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Vontier Corp (VNT) Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

34 segments

Prepared remarks

OperatorOperator

And welcome to the Vontier Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. (Operator instructions) This call is being recorded on Thursday, August 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.

Ryan EdelmanVice President, Investor Relations

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.

Mark MorelliPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Ryan, and 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 & 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 1, 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. Kameron 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 brought more than 2,000 new sites online for several existing customers. At QuikTrip, 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 next-gen payment kit offerings is in full swing. In Q2, nearly 1/4 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 cost 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 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 3 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 & 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.

Anshooman AgaExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

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 deferred from the assumptions embedded in our original guidance. First, the Teletrac transaction closed approximately 1 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 & 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 $50 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 multiyear 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 & 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 approximately $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 spend. 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 spend 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 2.3x. 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 earn-out tied to future ARR growth. We expect EKOS to achieve double-digit ROIC by year 3 with returns approaching 20% by year 5. Overall, our capital deployment in the first half reflects our balanced 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 midpoint, 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 guidance. 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 2/3 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 top line and adjustments to below-the-line items. I would also note our guide assumes about $250 million in share buyback and that we have 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.

Mark MorelliPresident and Chief Executive Officer

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.

Questions and answers

OperatorOperator

(Operator instructions) Our first question comes from Andy Kaplowitz with Citigroup.

Andrew KaplowitzAnalyst, Citigroup

I just want 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 in Q2 as you disclosed. So can you give us more color on expected margin in the 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?

Anshooman AgaExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Andy, for the question. On an absolute dollar basis, our operating margins are down about $4 million, but that includes a $9 million benefit from tariffs, so the underlying decline is roughly $13 million. The biggest piece of the difference is in Repair Solutions, where we're reducing that number by $7 million to $8 million. Repair Solutions will be down about 150 basis points for the year in operating profit margin. In Mobility Technologies, our growth will be low single digits versus our prior guidance of 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 the car wash part of Mobility Technologies, while the underlying market remains strong and credit card data is encouraging, some of the larger migrations from our legacy technology to the new cloud-connected Patheon software are taking a bit longer and will likely slip out of the year. As a reminder, 90% of our installed base is still on the legacy technology, and although there is an attractive return on investment for customers to move to Patheon, the transition is slower than expected. On the positive side, our EFS business continues to be extremely strong. We are increasing the guide from low to mid-single digits to mid-single digits, and operating profit margins in that business will be up about 100 basis points on a full-year basis. That helps bridge the overall guide. From a memory chip perspective, as I mentioned on the last call, last year we bought about $5 million to $6 million of memory chips at last year’s prices. We expect a high single-digit headwind related to memory price. At the same time, we are implementing price increases in the market, and from a price-versus-cost perspective we are slightly positive for the first half of the year.

Andrew KaplowitzAnalyst, Citigroup

Very helpful. And then, Mark, maybe just sort of focusing on the EFS ongoing upturn. I know you mentioned the launch of next-gen payment helps. How much are new products supporting the continued growth? And obviously, as you know, like gas prices have been all over the place over the last few months, but it looks like the customers are still spending. You still got the focus on national accounts. So maybe you could double-click on sort of what you're seeing and the durability of growth in EFS.

Mark MorelliPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. 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 NTI, which is new to industry, and also retrofit for the larger and smaller folks is really very, 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 builds out. 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 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 a 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 top line as well as margins.

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from Jeff Sprague with Vertical Research.

Jeffrey SpragueAnalyst, Vertical Research Partners

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 multiyear 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.

Mark MorelliPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, Jeff, great question. Look, margins are not where we want them to be. 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, where that will 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, topgraded, have new talent in for more than 20% of our DMs across the country, and there is a new program that's being prosecuted with the management team to tighten that up. So we think 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 top line, but definitely can do better on margins.

Jeffrey SpragueAnalyst, Vertical Research Partners

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 2 or 3 as this stuff comes through? Or could we actually see maybe more of a step function in margins as maybe volumes ultimately recover looking forward a year or two?

Mark MorelliPresident and Chief Executive Officer

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

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from Andrew Obin with Bank of America.

David Ridley-LaneAnalyst, Bank of America (on for Andrew Obin)

This is David Ridley-Lane on for Andrew. Just 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.

Mark MorelliPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. I'll give some of the color and the rationale for EKOS and let Anshooman 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, very closely with them, integrating them with our products. And essentially, what it does is it really gives us a higher growth capability by connecting fleet fueling. So we talk a lot about convenience retail, but think about the same type thing that are needed for private fueling networks. These are fleet fueling networks where they 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, it integrates with our existing fueling 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 it 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 like to ignite higher growth and better margins.

Anshooman AgaExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

David, from a revenue perspective, obviously, this year stub period 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.

David Ridley-LaneAnalyst, Bank of America (on for Andrew Obin)

Got it. 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 change in the market? You say it's less than half roughly?

Anshooman AgaExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

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 Vontier's revenue. There's really a little bit of a mix 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 DRB, 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.

OperatorOperator

Our next question comes from Katie Fleischer with KeyBanc.

Katie FleischerAnalyst, KeyBanc

I wanted to ask about some of the progress on your cost-out initiatives. It sounds like you've taken out a lot of costs, they 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?

Anshooman AgaExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Yes. Thanks, Katie, for the question. When we started the program, we said it was $15 million in the year and the progression I had 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 tier business system, a process of continuous improvement. It's structural with our focus on product line simplification and our focus on 80/20. We talked in the prepared remarks that we started a multiyear 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, 1,400 SKUs across the company. So we're continuously looking at ways to continue to expand margin, and it's a multiyear program. We're probably in the third or fourth inning in it, so there's a long runway of margin expansion opportunity as we go through. I used to talk about Mobility Technologies having 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 was tariffs, so 170 basis points of core margin expansion in that business. And for the back half of the year, we will also have good margin expansion in Mobility Technologies based off a lot of the simplification effort that we're driving.

Katie FleischerAnalyst, KeyBanc

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?

Mark MorelliPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Yes. 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 seeing as a pretty regular rollout. This business is also driven by regulatory drivers on payment that have always been part of it, and that is playing through. So we are 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 and are really encouraged by what we see.

OperatorOperator

Our final question comes from Rob Mason with Baird.

Robert MasonAnalyst, Robert W. Baird & Co.

Regarding Mobility Tech, you already referenced DRB and some of the challenges of deploying those new systems within the calendar year. I think there were other projects due to ramp — could you touch on how you are managing the risk of deploying these this year, whether they appear to be on schedule or pulled forward, and provide an update on the full scope of projects within Mobility Tech?

Mark MorelliPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, Rob, thank you for the question. The really important thing in DRB is our new product, Patheon. That matters because new builds in the industry are down year over year — we anticipated a decline, and it was probably larger than expected. What is driving our opportunity is Patheon, because we have more than 5,000 installations of a product called SiteWatch. When you look at what car wash operators need to run a good car wash, Patheon is a strong product and gives them better productivity. We are offering retrofits onto the SiteWatch platform with the Patheon upgrade, and customers are seeing real productivity gains. Credit card data and other indicators show consumers are still paying for car washes. We know when a customer 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 Patheon technology. It enables better connection to consumers, improved marketing, pricing, and productivity, so they get an ROI. Regarding pace and rate, Patheon upgrades were a bit slower in the first half than we anticipated due to permitting. We are less than 10% through the Patheon launch, so we have a great runway ahead, but uptake has been a little slower than expected. For the back half, we have a good pipeline of opportunities and are working to smooth deployment, so we are encouraged about the longer term. It will be somewhat down from the guidance we gave earlier.

Anshooman AgaExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

And Rob, to your point about the other projects in Mobility Technologies, many were in backlog and are progressing extremely well, and we're on track. If you look at the underlying Mobility Technologies business, excluding the compare issue for the vehicle identification system, the business grew mid-single digits in Q2, and that's our guide for Q3, really mid-single-digit growth. Our unified payment projects are moving extremely well, as are several fleet projects, and the EKOS acquisition is part of a couple of those fleet initiatives. Those efforts are progressing well. So overall, we feel good about our Mobility Technology business, both in delivering mid-single-digit growth in Q3 and the margin expansion we've guided to.

Robert MasonAnalyst, Robert W. Baird & Co.

I see. I see. And just as a follow-up, your guidance for the intersegment 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 FlexPay 6 or FlexPay 4, but you've commented that you've seen pretty good demand on FlexPay 6. So I'm just curious if our certification efforts are 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?

Anshooman AgaExecutive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

That's correct. There's some movement based on the mix of how much FlexPay 6 and the new versions are being adopted; we've seen good uptake. Also, we updated our transfer price from our original expectations between the businesses after our final analysis of transfer pricing. That caused some variance, but it should be more stable going forward, and adoption of FlexPay 6, especially the new version, is increasing. We introduced the new version at the end of last quarter, and on our dispenser shipments roughly 25% were the new version already. We're pretty excited about the prospects of FlexPay 6 and where the payment technology is headed.

OperatorOperator

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

Mark MorelliPresident and Chief Executive Officer

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

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