Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE:HOG) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Edel O’sullivan: Thank you. As you indicate, our main priority in Q2 was around two aspects. The first is driving traffic to our dealers. So aside from promotional spend, we certainly ramped up our overall marketing investment and generating leads and generating traffic to dealers. That’s the first component, and we intend to continue to maintain those activities. Things like our open houses that we have held a couple throughout the second quarter were extremely successful and we think very well received by both customers as well as dealers. The second are the promotional aspects that you indicate. Our focus is really around the topic of affordability. We have been looking both at promotional rates in conjunction with our dealers as well as trade-in and trade-off promos that allow us to address some of the challenges that our most loyal customers have as they think through an upgrade cycle in the year of 2023, given dynamics with interest rates.

We intend to continue to look at those levers in the back half of the year, all within the broader framework of managing desirability. We want to make sure that we remain in healthy levels, but also need to address some of those imbalances in production and inventory as we look towards the back half of 2023.

Operator: Our next question comes from Noah Zatzkin from KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Noah Zatzkin: Hi, thanks for taking my question. Just one for me on the unchanged HDFS guide. Obviously, year-over-year, the first half kind of tracking below full year guidance. So just wondering if you could provide some color on kind of the puts and takes we should be thinking about in terms of the second half improvement there. Thanks.

Jonathan Root: Okay. Thanks, Noah. So as we look at the HDFS guidance and kind of leaving that unchanged throughout the year, we obviously track what we see from an overall delinquency and loss perspective. And as we look at that through the quarters, we’re gaining confidence in terms of that being contemplated in terms of where we are from an overall guidance standpoint. Part of what allows us to feel comfortable as we look at some of the — are some of the changes that we’ve made from a servicing activity standpoint. So through what we’re doing in terms of engaging with consumers who are late, engaging better technology in the way that we do that from a test perspective, as well as e-mail integration. We’ve also introduced artificial intelligence into the way that we monitor our call activity to ensure that our agents are actually engaging with consumers in a kind of a path that we enjoy.

We also have seen within the HDFS business some nice engagement and improvement in the revenue side of the equation. So we’ve been engaged in taking rate where we can, following the Fed actions. And then in addition, we are seeing some improved revenue from the commercial lending side of the business. And then lastly, we also see growth in fee income products associated with things like Visa protection products, insurance and much of our approach in international.

Operator: Our next question comes from David MacGregor from Longbow Research. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

David MacGregor: Yes. Good morning, everyone. I had a question on the Riders’ Academy. And just specifically on conversion rates. And just — I wonder if you could just talk about how there’s the number of Rider Academy graduates that — graduates that buy a bike compared with what you were seeing a year ago. And of those who do buy a bike, are you seeing any change in terms of their preferences for new bikes versus used bikes?