Mettler-Toledo International Inc. (NYSE:MTD) Q1 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

So that’s a big benefit. And broadening the portfolio and increasing the reach to our customers with dedicated campaigns and also go-to-market strategies will help us to continue that momentum that we see behind services. Services is one of the areas that we continue to invest also through the down cycle last year. We have a very strong service team and we see moving forward still more opportunity out there for services. Our services are very well-recognized in the market by our customers. We have very unique solutions that many of our competitors cannot offer, like for example, RapidCal solutions when it comes to tank calibration, et cetera. So it is again a big opportunity for us and we are seeing strong demand and we’ll continue to invest in this business.

Matt Sykes: Great. And then just maybe a little more color on Europe. I know you’re guiding to low-single digits for Q2 and mid-single-digits for the full year, but you’ve been cautious on Europe for some time. You kind of reiterated that caution again. I’m sure comps are helping in the succeeding quarters. But just any additional color on what you’re seeing from an end market demand standpoint from Europe and any reasons for continued caution over the course of the year?

Shawn Vadala: Yeah. Hey, Matt, this is Shawn. Maybe I’ll take that one. So we’re very pleased with the execution from our team in Europe. We have our most direct sales organization there in terms of direct channel to the customer and I tend to think we always feel the best benefit of our Spinnaker sales and marketing programs in Europe. So I think that’s one of the things that we feel very good about. Now the other side of that is, the economies have been soft. If you look at some of the PIs, especially some of the larger countries like Germany, you see elevated costs of energy in the region affecting some of our end markets. So there’s certainly uncertainty there. At the same time as we look to the second quarter, I think there’s going to be some benefit here from the timing of Easter.

But otherwise, it’s kind of like yin and yang. I think on one hand, we see a lot of market uncertainty, but on the other hand, I feel like we’re fighting a great fight and the team is doing really well. And as we always kind of say, the economy tends to just need to be good enough there for people to stick to replacement cycles. But at the same time, there are opportunities with reshoring and some of these hot segments like semiconductor or lithium battery in Europe. And I think our teams do a really great job of identifying those opportunities when they’re available and capturing them.

Matt Sykes: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Catherine Schulte with Baird. Your line is open.

Catherine Schulte: Hey, guys. Thanks for the questions. First, I guess great to see the recapture of the shipping delays coming in above your expectations and recapturing pretty much all of that lost revenue. Just when it comes to the new logistics provider, would you say that situation is fully resolved? You’ve got the protocols and processes in place to move smoothly going forward.

Patrick Kaltenbach: Yeah. Thanks, Catherine. I’m really happy how the team performed in Q1 and how we could resolve that issue that we had in Q4. Actually the — I’m looking at all the major KPIs that we have for the logistics provider, I would say today we are in a very, very good situation. We, of course, keep a very close eye on it because a couple of months of great performance is not enough for us to say everything is locked down, but happy with the performance right now. Our team, our own team has been really deeply engaged with fixing the situation. We have — had seen very strong collaboration between our own logistics teams and this external logistics provider to get these issues resolved. And again, we have all monitoring KPIs in place.

If we see any deterioration, we will have these teams come back into action. By now, everything is running smooth, which I’m very happy with. But as everything we do at Mettler-Toledo, there is continued performance improvement plans in place. And even here, even though it’s now today, we are not satisfied where we are today. We think we can still do better and make this really — make sure that this is not an issue moving forward, but also continue to deliver outstanding customer experience when it comes to delivery times and quality of deliveries, et cetera, is definitely front and center with this logistics partner. We made great progress and I’m confident that we don’t see any issues in the near term, but can we keep it, we have monitoring KPIs in place to make sure that we don’t miss any potential deviation.

Catherine Schulte: All right, great. And then maybe on the second quarter guide. It’s implying a slower sequential increase than what you’ve typically seen historically. So can you just talk through any areas of conservatism that you feel are in the second quarter guide? It looks like maybe on the industrial side is where that’s a slower uptick sequentially than historically. But curious if you could just give some more color there.

Shawn Vadala: Yeah, sure. Catherine, maybe I take that one. So of course, there was the shipping delay benefit in Q1, but I — but if you exclude that, I think the — I think like the multi-year CAGRs still look pretty similar between Q2 and Q1. Sometimes we’re looking at pre-COVID CAGRs when we say that and but if you do look at like the industrial business, like one of the things that kind of stands out there is kind of ties to the comments we’re making about China earlier or industrial before where I said China is a higher percentage of that business. And on a multi-year basis, we have just higher comps. So if you start looking at it on a multi-year basis instead of a one-year basis, I think that’s maybe affecting a little bit some of the sequentials on a more disaggregated basis.

Catherine Schulte: Great. Thank you.

Shawn Vadala: Yeah.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Patrick Donnelly with Citi. Your line is open.

Patrick Donnelly: Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to follow up on I think it was Rachel asking about kind of the underlying improvement as we work our way through the year. I think that was biopharma. Can you talk about China, just the assumptions there? Obviously, the comps get easier. It sounds like 2Q will be down 20 plus. But can you talk about the underlying improvement you’re assuming as we work our way [Technical Difficulty] maybe core industrial is still a little bit soft, but would love to just talk through the expectations there. I get the comps are easier, but just the underlying expectations as well.