N. Thomas Linebarger
Analyst · Jerry Revich, Goldman Sachs
Thank you, Mark. Good morning, everyone. I will summarize our first quarter results and comment on the outlook for our key markets. Pat will then take you through more details of our first quarter financial performance and provide an update on our full year guidance. We delivered very strong results in the first quarter. Revenues were $4.5 billion, an increase of 16% over the first quarter of 2011. Three of our 4 businesses reported higher revenues than a year ago, with the Components business achieving record revenues. First quarter EBIT was $658 million, an increase of 24% over the same period last year, continuing our trend of growing earnings faster than sales. Both revenues and EBIT represent a new first quarter record. We delivered incremental EBIT margin of 21%, consistent with our plan to meet our long-term targets. EBIT percentage for the first quarter was 14.7% with the Engine and Components businesses delivering record EBIT percentage. The Distribution business delivered significant improvement in EBIT percentage from the fourth quarter levels, due to better mix and lower costs. EBIT percent in our Power Generation business also improved from the fourth quarter, despite a drop in revenues of $140 million. Based on the improvements we saw in the first quarter, we remain confident that EBIT margins for both the Distribution and Power Generation businesses will improve during the remainder of the year. We are maintaining our full year guidance for the company of revenue growth of 10% and EBIT margins of 14.5% to 15% of sales. In the first quarter, we saw mixed economic conditions across our markets. And although our guidance for the full year remains unchanged, our outlook has changed in some markets. Overall, demand for our products has increased in North America, in heavy, medium and light duty on-highway markets and in the construction market, offsetting weaker-than-expected demand in China. We now expect our domestic revenues in China across all end markets and including joint ventures to decline by 5% in 2012 compared to our previous guidance of no change year-over-year. In India, our forecast for revenue growth of 7%, including joint ventures, remains unchanged from our previous guidance. In Latin America, our revenue guidance is also unchanged with a weaker outlook for trucks in Brazil offset by stronger demand in our other businesses. Now let me discuss some of these markets in more detail. Revenues in North America were very strong, increasing 40% from a year ago. The Engine and Components businesses delivered strong growth in on-highway markets. We benefited from strong market share for our Engines in the North American heavy-duty truck market in the first quarter, with our share reaching 45% compared to 33% a year ago. We shipped to more than 20,000 15-liter engines to the North American market, setting an all-time record. Our total Engine shipments to this market, including our 12-liter engine, increased by 118% compared to the first quarter of 2011. Through close cooperation with our OEM partners and strong execution from our manufacturing and supply chain teams, we were able to quickly ramp up our production to meet strong demand for our products. We now expect our market share to reach 40% for the full year, the top end of the range of our previous guidance. And we are maintaining our forecast for the market size for heavy-duty trucks in 2012 at 278,000 units. In the North American medium-duty truck market, we also delivered very strong performance in the first quarter, with our market share increasing to 52% from 50% at the end of 2011. Our engine shipments to this market increased by 62% year-over-year. We are maintaining our full year market size projection of 117,000 units, and we expect our market share for the full year to be at least 50%. We continue to receive very positive feedback about the performance and reliability of our North American on-highway engines. We have now shipped 256,000 engines equipped with our SCR technology, and our customers are pleased with the fuel economy improvements that we have delivered. At the recent Mid-America Truck Show on Louisville, we announced that we will meet the 2014 efficiency and greenhouse gas regulations a year early. And we will deliver a further 2% improvement in fuel economy above current levels. Also in North America, demand for our light-duty engines from Chrysler increased by 27% this quarter, and we now expect full year volumes to increase by a full 30%. In North American off-highway market, the Engine business experienced strong growth in mining and construction engines with unit growth of 53% and 52%, respectively, versus the first quarter last year. The Power Generation business delivered 24% revenue growth year-over-year in North America against a relatively weak first quarter last year. Our international revenues declined by a little under 2% with growth in Australia, Mexico and Eastern Europe offset by softer near-term demand in China and Brazil. In China, our domestic revenues across all end markets, including the revenues of our joint ventures, declined by 16% compared to the first quarter of 2011. We experienced a decline in our shipments to the construction market, primarily engines for excavators as monetary tightening by the government impacted construction activity. We now expect the market for excavators to decline by 15% for the full year 2012 compared to our previous guidance that the market would be flat year-over-year. We expect to see improvement in demand later this year, with fourth quarter volumes expected to be the highest for the year as excavator manufacturers increase engine orders in order to complete production of excavators ahead of this peak spring selling season next year. The truck market in China started to soften in the third quarter of last year following a number of years of very strong growth. Fortunately, OEM and dealer inventory levels have dropped significantly over the last 4 quarters. As we start to see improvement in the Chinese economy in the second half of this year, we should see production volumes at our Dongfeng Cummins joint venture increase. For the full year, we now expect the truck market heavy- and medium-duty combined to decline by 10% compared to our previous forecast of down 5%. In the Power Generation market in China, our revenues including joint ventures increased 13% compared to the first quarter of 2011. We are maintaining our previous guidance that revenues will remain flat for the full year. As you will recall, we experienced very high demand in the second and third quarters of 2011 due to widespread power shortages in the country. We now expect domestic revenues in China, including joint ventures, to be down by 5% for the full year. In Brazil, our revenues across all businesses declined 18% year-over-year, driven by lower demand in the truck market. We planned for low first quarter production volumes in the on-highway market with the change in emission standards from Euro 3 to Euro 5, and with the engine transition occurring at MAN as we have previously discussed. Our shipments declined by 48% in the first quarter as OEMs continued to sell Euro 3 compliant trucks that were produced last year. We now expect industry production to decline by 19% for the full year. We did begin shipments to MAN in Brazil of our new Euro 5 compliant 9-liter and 3.8-liter engines and SCR Systems in the first quarter. I recently visited our operations in Brazil to see our progress in ramping up production, and I'm excited about the prospects for these new products, as well as our aftertreatment systems. I look forward to updating you as sales of our Euro 5 products increase in future quarters. Our Power Generation business delivered 37% revenue growth in the first quarter in Brazil and we expect strong demand to continue, driven by instability in the grid and ongoing investment in infrastructure. The economy in Brazil softened a little in the second half of 2011, but we are encouraged by the recent interest rate cut by the Brazilian Central Bank. In the rest of Latin America, we continue to see strong demand for trucks and mining equipment. Our total revenues in Latin America, including Brazil, are expected to reach $1.7 billion this year, a decrease of 6%, in line with our previous guidance as increases in Power Generation and Components revenues are projected to partially offset the lower truck demand in Brazil. In India, our revenues, including our joint ventures, were flat year-over-year. First quarter revenues for our Power Generation business were 4% lower. We have seen an improvement in order intake recently in our Power Generation business following a period of weaker demand in the second half of 2011. Power shortages in the south of the country are driving increased demand for our products. During our previous earnings call, we projected that our Power Generation revenues would increase by 10% for the full year 2012, and we remain confident in that guidance. Our unit shipments are expected to increase by more than 10%, but the depreciation of rupee will result in 10% revenue dollar growth in U.S. dollar terms, based on the current forecast and the exchange rate. Truck engine shipments at our Tata Cummins joint venture were strong in the first quarter, up 9% year-over-year, though it is clear that we will have some softening in the Indian truck markets for the next several quarters. In total, including joint ventures, our revenues in India are expected to grow 7% in 2012, unchanged from our previous guidance. Despite softness in some of our key emerging markets, we remain confident that the prospects for growth in Brazil, India and China -- and we continue to invest in the products, distribution footprint and infrastructure that will support that future growth. We do expect our revenues in China, India and Brazil to be higher in the second half of this year than the first. In Europe, our forecast is largely unchanged from prior guidance although we continue to closely monitor our markets there. We project that total revenues in Europe will decline by 5% for the full year. In the first quarter, total company revenues actually increased 7% year-over-year but against a very weak comparison. We have seen some modest downward revisions to OEM forecast for on-highway markets. Construction volumes declined sharply from the fourth quarter of 2011 as expected, due to the pre-buy in 2011 ahead of Tier 4 emissions change. Our Power Generation business got off to slow start in Africa and the Middle East, with first quarter company revenues down a combined 9%. However, we are confident that our revenues will increase in these markets as the year progresses. As I've just described, we have experienced a mixed picture across our market in the first quarter. I'm very pleased that the company has been able to adjust to shifting demand patterns across geographies and end markets, and still deliver very strong performance. I'm particularly pleased with the progress we have made in expanding gross margins through efficiency gains, cost reduction work and improved quality. Improvements in gross margins are critical to both fund our investment in future growth and expand our EBIT margins. As an example of our investment in new growth opportunities, we recently announced that we have begun development of a new 15-liter spark-ignited natural gas engine for the North American truck market. We are excited about this program, and we've already received very strong interest from end users and OEMs in this new Cummins 15-liter product. That concludes my comments, now let me turn it over to Pat.