Vontier Corporation (VNT) 2026 Q2 法說會逐字稿

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Vontier second-quarter 2026 earnings call. (Operator Instructions) This call is being recorded on Thursday, August the 6, 2026, and a replay will be made available shortly after.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Ryan Edelman, Vontier's Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us on the call this morning to discuss our second-quarter results. With me on the call today are Mark Morelli, our President and Chief Executive Officer; and Anshooman Aga, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. You can find both our press release as well as our slide presentation that we'll refer to during today's call on the Investor Relations section of our website at investors.vontier.com.

Please note that during today's call, we will present certain non-GAAP financial measures. We will also make forward-looking statements within the meaning of the federal securities laws, including statements regarding events or developments that we expect or anticipate will or may occur in the future. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results might differ materially from any forward-looking statements that we make today, and we do not assume any obligation to update them. Information regarding these factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements is available on our website and in our SEC filings.

With that, please turn to slide 3, and I'll turn the call over to Mark.

Thanks, Ryan. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Let me begin with a few high-level takeaways from the quarter. We delivered a strong second quarter with results that came in ahead of our expectations on both the top and bottom line. We see healthy underlying demand across much of the portfolio, particularly in the convenience retail-facing businesses, made important progress on our cost and simplification actions, and remain disciplined in how we deploy capital.

Our performance this quarter reinforces our confidence in the full-year outlook. And in the second-half growth expectations. Core sales were flat in the quarter, slightly ahead of our guide, driven by upside in environmental and fueling solutions. This performance came against a difficult prior-year comparison with approximately 11% core growth in the second quarter of last year.

Adjusted operating margin increased 190 basis points year-over-year, led by strong performance at Mobility Technologies. Notably, after adjusting for tariff refunds in the quarter, we exceeded our expectations. Orders were up low single-digits in the quarter and book-to-bill was above one, led by strength in mobility tech and environmental fueling solutions.

In environmental fueling, we've seen strong growth in dispensers and aftermarket parts. The broader backdrop is strong with customers continuing to invest in site modernization, new store expansion, and replacement activity tied to more advanced forecourt and payment technologies. Consolidation also remains a tailwind as operators standardize equipment across acquired sites.

Within mobility tech, core growth was affected by the difficult comparison associated with elevated vehicle identification solution shipments in the prior year. Absent that compare, mobility tech grew mid-single-digits in the second quarter and the first half. We expect this momentum to continue and further supports our outlook for the second half. Demand for our in-store payment, point of sale, and asset management offerings is robust, which speaks to how our portfolio is aligning with customer priorities.

It also speaks to the success of our strategic growth initiatives and new product introductions and our unique positioning in the marketplace. With respect to Repair Solutions, sales trends continue to stabilize, but margin performance in the quarter was below our expectations and remains a clear area of focus. Put simply, the business is not performing where it needs to, and we are taking actions to address that.

During the quarter, we announced a leadership transition at Repair Solutions. Cameron Richardson joined us from NAPA Auto Parts and brings more than 25 years of global experience in the automotive aftermarket and retail industry with a proven track record of leading successful turnarounds. We are focused on the key operational levers within the business and expect the actions now underway to strengthen execution and improve profitable growth.

Turning to capital allocation, we increased our share repurchase authorization to $1 billion and accelerated buyback activity during the quarter. Given the current valuation and supported by our strong free cash flow profile, we continue to view buybacks as a very attractive use of capital. At the same time, we completed the sale of Teletrac and announced the acquisition of EKOS. Both of which better align the portfolio with our connected mobility strategy and our returns-driven philosophy.

Approximately 80% of our portfolio is aligned to end markets that are supported by favorable secular trends and durable underlying demand, particularly convenience retail and fleets. Across these markets, operators facing greater complexity are increasingly investing in a network of connected, intelligent, and integrated operating environments. We are winning with customers who are prioritizing solutions that enable productivity, growth, and scale, which plays to our competitive advantages. Our connected mobility strategy is becoming increasingly tangible in the business.

One example is asset management, where we bring together connected hardware and software to help customers remotely manage and maintain fueling assets across their networks. Year to date, connected assets managed through our applications are up more than 20% versus last year. And in Q2 alone, we've brought more than 2,000 new sites online for several existing customers.

At Kwik Trip, a key strategic partner, deployment of our asset management platform across its forecourt has reduced truck rolls for service events by more than 80%. Our value proposition is resonating as operators look for ways to ensure higher equipment uptime, address labor constraints, and improve operating efficiency. The rollout of our NextGen payment kit offerings is in full swing. In Q2, nearly one-quarter of the new dispensers that left our factory were equipped with the updated FlexPay 6 terminal that launched late last quarter.

We anticipate this mix to accelerate as retailers prefer a more engaging common consumer experience and drive costs and complexity out of their payment technology. This not only supports top-line growth in mobility tech and EFS, but also our margin expansion assumptions for the second half. Taken together, these examples illustrate how our product development and simplification efforts are translating into higher customer adoption and improving quality and margins.

Let me spend a moment on EKOS on slide 4, which is a compelling addition to the portfolio and an important step forward in our connected mobility strategy for our fleet customers. EKOS adds a high-growth fleet energy management business that integrates with our existing fuel and equipment and site management offerings. As an existing strategic partner, it strengthens our ability to provide a more comprehensive solution across private fueling operations.

This combination is both differentiated and durable. By embedding software into mission-critical fueling hardware, it helps customers improve visibility, control, and operating efficiency. That makes the offering relevant as fleets continue to adopt more intelligent operating tools, including AI. EKOS also brings an attractive recurring revenue profile with ARR representing approximately 80% of revenue and growing at a 25% compound annual rate over the last three years. The platform connects more than 1 million vehicles and manages approximately 10,000 customer sites, including for customers like Ryder, GFL, and XPO Logistics.

As we look ahead, we remain confident in our full-year outlook and are raising our EPS guidance. We enter the second half with the business in a strong position. Overall, order trends and a solid pipeline support our growth outlook for the balance of the year. Demand in environmental and fueling solutions remains robust. Mobility tech is inflecting positive as we move beyond the compare dynamics and underlying growth continues. We see a clear path to double-digit earnings growth this year, supported by stronger operational execution, delivering on our cost savings commitments and additional share repurchases.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Anshooman to walk through the quarter and outlook in more detail.

Thanks, Mark, and good morning, everyone. Before discussing the quarter in more detail, I'd like to bridge our second-quarter guidance to the results we reported today on slide 5. There were two notable items in the quarter that differed from the assumptions embedded in our original guidance.

First, the TeleTrac transaction closed approximately one month later than we had assumed, which resulted in an additional month of contribution in the quarter. Second, we recognized a one-time favorable net impact from IEEPA tariff refunds related to inventory sold in the prior year. Importantly, after adjusting for the TeleTrac divestiture timing and the tariff refund, our results exceeded the high end of our original guidance range, reflecting solid underlying execution.

Turning to the consolidated results for the quarter on slide 6. Total sales were $757 million, with core sales approximately flat year-over-year, led by strong performance in environmental and fueling solutions. Adjusted operating profit margin increased 190 basis points, including a net benefit of approximately 120 basis points from the IEEPA tariff refunds. Our underlying margin expanded 70 basis points, driven by solid performance at Mobility Technologies.

We delivered approximately $4 million in year-over-year savings in the quarter ahead of plan and now expect to exceed our $15 million commitment for the full year. The progress we're making on our VBS-led simplification efforts, including 80/20, is showing up in several ways. In EFS, we are nearing completion of our move from 32 to 8 dispenser platforms, with the remaining rationalization expected in the second half. Alongside regional simplification that is consolidating production capacity needs.

Recently, we began a new multi-year platform rationalization program across our mobility tech businesses to support future productivity savings. We also rationalized approximately 1,400 SKUs in the first half following a Kaizen event. We are applying these same principles to drive R&D efficiency and optimize our customer service footprint, incorporating the use of AI tools. These actions are helping us reduce structural costs, improve execution, and better align resources behind our highest value opportunities. Adjusted free cash flow of $98 million reflects approximately 80% conversion to adjusted net income or around 13% of sales.

Turning to our segment results beginning on slide 7. Environmental and fueling solutions delivered core growth of approximately 5%. Demand trends remain strong, with healthy double-digit growth in global dispenser sales, driven by continued investment and strong demand for new equipment, as well as strong upgrade and replacement activity. Segment margin increased 240 basis points, including a 220-basis point tailwind from tariff refunds.

Turning to mobility technologies on Slide 8. Core sales declined against a difficult prior year comparison related to elevated shipments of our vehicle identification system solution. That compare equated to approximate $25 million or a 10-point growth headwind in the quarter. Excluding that dynamic, sales in the segment would have increased mid-single-digits, which better reflects underlying demand for these businesses. We continue to see strong customer adoption of our integrated payment, point of sale, and asset management solutions. Segment margin expanded 190 basis points, including a 20-basis point benefit from the tariff refund. Underlying segment margins expanded 170 basis points to approximately 21%.

Finally, turning to repair solutions on slide 9, same-store sales were essentially flat in the quarter, reflecting a stable demand environment and still constrained technician spent. Demand remains oriented towards products with a clear and relatively quick payback, which continues to support value-oriented technician purchasing decisions. From a margin standpoint, Repair Solutions decreased 180 basis points, including 130 basis point tailwind from the tariff refund. Profitability in the segment continues to see pressure from unfavorable price and mix.

As well as targeted investment spent in the quarter related to sales and the recent leadership transition. To put the margin pressure into context, the Delta versus our guidance framework amounted to around a $1.5 million headwind in the quarter.

Turning to the balance sheet on slide 10, we ended the quarter with over $260 million in cash on the balance sheet and net leverage at 2.3 times. Supported by strong free cash flow and including proceeds from the Teletrac divestiture, we repurchased approximately 4 million shares or $130 million during the quarter, bringing the year-to-date total to just over 6 million shares for about $200 million. As we have consistently said, we remain disciplined and balanced in our approach to capital allocation. At current valuation levels, we have leaned more heavily into share repurchases which we believe offer the most attractive risk-adjusted return.

We also completed the acquisition of EKOS after quarter end. The cash purchase price was $43 million, plus a potential earnout tied to future ARR growth. We expect EKOS to achieve double-digit ROIC by year three, with returns approaching 20% by year five. Overall, our capital deployment in the first half reflects our balance framework. Continuing our portfolio transformation while also returning meaningful capital to shareholders through share repurchases.

Turning to slide 11 for a discussion on our updated guidance. Starting with the third quarter, we expect sales in the range of $720 million to $735 million, with core sales growth of approximately 5% at the midpoint, driven by mid-single-digit plus growth in both EFS and mobility tech. As we have discussed, tougher compare headwinds are behind us, which should allow the underlying growth across the rest of the portfolio to become more visible. We expect operating margin to expand 110 basis points at the midpoints, led by mobility tech, reflecting favorable volume and mix, increased productivity savings, and an approximate 70-basis-point tailwind from the Teletrac divestiture. Adjusted EPS is expected to be in the range of $0.82 to $0.86, representing growth of 6% to 11% year-over-year.

Turning to the full year, the midpoint of the sales range increases by approximately $10 million, reflecting the net impact of acquisitions and divestitures and a modest FX headwind relative to our prior guide. Our core growth assumptions remain approximately 3% at the midpoint. We now expect operating margin to expand by approximately 100 basis points at the midpoint to over 22%. There have been no changes to the phasing of our cost savings plan, with approximately two-thirds of the savings still expected in the second half.

Additionally, our margin outlook includes a tailwind of approximately 40 basis points associated with the Teletrac divestiture. We are raising our full-year adjusted EPS guidance to $3.45 to $3.55, which represents growth of 8% to 11% versus the prior year. Our outlook for adjusted free cash flow conversion remains 95%, representing 15% of sales.

As always, we've included some other modeling assumptions on the right-hand side of the slide, which have also been updated to reflect the divestiture impacts on the topline and adjustments to below-the-line items. I would also note our guide assumes about $250 million in share buyback and that we've already completed about $40 million in share repurchases quarter to date.

With that, I'll pass the call back to Mark for his closing comments.

Thanks, Anshooman. We had solid execution in the second quarter. And we are encouraged by what we are seeing as we head into the second half of the year. I'd like to thank the Vontier team for their continued focus, dedication, and commitment to deploying our integrated operating model and a culture of continuous improvement. The progress we delivered in the second quarter reinforces our confidence in the growth and margin trajectory we expect over the balance of the year.

Underlying demand across our key end markets remains healthy. Order trends through the first half were supportive. We're seeing increased traction on new product launches, and our commercial pipeline remains solid. Importantly, the more difficult revenue compare headwinds are now behind us. We are seeing traction on our cost savings program, which is tracking ahead of plan and provides confidence through the balance of the year. Our integrated operating model, which simplifies the organization and aligns us more closely around our customers and end markets, is sharpening our commercial focus and strengthening our ability to deliver integrated solutions.

Together with our connected mobility strategy and disciplined capital allocation, we believe these actions are building a more focused company, a more durable earnings profile, and a stronger platform for long-term shareholder value creation.

With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

(Operator Instructions) Andy Kaplowitz, Citigroup.

I just wanted to focus on your adjusted operating margin guidance to 100 basis points for the year. I think you had 130 basis points previously. Obviously, you're including the tariff refunds as you disclosed. So can you give us more color in expected margin second-half across your segments and how you're looking at price versus cost and maybe any memory chip inflation impact that you're assuming now in the guide?

So if you look at our guide on an absolute dollar basis, our operating margins are down about $4 million, but that does include the benefit of the tariffs of $9 million, so roughly $13 million. The biggest piece of the difference is in Repair Solutions where we're bringing that number down by $7 million to $8 million. Will be down about 150 basis points for the year in operating profit margin.

In Mobility Technologies, our growth will be low single digits. Previously, we guided to low to mid-single-digits. Operating profit margins will be about 150 basis points up year-on-year versus the previous guide of 200 basis points. In Mobility Technologies. In the car wash part of our business, while the underlying market remains strong, the credit card data on car wash is encouraging. We are seeing some of the larger migrations from our legacy technology to a new cloud-connected Patheon software are taking a little bit longer and will likely slip out of the year.

As a reminder, 90% of our install base is still on the legacy technology and there's a pretty attractive return on investment for our customers to move to the new Patheon technology, but it's just taking a little bit longer. On the positive side, our EFS business continues to be extremely strong. We're increasing the guide from low to mid-single-digits to mid-single-digits. Operating profit margins will be up about 100 basis points in that business on a full-year basis. So that kind of bridges the guide.

From a memory chip perspective, like I'd mentioned on the last call, on last year's prices, we bought about $5 million, $6 million of memory chips. We probably have a high single-digit headwind related to memory price, but at the same time, we're putting in price increases in the market and from a price cost perspective, we're slightly positive for the first half of the year.

Very helpful. And then, Mark, maybe just sort of focusing on the EFS ongoing upturn. I know you mentioned the launch of NextGen Payment helped. How much are the new products supporting the continued growth?

And obviously, as gas prices have been all over the place for the last few months, but it looks like the customers are still spending. You still got the focus on national accounts. So maybe you can double click on sort of what you're seeing and the durability of growth in EFS.

Yeah, I'm happy to, Andy. Look, there's no question that convenience store market is in a really good spot with this current macro environment that's underway. Folks continue to build out NTIs, spending a lot of time with our distributors and our customers. The big players out there in the convenience store space are healthy, very healthy, in fact.

And they're putting a lot of their capital to work by continuing to building out their successful formats. You can read about that. You can see that. We see the uptick. We know from our distributors that also do installation that, the NPI, which is new to industry and also retrofit for the larger and smaller folks is really very healthy.

They plan out, even though we're a short cycle business, our book to turn is pretty quick. In our business, but they plan out, a couple of years in terms of their building out cycles and there's no abatement of that where they continue to look at their footprint build-outs. I think the other thing that's reading through that we're really happy about is our unified payment. Some of the new offerings that we've been talking about that we showed in the NACS Show last October, November.

Those are really resonating. We're talking about bringing those to market. These are the products are called FlexPay 6, M2-15. It's really our unified payment offerings that are getting uptick, particularly with some of these larger players that are doing those rollouts.

We talked about some of the asset management. That is really falling into these secular drivers because this is remote device management capability that helps them with managing uptime, servicing costs, rolling less trucks. So we think we've got a really good fit for our product lines in the market.

And I think you see the strength in EFS and continued strength both on the topline as well as margins.

Appreciate all the color, guys.

Jeff Sprague, Vertical Research.

Good morning, everyone. I was hoping we could just drill in on repair solutions and in particular sort of the action items anticipated under the new management change and what are kind of the key drivers of, I guess, the turnaround you'd expect.

And just thinking about the sort of the multi-year slide in margins that we've had there, I just wonder if you could kind of speak to what you, view the actual margin entitlement in the business on the other side of the restructuring?

Yeah, Jeff, great question. Look, margins are not where we want them to be or we believe they should be better and we can do better. A couple of key things that. The new team is really grabbing hold of and we're really diving into.

The first one is on the supplier management side, we're really streamlining with strategic supply chain partners, we're reducing steps in the supply chain and waste. We're also working with our suppliers on a co-marketing program, well, that'll help us in terms of dollars, as well as there's further SKU rationalization that's going to really help us be more agile, bring our cost to serve down, as well as improve our inventory costs on the margin side. When you look at the margin progression, we're holding 19% in the back half of the year, that's a step up when you take into account the benefit from the tariff. And so we feel like with the actions in place, the new management team grabbing hold of it, we're really encouraged.

On the revenue side, if you may remember, we ended last year down mid to high single-digits. We've stabilized that. We think there's more room to go. We've done that on the backs of better productivity for our technicians through diagnostics, which are selling well, as well as toolboxes. We also have our district management or DM structure where we've upgraded top graded have new talent in for more than 20% of our DMs across the country.

And there's a new program that's being prosecuted with the management team to tighten that up. So we think there are there are a lot of levers here that we can pull the backdrop remains the way that it has been happy to talk about some of those. Drivers there and some of the KPIs that we watch on that. But we're essentially operating in the same backdrop, improving topline, but definitely can do better on margins.

So just thinking about the margins, I'm sure you don't want to give a specific target, though if you do, I'll take it. But should we just think of like normal incremental margins plus a tick or two or three as this stuff comes through? Or could we actually see maybe more of a step function in margins as maybe volumes automatically recover looking forward a year or two?

Yeah, I think what we're guiding to is stability margins on the second half around the 19%, which is a slight step up. But I do believe there's real opportunity for us to do better and we'll drive to do better, but I think we're going to offer a responsible guide.

Okay, I'll leave it there.

Andrew Obin, Bank of America.

Good morning. This is David Ridley-Lane on for Andrew. Just as sort of a question on the rationale for the acquisition of EKOS and also if I could, if you're giving any, revenue contribution, financial metrics on that. Thank you.

Yeah, I'll give some of the color and the rationale for EKOS and let, talk about some of the numbers associated with it. Look, we're really excited about EKOS. If you may remember. We did a relatively small acquisition called Invenco a couple of years ago. That was a real technology unlock for us that really ignited growth and also margin improvement.

And this kind of tuck in, it's a great industrial tech company. It's got real industrial software that's embedded with our hardware. It's a bolt-on. It is an existing strategic partner with us. So we've worked very closely with them, integrating them with our products. And what essentially what it does is it really gives us a higher growth capability by connecting fleet fueling.

So we talked a lot about convenience retail, but think about the same type thing that are needed for private fueling networks. These are fleet fueling networks, but I want to put stuff on the same pane of glass, they want better control. They want better cost management of their infrastructure. Think about fueling costs and how they're on the rise.

And getting this on a single pane of glass, they will manage that a lot better. So the fact that it integrates with our existing fuel equipment, it has site management offerings. It's a comprehensive solution for fleet operators. It's exactly the kind of productivity they need when they face rising costs.

And it really is an important step for us when you think about in the context of our connected mobility strategy, this is the connected mobility strategy for fleet operators. So we think it's a real unlock for us, relatively small in size, but these are the kind of tuck-ins that we'd like to ignite higher growth and better margins.

David, from a revenue perspective, obviously this year stuff fee rate is built into our guidance. For next year, fiscal 2027, think of this business as somewhere between $15 million and $17 million in revenue, mainly recurring revenue. And margins next year on this business should be in the mid-teens, maybe mid-teens plus.

Thank you. And then just as a quick follow-up, it sounds like some of the lower revenue in the second half of 2026 is more about delays, not to put words in your mouth, than the change in the market. You say it's half and half roughly.

So maybe I'll just start. From a total guide perspective, there's really no change in our revenue. The midpoint of our guide is actually up $10 million. Core growth is still at 3%. So overall, there is no change in volunteer's revenue.

There's really a little bit of a mixed change where we've increased the guide on our environmental and fueling business to mid-single-digits. It used to be low to mid-single-digits. We've lowered mobility technologies from low to mid-single-digits to low single-digits. And that was really on the backs of DRV, some of the upgrade projects.

They're still in the pipeline. They're great returns for our customers, but these are complex projects of migrating their existing software technology from our legacy solution to our new solution, and they're just taking a little bit longer from a close perspective.

Katie Fleischer, KeyBank.

Hey, morning, everyone. I wanted to ask about some of the progress on your cost out initiatives. Sounds like, you've taken out a lot of costs there, might be tracking a little bit ahead of schedule. Just curious how much upside there is in terms of that program and how you kind of think about that in the context of the margin guidance for the full year?

Thanks, Katie, for the question. So when we started the program, we said it was $15 million in year and the progression I'd given was $1 million in Q1, $3 million in Q2, $5 million in Q3, $6 million in Q4.

We delivered $1 million more in the second quarter as we've accelerated some of those savings. So it will be slightly above the $15 million for this year with incremental benefits for next year. The important thing is this isn't a one-time take cost out and move on. This is part of our one-tier business system, a process of continuous improvement, and it's structural with our focus on product line simplification, our focus on 80/20.

And we talked in the prepared remarks that we started a multi-year effort in mobility technologies to reduce the complexity and simplify our portfolio. From the different variants we took out as part of our CEO Kaizen that we had early in the second quarter, we took out 1,400 SKUs across the company. So we're continuously looking at ways to continue to expand margin and it's a multi-year program. We're probably third or fourth innings in it. It's a long runway of margin expansion opportunity as we go through.

And that's really -- I used to talk about mobility technologies had a lot of margin expansion and that kind of started to read through. In our margins in Q2. Our mobility tech margins expanded 190 basis points, 20 basis points with tariffs, so 170 basis points of core margin expansion in that business. And for the back half of the year, we also have good margin expansion in mobility technologies based off a lot of the simplification effort that we're driving.

Okay, that's helpful. And then turning to EFS. So you talked about some of the really strong secular trends there and growth and modernization within C-stores. I'm curious if the growth that we saw this quarter within that business was a result of some big wins with customers or more of just the constant upgrade modernization activity and maybe we should expect that to continue at a more regular pace going forward.

Yeah, I think it's more of a regular pace. There clearly are some large customers that get in the mix, but that's what we're kind of seeing as a pretty regular rollout of that. There's also this business is also driven by some regulatory drivers on payment that has always been part of it that is also playing through. So, we, steady as she goes in terms of the overall uptake in this.

We love our competitive position in the market. We love our new product offerings. We love to see the secular drivers in this industry just really encouraged by what we see.

Rob Mason, Baird.

Just on mobility tech, you already referenced DRB and some of the challenges just to deploy those new systems inside the calendar year. I think there were some other projects that were due to ramp. Maybe touch on just how you think or how your risk managing.

Those being deployed inside the year and whether they appear to be on schedule, pulled forward, or just give us an update on kind of the full scope of projects within Mobility Tech.

Yeah, Rob, thank you for the question. Look, the thing that is really important in DRB is our new product called the Patheon product. And the reason why that's relevant is if you look at the industry, the new builds are down year over year. We anticipated they would be down. I think they were probably even down probably more than we had anticipated. But what's really driving our opportunity there is Patheon because we have more than 5,000 installations of a product called SiteWatch.

And when you look at what the car wash operators need to run a good car wash. Patheon is a great product, and it gives them better productivity. So what we're doing is we're going out there and we're offering retrofits onto the SiteWatch platform with the Patheon upgrade and they're getting real productivity. Look, if you look at some of the data out there, some of the credit card data to see what's going on in car wash and in the current consumer backdrop right now, people are definitely paying for car washes and we know when one of our customers opens a new car wash. They may open with thousands of subscribers to the car wash system.

And a large part of that is due to the Patheon technology and enables them to get better connection to consumers. It gets better marketing, pricing, and productivity for that. And so they get an ROI by actually doing that. So to now get to your question, the key is these Patheon upgrades, like what's the pace and rate of that? A bit slower in the first half than we anticipated based on permitting by the way, we're less than 10% into the launch on Patheon.

So we've got a great runway ahead of us, but a little bit slower uptake than we thought. In terms of our guidance for the back half, we have a good pipeline of these opportunities, and we'll continue to work to smooth that out. So we're encouraged on what we see for the longer-term. It'll just be down some from our guide that we gave you earlier.

And Rob, to your point on the other projects and mobility technologies, those are actually, a lot of them were in backlog and actually are progressing extremely well. We're on track. If you really look at the underlying business of mobile technologies, excluding that compare issue for the vehicle identification system, the business grew mid-single-digits, excluding that in Q2 and that's our guide for Q3, really mid-single-digit growth. Our unified payment projects are moving extremely well.

Also, some of the fleet projects that we're working on and actually Eco's acquisition is part of a couple of those fleet projects. Those are progressing well. So overall, we feel pretty good about our mobility technology business, both from delivering mid-single-digit growth in Q3 and the margin expansion that we've guided to.

I see. And just as a follow-up. Your guidance for the inner segment portion of the business has moved around as we've gone through each quarter. My sense is obviously that may just be mix shift around Flex Pay 6 or Flex Pay 4, but you've commented that you've seen pretty good demand on Flex Pay 6. So I'm just curious if certification efforts coming into play there?

And if they are, is that something that maybe you work past this year and it doesn't present any kind of issue constraint on your growth in '27?

That's correct. There's some movement based on mix of how much like SpaceX, the new versions being adopted. We've seen some good uptake in that. Also, there was an update to our transfer price from original expectations between the businesses as we went through our final analysis on transfer pricing, so that was a little bit.

But that's going to be more stable going forward and also the adoption of Flex Pay 6 is just getting more and more, especially the new version. We talked about the new version that we introduced at the end of last quarter and on our dispenser shipments, there was a 25% roughly take rate off the new version already. So we're pretty excited about the prospects of Flex Pay 6 and where the payment technology is headed.

Very good.

Thank you. There are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the call back to Mark Morelli for closing remarks.

Yeah, thanks for joining us on the call today. We appreciate your continued interest in Vontier. We look forward to engaging with many of you over the next several weeks. Have a great day.