DBD 全部逐字稿

DIEBOLD NIXDORF, Inc(DBD)Q2 2026 法說會逐字稿

32 段

管理層發言

OperatorOperator

Hello. Good day, and welcome to Diebold Nixdorf's Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. My name is Paige, and I'll be coordinating today's call. I'd now like to turn the call over to our host, Maynard Um, Vice President of Investor Relations. Maynard, please go ahead.

Maynard UmVice President, Investor Relations

Hello, and welcome to our second quarter 2026 earnings call. To accompany our prepared remarks, we posted our slide presentation to the Investor Relations section of our website. Before we start, I'll remind all participants that you'll hear forward-looking statements during this call. These statements reflect the expectations and beliefs of our management team at the time of the call, but they are subject to risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. You can find additional information on these factors in the company's periodic and annual filings with the SEC. Participants should be mindful that subsequent events may render this information to be out of date. We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures on today's call. As noted on Slide 3, reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures can be found in the supplemental schedules of the presentation. With that, I'll turn the call over to Octavio, who will begin on Slide 4.

Octavio MarquezPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Maynard, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Commercial momentum remained strong during the quarter. Order entry increased 3% year-over-year and 6% sequentially. First half order entry reached its highest level in four years. Backlog grew sequentially to $814 million, and we remain on track to deliver on our full year outlook. Revenue increased 1% year-over-year and 4% sequentially to $928 million. Adjusted EBITDA grew to $121 million, an increase of 8% year-over-year and 22% sequentially, while adjusted earnings per share increased 17% year-over-year to $1.10. Across the business, we continue to execute the strategic priorities we've discussed throughout the year. In banking, we continue to expand our branch automation strategy beyond the ATM with growth in teller cash recyclers, transaction middleware and managed services. Retail delivered another quarter of strong growth across all our regions. We also achieved record service level performance, meeting or exceeding our customers' expectations and continue improving the efficiency of our operating model through lean initiatives. At the same time, we also navigated several challenges. Higher memory costs in our electronic point-of-sale portfolio continue to be a headwind. We have taken pricing, sourcing and other mitigation actions. While the memory pricing environment remains uncertain, we expect these actions to continue gaining traction through the third and fourth quarters. In response to the evolving memory market dynamics, we made the strategic decision to increase inventory to secure components and support customer deployment schedules in the second half of the year. This inventory investment contributed to lower free cash flow during the quarter, and we expect inventory to remain elevated through the third quarter before normalizing in the fourth. Tariff refunds recognized in adjusted EBITDA from prior period costs largely offset the impact of higher memory costs during the quarter. Tom will provide additional detail on these items in his remarks. Importantly, underlying customer demand remains healthy. Our diversified portfolio and global footprint continue to be a competitive advantage and our order book, growing backlog and customer deployment schedules continue to support not only our confidence in the full year outlook, but also in the durability of the momentum we're building across the businesses. Let's now turn to Slide 5 to review our banking strategy. The bank branch continues to evolve. As routine transactions become more automated, employees can spend more time providing financial advice and strengthening customer relationships. At the same time, banks increasingly want integrated technology partners that help them automate routine transactions, improve branch operations and better connect the physical and digital customer experience. Our core ATM franchise continues to deliver. During the quarter, we secured several important wins, including a new customer in the U.K. for approximately 1,100 DN Series units together with a long-term service agreement. In Mexico, a key customer refreshed its fleet with 600 DN Series recyclers. And in South Africa, one of the country's largest banks selected Diebold Nixdorf to replace their entire legacy fleet. Building on our leadership in APMs, our strategy is to expand deeper into the branch through teller cash recyclers, branch automation solutions and managed services. We're seeing encouraging momentum from this strategy. During the second quarter, we achieved record teller cash recycler shipments from our North Canton facility, reflecting growing customer adoption and reinforcing our confidence in this underpenetrated market. We're also gaining traction with our branch automation solutions, which combine our APM and teller cash recycler hardware, managed services and our Vynamic transaction middleware platform. Our Vynamic transaction middleware platform connects self-service, assisted service, digital banking and core banking systems, simplifying transaction management across the enterprise while giving us a unique position within our customers' branch infrastructure. Today, most of the top five financial institutions in North America rely on Vynamic transaction middleware to process millions of transactions every day. That installed base provides a solid foundation to expand our software, automation and managed services as customers continue modernizing their branch networks. Recent deployments with Lloyd's in the U.K. and VyStar Credit Union in the U.S. demonstrate this strategy in action. At Lloyd's, our branch automation solution is live in an initial pilot across two high-traffic branches, representing an important first step that positions us for broader deployment across the Lloyd's branch network over time. At VyStar, our end-to-end branch automation solution supports more than 200 advanced ATMs through our managed services offering, helping simplify operations and enhance the member experience. These deployments demonstrate how our integrated portfolio expands our opportunity well beyond the ATM, allowing us to deliver greater value through software, services and automation while strengthening customer relationships. Our fit-for-purpose product designed for the India market continues to gain traction. Our pipeline is growing, and we believe India represents one of our most attractive long-term growth opportunities given the size of the market and our relatively modest market share position today. Finally, in Brazil, one large public sector bank tender has shifted into the second half with the associated revenue originally expected in 2026 now expected primarily in 2027. While this affects timing, it does not change our full year outlook, and we remain confident in our ability to capture our share of this opportunity. Turning to retail. Revenue grew approximately 25% year-over-year. Retailers continue to invest in technology to create a more seamless shopping experience across physical and digital channels, while improving labor productivity and reducing shrink. Our strategy is to build on our market leadership in Europe while accelerating growth in North America through innovative store technology, AI-enabled solutions and managed services. We're seeing momentum across each of these priorities. In North America, we're converting our growing pipeline into new logo wins. During the quarter, we secured self-checkout wins with two grocers, a point-of-sale deployment with a quick-serve restaurant chain and a service agreement with a large fashion retailer supporting technology deployments across hundreds of stores. Across Europe, our checkout solutions continue to lead the market. We secured a more than 4,000 unit point-of-sale order with an existing customer in Germany, 1,600 units with a retailer in Romania and an 800-unit new logo win in Germany. In addition, we won a 1,500 self-checkout lane deployment with one of the United Kingdom's largest grocers. Our Smart Vision AI solution is gaining meaningful commercial traction. We've deployed hundreds of lanes year-to-date and new multiyear contracts signed this quarter will expand deployments to thousands of lanes by the end of 2026. Most notably, we signed dynamic Smart Vision AI deployment contracts for 1,400 new lanes across two large European grocers, representing the largest new deployments to date. These wins demonstrate that retailers are increasingly deploying AI at an enterprise scale. Together, our market leadership in Europe, growing momentum in North America and the rapid adoption of the Smart Vision AI platform give us confidence that our retail business remains in the early stages of significant long-term growth opportunity. Turning to Slide 7. For the second consecutive quarter, we achieved record service levels in both North America and globally. Based on customer feedback and available market data, we believe we're leading the industry in response times and availability. These improvements strengthen our customer relationships today and position us to win additional business over time. Service margins improved 10 basis points sequentially despite the near-term impact of our North America fleet renewal program. This investment is improving technician safety, increasing parts availability, strengthening repair execution and improving fuel efficiency, creating a stronger service platform for the future. The actions we've taken are delivering measurable results. With the largest phase of our investment cycle now behind us, we expect to leverage the stronger operational foundation to continue improving service margin in the quarters and years ahead. As we continue expanding our installed base through cash recyclers, branch automation solutions and retail, we're also expanding higher-value service opportunities. Combined with the operational improvements we've made, this gives us confidence in our expectation of up to 50 basis points of service margin expansion this year and continued improvement over time. Now let's turn to Slide 8. Our lean operating system continues to be a foundational element on how we run the business. Across the company, we're applying lean principles to improve productivity, simplify operations, increase capacity and deliver a better experience for our customers. These efforts are making our business more efficient, more scalable, better positioned to support profitable growth. One example comes from our Paderborn manufacturing facility. As customer demand increased, the team implemented flow manufacturing and added a fourth production line without increasing operating costs. The result was a 25% increase in output and improved safety, demonstrating how lean enables us to grow efficiently while improving operational performance. In North Canton, lean initiatives reduced dispatch times by more than 50%, shortened receiving and shipping lead times by two days and generated greater than $200,000 in annual labor savings. These improvements increase responsiveness, improve productivity and enhance the experience we deliver to customers. We are also applying lean to our service operations through our Plan for Every Part initiative. By improving parts availability and inventory planning, we're reducing incomplete service costs and helping technicians resolve customer issues on the first visit. This directly supports the record service level agreements we discussed earlier and strengthens both customer satisfaction and operational performance. Our commitment to innovation continues to be recognized externally. During the quarter, our Vynamic transaction middleware platform received two international industry awards, recognizing our leadership in payment technology. These examples demonstrate that lean is much more than a manufacturing initiative. It is the operating system that drives continuous improvement across our company. Every productivity gain, process improvement and quality enhancement strengthens our ability to execute for our customers, expand margins and support sustainable long-term growth. With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom to review our financial performance in more detail.

Thomas TimkoChief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Thank you, Octavio. Starting on Slide 9. The second quarter financial results reflect our continued commercial momentum and operational execution. Non-GAAP revenue was $928 million, up 1.4% year-over-year and more than 4% sequentially. Increasing retail demand helped offset the timing of certain banking deployments being pushed out, while orders and backlog both increased sequentially, giving us continued confidence in our outlook for the second half of the year. Before reviewing our margin performance, I'd like to provide some context around two items that influenced our second quarter results. We received a one-time tariff refund of approximately $13 million, with approximately $10 million benefiting banking product margins and the remaining $3 million benefiting banking services. This benefit was almost entirely offset by approximately $10 million of higher memory costs. As we've now diversified our memory supply base and implemented customer pricing actions, we expect the impact of higher memory costs to continue to decline throughout the remainder of the year. And as in prior periods, both items are reflected in our reported non-GAAP results. Non-GAAP gross profit grew approximately 1% year-over-year and 9% sequentially, driven by continued strength in our retail business. Non-GAAP margin was 26.4%, essentially flat year-over-year and up 100 basis points sequentially. Non-GAAP product gross margin increased 70 basis points year-over-year to 28.7%, driven by banking execution and partially offset by memory costs and a higher mix of retail point-of-sale products. Sequentially, non-GAAP product margins increased 240 basis points. Non-GAAP service margins were 24.9%, down 60 basis points year-over-year and up 10 basis points sequentially. The year-over-year decline primarily reflects the rollout of our new North America service fleet and increased investments in technicians to support future growth. These investments are already improving operational performance, and we remain confident that they will contribute to continued service margin expansion over time. Non-GAAP operating expenses declined $7 million or 4% year-over-year and improved by $2 million sequentially, reflecting the benefits of our continuous improvement initiatives and disciplined cost management. We now expect total operating expenses to decline approximately 2% for the full year at the higher end of our previously guided 1% to 2% decline. As a result, non-GAAP operating profit increased 13% year-over-year to $82 million, while non-GAAP operating margin expanded 90 basis points to 8.9%. Sequentially, non-GAAP operating profit increased 35% with non-GAAP operating margin expanding 200 basis points. Now let's turn to Slide 10. In Q2, adjusted EBITDA grew 8% year-over-year to $121 million, and margin expanded 80 basis points to 13%, driven by higher retail revenue and operating expense discipline. Sequentially, adjusted EBITDA grew about 22% and margin expanded 180 basis points. Non-GAAP earnings per share were $1.10, up 17% year-over-year and up 64% sequentially, driven by higher net income and lower share count as we continue to execute our $200 million share repurchase program. Turning to free cash flow. We reported an outflow of $11 million. Free cash flow was primarily impacted by inventory build of approximately $40 million to support demand in the second half and to secure memory supply. This figure excludes discrete tax items attributable to prior fiscal years related to increasing profitability in our German legal entities. In 2026, we expect approximately $50 million of higher-than-anticipated estimated cash tax payments related to years 2024 and 2025, which we are excluding from free cash flow to better reflect operational cash flow generation. We expect inventories to be below prior year's level in the fourth quarter as customer deployments accelerate, reinforcing our confidence in achieving our full year free cash flow guidance. Continuing on to Slide 11. Turning to banking. Revenue was up approximately 2% sequentially and declined approximately 6% year-over-year. As we've discussed, revenue was impacted by the timing of certain customer projects, but our backlog and product gives us confidence in the back half of the year. The Banking segment delivered strong margins in the quarter, increasing 100 basis points year-over-year to 28.5%. Banking product gross margins were 36.8%, up 620 basis points year-over-year and up 540 basis points sequentially. Excluding the tariff refund benefit, banking product gross margin would have been 32.5%, up 190 basis points year-over-year and establishing another new record for product gross margin. Banking service gross margins were 23.6%, down 180 basis points year-over-year and down 10 basis points sequentially, reflecting the tariff refund that was more than offset by additional fleet investment and lower installation and project volume. Looking ahead in banking, our backlog and with the majority of the investments for services now behind us gives us confidence in the second half of the year outlook. Turning to Slide 12. Retail delivered another outstanding quarter. Revenue was up approximately 9% sequentially and up 24% year-over-year. Retail product and service both delivered double-digit growth for the second consecutive quarter, driven by growth in point-of-sale in both Europe and North America. Gross profit dollars increased approximately 5% sequentially and 15% year-over-year to $64 million. Total gross margin was 21.9%, down 70 basis points sequentially and 180 basis points year-over-year, reflecting a higher mix of point-of-sale products and the related higher impact of memory costs. Retail service margin improved 230 basis points year-over-year to 28.2%, driven by the higher revenue. Looking ahead in retail, we expect to see product margin improvements in the second half of the year, driven by pricing to offset increased memory costs and improved product mix. Moving to Slide 13. Let's review our 2026 guidance. We are reaffirming our full year guidance with revenue of $3.86 billion to $3.94 billion, which is supported by our recurring service revenue and the $814 million of product backlog. Turning to gross margin. Given the stronger mix of point-of-sale and higher memory cost impact in Q2, we now expect full year product gross margins to be comparable with prior year, while service gross margins are still expected to improve up to 50 basis points, consistent with our previous outlook. For adjusted EBITDA, we reaffirm a range of $510 million to $535 million, reflecting our confidence in the commercial momentum and operational execution we've discussed throughout today's call. For free cash flow, while the quarterly cadence is now expected to be more weighted toward the fourth quarter, our full year expectation remains at $255 million to $270 million, excluding the higher-than-expected tax payments of approximately $50 million related to the 2024 and 2025 tax years. We continue to expect adjusted earnings per share to be in the range of $5.25 to $5.75, assuming an effective full year tax rate in the range of 35% to 40% with a higher tax rate expected in Q3 versus Q4. Looking specifically at the third quarter, revenue is expected to represent approximately 25% of full year revenue at the midpoint. Gross margin is expected to be approximately 25%, flat sequentially, excluding the tariff refund. We expect third quarter adjusted EBITDA to represent approximately 24% of the full year adjusted EBITDA at the midpoint. Turning to free cash flow. We expect to continue carrying elevated inventory in Q3 in addition to higher restructuring payments related to our OpEx cost savings program as well as the divestiture of our business in Turkey, resulting in free cash flow at similar levels to Q2. As we exit the year, we expect significant improvement in free cash flow in Q4, driven by approximately $100 million to $120 million of inventory reductions, other working capital improvements across the business and the annual receipt of our customer service contract prepayments. Turning to Slide 14. We maintained a fortress balance sheet with over $590 million of liquidity at the end of Q2, comprised of $282 million in cash and cash equivalents and our revolving credit facility of $310 million. The net leverage ratio stood at 1.4x, providing financial flexibility for share repurchases and M&A activity. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 752,000 shares at an average price of $79.82 per share, returning $60 million to shareholders under our existing $200 million share repurchase authorization. We have approximately $57 million remaining under the current authorization. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged. We are committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet, returning the vast majority of our free cash flow to shareholders through share repurchases and preserving the flexibility to pursue disciplined value-enhancing acquisitions that strengthen our strategic position. With that, I'll turn it back to Octavio for closing remarks.

Octavio MarquezPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Tom. To conclude, the second quarter demonstrated continued commercial momentum across the business. First half order entry was the highest in four years. Our backlog sits at over $800 million. Retail delivered another great quarter, and our banking growth initiatives continue to gain traction. The underlying demand environment remains healthy. The quarter presented both operational opportunities and challenges. We were able to build inventory to secure supply to better position us for a strong second half of the year, while our service margins still have room for improvement. Our priorities are clear: convert backlog into revenue, reduce inventory, improve service productivity and maintain operating expense discipline. I want to thank our employees for their continued focus and commitment to our customers. The work is driving the service improvements, customer wins and operational progress we discussed today. We remain focused on delivering the full year outlook, strengthening the quality and consistency of the business and creating sustainable long-term value for shareholders. With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

分析師問答

OperatorOperator

Your first question comes from the line of Matt Summerville with D.A. Davidson.

Matt SummervilleAnalyst, D.A. Davidson

A couple of questions. First, help me just a little bit with kind of the fourth quarter build in the sense that what gives you confidence in what is becoming an increasingly bigger sort of fourth quarter in terms of implied EBITDA, in particular, as more material services gross margin inflection seems to be kind of pushing out again, if you will. So just help me understand how the pieces come into play. If I'm doing my math right, you're implying about $125 million of EBITDA in Q3, which again means Q4 ultimately has to move higher for you guys to hit the midpoint of the guide. So just help me a little bit there?

Thomas TimkoChief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Yes. So I'd say you're pretty much spot on for Q3 in terms of what you implied for the EBITDA component. The incremental spend that we saw as it relates to service margins this quarter was entirely related to our fleet, and that impacted service margins by about 50 basis points. We're driving that fleet renewal program as well as the underlying technician investments. The timing and concentration of the rollout in Q2 had a larger near-term impact on the service gross margin. The key point is these were deliberate decisions and investments in that service platform and don't meaningfully change the underlying trajectory for margins, which, Matt, as you know, we said that we expect to be able to grow service margins, and we still do, up to 50 basis points this year. As it relates to product margins, we said that they'd be flattish when compared to prior years and saw really strong banking product gross margin performance with or without the tariff refund. As it relates to services, we think the largest phase of the investment cycle is now behind us, and we expect to be able to leverage this stronger foundation to improve the service margins in the quarters ahead. And as it relates to banking, that being slightly down in revenues, we expect that some of the pushout and deployments are going to end up in the third and fourth quarter. So yes, it's a big fourth quarter for us from a cash flow perspective as well, but we've got pretty good line of sight, whether it's the backlog—Octavio spoke about order entry being the highest in four years—so we'll be able to convert that as well. We feel really confident that we're going to be able not only to deliver the EBITDA, but the associated free cash flow.

Matt SummervilleAnalyst, D.A. Davidson

Got it. Maybe pivot over to North American retail. Is there any sort of framework you can provide around what you're seeing now in terms of orders and revenue, logo wins? Any early view on what you think you can ultimately deliver in that business, again, North America retail focus here with the question in 2027?

Thomas TimkoChief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Matt, we're really focused on delivering 2026 first, and it will be very high double-digit growth for the North America business. In Europe, retail is over $1 billion this year and still the vast majority comes from Europe. With North America being the biggest market, the opportunity remains relatively untapped. As we look into next year, we still believe that retail in North America can continue at that same pace of very high double-digit growth for the foreseeable future. This quarter, we had two important wins in the grocery space and one important win in the self-checkout space. We continue to, as we engage with customers, find new opportunities. A very large fashion retailer hired us to deliver RFID technology across hundreds of stores. We are very excited about the opportunity and see it getting better. We are taking appropriate measures to support that growth. On margins, we do expect to see product margin improvements in the second half, driven by a slightly better mix of self-checkout when compared to point-of-sale. Because of the memory challenge we saw, that headwind of about $10 million in the quarter was predominantly retail. We are close to finalizing revisions to contracts to reflect updated market pricing in memory. We've also diversified our memory supply chain, which has helped secure supply to support second half demand and has helped a bit on pricing. Going forward, we will be able to pass up to 100% of those costs on as we price these contracts. Another change we made was to reduce the period a price quote is open from 90 days down to seven days because of volatility. Between that and our ability to escalate pricing in the contracts, we expect retail to continue to deliver and offset the pricing headwind on memory.

Matt SummervilleAnalyst, D.A. Davidson

Maybe I'll just sneak one more in. When you talk about the German — the cash taxes you effectively own in Germany for '24 and '25, is that just a one-time catch-up true-up? Or does that impact Diebold's go-forward free cash algorithm? And Octavio, if you can just maybe do the geographic around the horn on the ATM side of the business and what you're seeing from demand, that would be great.

Thomas TimkoChief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Matt, the answer on the discrete payments is yes. We expect to make discrete one-time payments related to 2024 and 2025 of $50 million between the second quarter, which we had about $18 million incurred, and the third quarter, with the fourth quarter making up the difference. That's the $50 million we referenced. To speak to the run rate for our cash tax payments, if you look at last year as a basis, we spent about $57 million on cash tax payments. Because we are now going to be profitable in Germany and no longer have NOLs, we're required in 2026 to pay an additional $25 million to $30 million of taxes, and that will get added into our new run rate for 2027. So the way to think about it is the run rate you saw last year of about $57 million, you can add $25 million to $30 million to it. That will be our new run rate going forward. The one point you'll see for this year is the added $50 million for the 2024 and 2025 years. We backed out that $50 million to better reflect what the business can generate operationally from a cash flow perspective.

Octavio MarquezPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Yes, Matt, before I start, I want to emphasize this does not change our long-term outlook. Our goals for the three-year period that ends next year remain unchanged. Even with a higher cash tax payment next year based on increased profitability in our German subsidiaries, we still feel very comfortable with our cash flow outlook for 2027 and beyond. Let me walk through the regions. Starting with Europe: Europe is a more mature market with modest growth, but we're winning in that market. You saw some of the wins I referenced in the U.K., winning new customers, a competitive win in the U.K. that will now come our way. I referenced Lloyd's, where our branch automation is piloting in two very high-traffic branches, proving once again that going beyond the ATM and moving into the branch will be successful. We see customers prioritizing partners that can provide a technological edge to their operations, and that is where our strength is. In Europe, we expect to see continued success as we grow our base with innovative solutions. In North America, and preempting the question about recyclers, recycling in North America is now moving significantly downstream. We talked about VyStar this quarter and how they are now using more than 200 advanced recyclers through our managed service offering. We're seeing more deployment of full recycling in smaller financial institutions—credit unions and super-regionals. We're excited about that. The integrated value proposition of ATM recycler plus teller cash recycler is gaining traction. This was the highest volume of shipments we've had for teller cash recyclers out of our North Canton factory, and that trend continues. The combination of recyclers at the ATM and at the teller, with common components, is a powerful way to grow and gives me confidence in our numbers for the remainder of the year. In Latin America, the large Brazilian tender for government banks moved into the second half, shifting revenue more toward 2027, but we remain confident LatAm will continue to be a strong market. It's still heavy on cash dispensers but moving into cash recyclers. One bank in Mexico replaced its fleet with cash recyclers, which is an important factor going forward. Lastly, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa: our fit-for-purpose product will have a very strong second half of the year. The order book and some of the big deals we're expecting in that region are weighted toward the third and fourth quarters. You will see us perform exceptionally well in the latter half of the year in APAC. India remains a growing market where we are underrepresented, and we feel good that the second half will provide ample opportunities. Overall, the ATM market demand remains healthy. We've seen some timing shifts on large projects, but the demand environment is very healthy.

OperatorOperator

Your next question comes from the line of Justin Ages with CJS Securities.

Justin AgesAnalyst, CJS Securities

You gave us some good color on what was driving free cash flow negative this quarter. I just wanted to dig a little bit deeper and see were you able to make working capital improvements outside of what was happening on the inventory side?

Thomas TimkoChief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Going forward, we expect to make substantial improvements in days inventory outstanding. If you think about the cash flow, and it's kind of connected to Matt's question, our Q4 cash flow is going to be somewhere between $255 million and $270 million. Historically, Diebold has generated upwards of $200 million, so in order to generate the remainder of the cash we expect a lot of that to come from additional inventory takedown. Typically, we probably turn inventory anywhere between $80 million and $100 million in the fourth quarter. We have line of sight to be able to do even more than that this year given how schedules are working out, and we're feeling very positive about that. DSO will be a tailwind for us as we get into the fourth quarter as well. Don't forget the fourth quarter is when we have our annual receipt of customer service contract prepayments. We guided to Q2 positive free cash flow similar to Q2 of last year, which was about $13 million. What you see manifesting in Q2 and Q3 is the inventory buildup and some of the memory cost procurement so that we could secure the revenue. We expect to burn through that and deliver a really solid free cash flow quarter in Q4.

Justin AgesAnalyst, CJS Securities

And then one more on the retail side. Some of the commentary around making this an open product and being able to work with other systems—are you seeing any trends of customers taking just some of the hardware and maybe not some of the service parts of your retail offerings?

Octavio MarquezPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Justin, one of the reasons we're winning in North America is the modularity of our products and the openness to work with different software systems. For the self-checkout wins in North America, all of them come with service contracts. Those relationships are tightly coupled. For point-of-sale wins, service attach rates vary—typically between 30% and 50% depending on the customer. We continue to see that trend. The exciting part is that as we go into retailers with our AI platform or hardware solutions, we're discovering additional service opportunities we didn't have. The example I gave of a large fashion retailer rolling out RFID across hundreds of stores is a service opportunity where we help deploy technology across many locations. A strong product portfolio and our AI platform open multiple entry points into an account, and then we can expand within that account over time.

OperatorOperator

We will take our final question from the line of Matt Bryson with Wedbush.

Matthew BrysonAnalyst, Wedbush Securities

Just wanted to start on the banking side. Octavio, you talked about some shipments being delayed or pushed from Q2. Is there anything specific you'd call out there?

Octavio MarquezPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Even though we had record order entry for the first half, the pushouts were related to a very large Brazilian tender. That is tens of millions of dollars that got pushed. We expect the order in Q3 with the majority of the revenue now happening in Q4. Also, as we're selling more teller cash recyclers and ATMs combined, it requires more coordination in our installation teams to address the full branch rather than just the ATM. That adds opportunity but also requires more coordination with the customer because we're touching the inside of the branch plus the software layer delivered with our transaction middleware. Some rollouts we expected to be faster have been a little slower, but customers have placed the orders and are waiting for us to deliver. The APAC region with our fit-for-purpose product will have a very strong second half. These are more related to customers' rollout schedules than anything else; we see the orders coming in and it's our ability to turn those orders into revenue in late third and early fourth quarter in banking. It's a little bit of everything in every region, but the demand environment, based on orders, remains solid and the team's optimism on delivering the full year outlook remains unchanged. It's just a matter of executing against the backlog and upcoming projects.

Matthew BrysonAnalyst, Wedbush Securities

That's really helpful. With gross margins on the parts side coming in at 32%, was there anything unique to the quarter that pushed gross margins higher? Or is that just the result of you continuing to optimize and sell a richer product mix?

Octavio MarquezPresident and Chief Executive Officer

There's a bit of product mix that has helped in the first half. We had higher concentration in the U.S. market, which has better margins, and higher concentration in Europe. The second half will be a little more global. Our lean initiatives continue to gain traction, and we're focused on maintaining those margins. If you remember, Q1 set an all-time high for ATM product margins and Q2 built on that. We remain focused on margin discipline. The competitive environment is favorable and our technology continues to lead the market, so we believe we can maintain margins without relying on price to win bids.

Matthew BrysonAnalyst, Wedbush Securities

With the competitive side of things, now that more time has passed since the announcement of the Brink's-Atleos combination, is that having any impact at all that you can see?

Octavio MarquezPresident and Chief Executive Officer

We haven't seen any impact so far. The combination won't be effective until the first quarter of next year, and all indications are they're on track. Sometimes imitation is the most sincere form of flattery: I'm pleased to see Atleos now reselling TCRs, which validates our strategy of moving across the branch. We think providing integrated solutions as banks transform branch infrastructure will be key to success, not pricing actions alone. Banks are focused on reducing costs and increasing operational efficiency, but more importantly on making branches more efficient and service-oriented. Our solutions are well positioned with common components and common service infrastructure. We're excited, and we'll remain vigilant—Brink's is an outstanding company and a great competitor, and we'll watch for any dynamic changes.

Matthew BrysonAnalyst, Wedbush Securities

That all makes sense. Just one on the retail side. With POS being so strong, is there anything in particular driving the strength there? Is it cyclical? Is it sustainable? Any comments?

Octavio MarquezPresident and Chief Executive Officer

Our POS business is growing in very high double digits and in some markets triple digits. We have strong customers that are expanding and refreshing their fleets. In North America we're just starting to scratch the surface with wins in POS. We feel that growth is still in the plan for our retail business going forward. POS remains an important part of that strategy, and we are advancing in North America while continuing to expand share in Europe.

Matthew BrysonAnalyst, Wedbush Securities

One last one for Tom. Obviously, the lean initiatives are having a lot of success driving out cost. With the advent of AI, are you implementing AI solutions and finding any room to drive cost down further or faster through AI yet?

Thomas TimkoChief Financial Officer and Treasurer

Part of our operational evolution program and some of our OpEx savings include deploying AI to better predict forecasting and improve processes. We're deploying AI in our GBS center in Poland, which continues to provide strong returns. Where it makes sense and where we have the right data in a digestible format, we are using AI. That's part of why we raised expectations around OpEx reduction—we now expect to be at the high end of our prior 1% to 2% OpEx reduction guidance, and AI is one contributor to that evolution program.

OperatorOperator

Thank you. As of now there are no further questions.

Maynard UmVice President, Investor Relations

Thanks everyone for joining this call. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to the Investor Relations team. Thanks again, and have a good rest of the day.

OperatorOperator

Thanks, Maynard. This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.

逐字稿來自第三方供應商(Alpha Vantage),非本平台第一手解析;講者職稱依原始資料呈現,未經正規化。