United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Carol Tome : And agility really is the name of the game, isn’t it. Here it is. It’s the end of January. I would say our crystal ball is pretty murky, but I can tell you what we’re seeing in the business today. The U.S. is actually doing a bit better than the base case. And International is doing a bit worse because we’re in a now a two-week Lunar New Year holidays, who would have thought. But with herd immunity coming, we believe in China, things should get better outside the United States.

Ken Hoexter : And just to clarify, that 11.3. I think, Carol, you had mentioned that you were targeting maybe less than 11% on Amazon for ’22. So it sounds like maybe it’s not drifting away as fast as an accelerating decline.

Carol Tome : No, Ken, it’s really is a function of currency. FX impacted our top line by $1.3 billion. So having not had the pressure on the top line, the percentage would have been different. Does that make sense?

Ken Hoexter : Yeah. Absolutely. Of course. Thanks for the clarification.

Carol Tome : Yeah, thanks, Ken.

Brian Newman : Thanks Ken.

Ken Cook : And just a reminder, please limit yourself to one question, so that we can get through as many participants as possible.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Scott Group of Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Scott Group : Hey, thanks. Good morning, guys. So I just want to make sure I’m understanding the guidance piece this year. So I think you said in the base case, Brian, the U.S. margin is 12%. And can you talk about where you see it in the downside scenario? And then you talked about more than half of the operating profit in the second half of the year. I mean it’s typically somewhere between 50% and 55%. Should we think anything differently? I don’t know if you want to give us a little bit more color on first half or second half profit margins and any color there? Thank you.

Brian Newman : Yeah, Scott. Good to hear from you. So I’ll start with the latter question first. We expect about 56% of our profit to come in the second half of the year relative to 1H. And then I would also just give you a little bit of color. There will be a similar bathtub effect in the first half between 1Q and 2Q stepping up in 2Q. From a domestic guide perspective, the other half of your question, Nando and the team are focused on 12%. That was actually the same number that we had guided to back in our Investor Day, and I’d say the world has changed a little bit since then, but we’re getting after the 12% margin in 2023. The low end is based on 11%. And so there are a number of things that are factored in there. The biggest change would be a change in the top-line relative to volume. If the macro doesn’t come back as quickly as we think it might. There’s labor negotiations going on. So we thought it was prudent to put a floor in.

Scott Group : Thank you, guys.

Brian Newman : Thanks.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Todd Fowler of KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Todd Fowler : Hey, great. Thanks and good morning. And thanks again for the detail. I wanted to ask on the expectations for revenue per piece in U.S. Domestic. If I kind of — Brian you teased out kind of the comments, you’ve got revenue in the base case up low single digits, volume down slightly. So revenue per piece maybe low to mid-single digits, a bit of a deceleration from where you’ve been over the last two years. You’ve obviously done a good job of moving that up. But can you talk about the ability to see continued improvement in revenue per piece as you move through ’23, how much of that’s base pricing and mix and then the opportunity longer term? Thanks.