Steven Forbes: Good morning, Mark, Patraic, Larry. Congrats on a great quarter. Mark, I was hoping maybe just to follow-up on some previous questions, right? We look at the first quarter net sales performance in the U.S. segment at 22%. I mean, that’s significantly outperformed sort of where we were, and I think where the baseline expectation is for that segment on a go-forward basis. So is there any way to unpack — like unpack the various contributing factors to the quarter, whether it’d be the 2023/2024 products, whether it’d be replenishing inventory, or you think about points of distribution, like any way to contextualize the contributions to growth?
Mark Barrocas: Yes, absolutely. I mean, well, look, I would say, first and foremost, I think we generated kind of strong base business. I mean, I think our core base business was healthy in the quarter. I mean, our core vacuum business, our core blender business, our core cooking business in North America. And so, you’re copying — I mean, if you think about last year at this time, that market was declining high-single-digits, even low-double-digits. Market came down to kind of declining low-single-digits. So we’ve got a firmed-up core base of our business. Then secondly, I would say, you layer on top of that expansion of new categories and new products that we launched in both 2022 and 2023. I mean, we had a very strong outdoor cooking season.
Our beauty business continues to be quite strong. The new products that we launched in 2023 are having a big impact in 2024. I mean, I’ll identify, our Cleaning business grew 6%. I mean, we’re seeing really nice growth out of this expansion into a carpet extractor business and the spot and stain cleaner business. It’s been strong for us. So I think number two is, you’re just seeing new product and new category growth coming from the compounding effect of 2022 and 2023 that’s having a positive impact on 2024. I think three; you have to look at expansion of retailers. I mean, last year at this time in Q1, we weren’t in Sephora, we weren’t in Ulta, we weren’t in Bass Pro Shop. We have in the quarter, launched into DICK’S Sporting Goods online.
So, we’re in more retail doors as well. And then lastly is the replenishment from a strong Q4 numbers that we talked about. So I think when you kind of combine all four of those things, it really propelled us into nice growth in the first quarter in North America.
Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Phillip Blee with William Blair. Your line is open.
Phillip Blee: Good morning. Patraic, welcome. Thanks for taking my question. There’s obviously a pretty long runway to continue to expand here internationally. Can you provide some color on where you are at in terms of the number of product categories offered in some of these more nascent markets versus what’s available domestically? And then what your plans are for expansion this year and what kind of lift we can expect that to provide? Thanks.
Mark Barrocas: Sure. Well, look, so, I would say, first and foremost, we were comping a massive Q1 2023 in the UK. And so, we’re excited to see that our UK business continues to grow, which is our largest market outside of North America. The business in the UK is getting more diversified across more product categories. We’re generating real scale in new categories that we’ve expanded into. We’re the number one electric grill in the UK. Our CREAMi business is starting to grow really nicely. Our spot and stain cleaner, our hard floor cleaner business is growing in the UK. So when you look at the UK, first and foremost, we’re in about 20 of our 33 categories today that are in the UK and that business is becoming, we think more healthier, more diversified.
In Germany and France, we experienced triple-digit growth in the quarter. We expect similar triple-digit type growth in the second quarter in Germany and France. And those markets, for the most part are really selling about 10 product categories. So, we’ve got a long runway of new products to be able to expand into Germany and France. And we’re seeing great support from the Euronics and the MediaMarkt’s and Fnac Darty’s and the Blueline Jay’s [ph] in Germany and France. So we’re getting really strong retailer support. You look at a market like Latin America, I mean, our beauty business is extremely strong in Latin America and we’re expanding more and more our Ninja brand into that market. In the second half of the year, you’ll see a much bigger launch into the Middle East that’ll start contributing to our growth as we get into the third and fourth quarter.
So I would say at the most mature area of being UK, we’re still seeing opportunities for category expansion. And then you look at some of these other less mature markets, there’s a multi-year runway of products for us to be able to continue to expand in those markets.
Phillip Blee: Okay. Great. Very helpful. And then just a quick one. You spoke about the opportunity for recurring revenue with CO2 canisters and flavored pods for Thirsti. Can you talk about where you are now in terms of adoption there? And then what are the opportunities to kind of expand some of these ancillary recurring purchases and existing or maybe planned new categories? Thanks a lot.
Mark Barrocas: Yes. So, Phillip, I think the consumable conversation is much broader than just Thirsti. I mean, we’re getting a very, very high attach rate in our carpet cleaners and stain cleaners with our proprietary chemicals that go into those products. Our hard floor cleaners, like the HydroVac are getting high attach rates with chemicals on those products. So our accessories business and outdoor cooking and our pellet business is quite strong in those categories of consumers coming back and buying a cover or a griddle or some other accessory for our outdoor cooking business. So there’s lots of aspects of our business that are becoming more, either accessory — aftermarket accessory driven or more consumable driven. I think the most exciting one, clearly is Thirsti, and we’re learning a tremendous amount about Thirsti.
I mean, we’ve had a nice installed base as we get into Q1. We’re starting to see replenishment on which flavors are resonating, which drink types are resonating, which are not resonating, and how do we start to need to retool kind of a flavor development. We brought on a number of outside consultants that come from the ready-to-drink beverage space that are working with us on drink development, recipe development. We’re going to launch our Thirsti product into the UK late in the second half of the year. We’re working on drink development for that market. CO2 is kind of another area of replenishment. So look, I would say that we’re learning a lot. We’re tweaking as we go to try to figure out how to get the formula right and try to really figure out how do — we give consumers what they want and what they’re looking for.
And I think, as we go quarter-over-quarter, we’re going to continue to get much, much smarter about how we’re approaching that Thirsti business and how do we take those learnings and apply it to other potential consumable categories that we have in the pipeline.
Operator: Next question comes from the line of Brian McNamara with Canaccord Genuity. Your line is open.
