修意味著什麼。

That is a fairly open question at this point. I do think it will get resolved over time. And so to that end, we're putting quite a bit of an effort towards EV charging beyond just the level 2 charger. We've got some organic efforts internally here with design teams that are looking at the space to understand how do we want to approach it beyond the level 2. I think that the first thing -- the first order of business for us is getting our own level 2 charging structure and infrastructure put together and then integrating that deeply into home energy management.

在這一點上這是一個相當開放的問題。我確實認為它會隨著時間的推移得到解決。因此，為此，我們在 2 級充電器之外的 EV 充電方面付出了相當大的努力。我們在這裡與設計團隊進行了一些有機的努力，他們正在研究這個空間，以了解我們希望如何在 2 級之後接近它。我認為第一件事 - 我們的首要任務是讓我們的將自己的 2 級充電結構和基礎設施組合在一起，然後將其深入集成到家庭能源管理中。

So that what we can do there is to help the homeowner manage the charging of that vehicle. And that has benefit for not only the homeowner in terms of the cost of what it may talk -- what it may take to charge that vehicle, but also in terms of the local utility or grid operator because they are the ones who are going to struggle the most as people add EV charging capability to their homes, there's a pretty difficult upgrade cycle coming on the hard infrastructure. The lines, the poles, the transformers that serve those local neighborhoods where EV charging is being implemented. Those are very heavy draw loads. I mean, that's a pretty significant energy draw at the home. And in fact, in some cases, can double the home's electrical use just by adding an EV charger. So I think there's a lot to come on that. We're going to unpack that a little bit more when we get to the IR day in September, but great question and an area of great interest for us going forward.

因此，我們在那裡可以做的就是幫助房主管理該車輛的充電。這不僅對房主有好處，因為它可以談論的成本 - 為該車輛充電可能需要多少費用，而且對當地公用事業或電網運營商也有好處，因為他們將要當人們在家中增加電動汽車充電功能時，最掙扎的是硬基礎設施的升級週期非常困難。為正在實施電動汽車充電的當地社區提供服務的線路、電線桿和變壓器。這些是非常重的拉力。我的意思是，這對家裡來說是一個非常重要的能量消耗。事實上，在某些情況下，只需添加一個 EV 充電器就可以使家庭用電量翻倍。所以我認為這方面有很多事情要做。當我們到達 9 月的 IR 日時，我們將進一步解開這個問題，但這是一個很好的問題，也是我們未來非常感興趣的領域。

That will end the Q&A session. I would now like to turn the conference back to Mike Harris for closing remarks.

這將結束問答環節。我現在想把會議轉回 Mike Harris 的閉幕詞。

We want to thank everyone for joining us this morning, and we look forward to discussing our second quarter 2023 earnings results with you in early August. Thank you, again, and goodbye.

我們要感謝大家今天早上加入我們，我們期待在 8 月初與您討論我們 2023 年第二季度的收益結果。再次謝謝你，再見。

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect, and have a pleasant day.

今天的電話會議到此結束。謝謝大家的參與。您現在可以斷開連接，並度過愉快的一天。