Stryker Corporation (NYSE:SYK) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Glenn Boehnlein: Yeah. And that’s not a new commentary. So the last four months, I think, our commentary has been very consistent on capital. Our hospitals having challenges with their P&L and in some cases, sure, it’s not yet — we are not seeing it in orders. We are not seeing any cancellation of orders. Are some projects being delayed here and there? Sure. But it really is not having any kind of material impact on our outlook for capital. Again, a lot of our capital is revenue-producing type of capital. So you wouldn’t expect any kind of slowdown. But even the large capital area, if I look at our communications business within Endoscopy, had a fantastic year, helped drive some of the Endoscopy growth and they have a terrific order book going into next year and that’s large capital that sometimes in prior recessionary cycles have been deferred. So we just aren’t seeing it yet. So that gives us optimism to kind of lean in on the growth for at least for 2023.

Pito Chickering: Great. Thanks so much.

Operator: The next question comes from Steven Lichtman with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

Steven Lichtman: Okay. Great. Just on growth in the quarter, one of the factors you pointed to, Kevin, was procedural volume recovery. One of the factors discussed, obviously, throughout 2022 on in terms of capturing those procedures was hospital staffing. Are you starting to see an easing of that factor, any color you are seeing in terms of that here in the U.S. would be helpful?

Kevin Lobo: Yeah. Look, there are flashpoints where you do see staffing as a challenge, but the hospital systems are getting better at dealing with it. And we saw through from September through to the end of the year, kind of a nice building of procedure and a steady kind of high volume. The demand is clearly there. There’s no question that there’s some pent-up demand and surgeons are booked out for a good three months, four months in general. And so we are seeing, I would call it, a nice, steady kind of improving trend and I think we will see a moderate tailwind throughout the rest of this year. These flashpoints tend to be very short and even in some of the — if you look in Europe and some of the areas that had strikes and real causes for worry, they have kind of come and gone pretty quickly. And so we are feeling good about the outlook on a procedure standpoint and expect this to be a tailwind throughout the year.

Steven Lichtman: Got it. Great. And then, Glenn, just real quickly, I know you don’t want to provide specific margin guidance. But relative to inflation, did you call out or could you talk about what the impact was to gross margin in 2022 from inflationary headwinds and generally either directionally or specifically what you are looking for in 2023 on that front?

Glenn Boehnlein: Yeah. I think as you think about inflation, obviously, we felt the impact of the inflation numbers in the — that were in Q3, especially that were very large. A moderation of that, I would say, occurred in Q4. But keep in mind, to the extent that we purchased raw materials or made inventory, those inflated raw material prices, that’s capitalized in our inventory. The other place that we will feel inflation and that it carries over to in this year is really going to be labor costs that went up that are baked in now solidly for the year. We are still experiencing a pretty high inflation in our freight and transportation costs. Energy costs, especially in Europe, now have inflation baked into them, we will feel it there.

I think what we are thinking, though, is we are not — as we look at 2023, that we are not thinking that inflation will continue to be at the levels that it was showing in 2022. So we are feeling that, that will moderate and that’s what’s included in our guidance.

Steven Lichtman: Sure. Understood. Thanks, guys.

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