Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the BRP Inc. FY 2021 fourth quarter conference call. I would like to now turn the meeting over to Monsieur Philippe Deschênes. Please go ahead, Monsieur Deschênes.
Thank you. Good morning. Welcome to BRP's conference call for the fourth quarter and year-end results for fiscal 2021. Joining me this morning are José Boisjoli, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Sébastien Martel, Chief Financial Officer. Before we move to the prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone that certain forward-looking statements will be made during the call and that the results could differ from those implied in these statements. Please note that the forward-looking information is based on certain assumptions and it is subject to risks and uncertainties. I invite you to consult BRP's MD&A for a listing of these. During the call, reference will be made to supporting slides. You can find the presentation on our website at brp.com under the investor relations section. With that, I'll turn the call over to José.
Thank you, Philippe. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Fiscal year 2021 has been a very unusual year, as we went through a period of temporary production shutdowns, followed by a surge of consumer demand for our product, which continues to this day. While this dynamic put pressure on our people, our suppliers, and our dealers, everyone rose to the occasion to make the most of this opportunity while ensuring the health and safety of our team everywhere around the world. I would like to thank them for their hard work and dedication throughout this period, which allow us to deliver outstanding results with exceptional retail sales growth and a record normalized EPS. Let's turn to slide four for a more detailed look at key highlights for fiscal year 2021.
During the year, we proactively managed the impact from the pandemic by protecting our employees and preserving our financial flexibility. We reduced our cost base, refocused our CapEx plan, and enhanced our liquidity position. We also delivered exceptional retail growth across all our product lines by supporting our dealer network through a surge of customer demand, as well as attracted and nurtured an unprecedented level of new entrants to the industry. Operationally speaking, we successfully executed a rapid production ramp-up after the temporary shutdown of our site and managed our volatile supply chain tightly to limit disruption and deliver on our plan. We can't forget the wind-down of the Evinrude outboard engine product to refocus our time and investment on our boat brands. In parallel, we continue to invest in our future growth.
We broke ground on the construction of a new side-by-side manufacturing facility in Mexico, introduced multiple models across all our product lines, and invested a record amount in R&D. All in all, we've delivered an exceptional year despite the turbulence caused by the pandemic and prepared the company for the future. Let's turn to slide five to review the financial highlights of the year. Our revenue for the full year was down 2%, primarily due to the temporary suspension of our operation earlier this year and the wind-down of the Evinrude outboard engine production. Despite this top-line pressure, we managed to grow our normalized EBITDA by 24% to end the year at CAD 1 billion and our diluted normalized earnings per share to an impressive 41% to reach CAD 5.39 above our guidance range.
We were able to achieve this record result due to our team's agility to quickly implement initiatives to mitigate the impact of the pandemic, while at the same time taking advantage of the surge in consumer demand. Turning to exceptional retail performance for the year on slide six. We started the year with a strong retail momentum growing at a pace of about 15%, which was accelerated by the onset of COVID-related restriction. We experienced a surge in demand as many consumers turned to our product, including a higher than normal influx of new entrants to the industry. Interestingly, the level of new entrant increased to over 30% this year compared to the normal 20% we typically experience. All of this led to a 25% year-over-year growth for our powersport product retail in North America.
What is even more impressive is that all our product line experienced the same dynamic at varying degrees. Excluding personal watercraft, which was the most affected impact by the production shutdown, our powersport product generated 30% increase in retail. Turning now to the fourth quarter on slide seven. As you can observe, demand remained very strong in Q4 as we outpaced industry growth in most markets. Powersport retail growth accelerated in North America, with retail up 30%. Demand for snowmobile was extremely strong. In fact, we started to run out of inventory in certain region in January, which affected our overall retail. Excluding snowmobile, our retail is up 41%. Retail was also strong in international markets as product availability improved, delivering retail growth of 9% in Latin America, 11% in EMEA, and 20% in Asia Pacific.
Turning now to slide eight for a deeper dive into North American retail by product line, which represent over 70% of our consolidated revenues. Again, this quarter, we've delivered solid growth across the powersports product portfolio. Side-by-sides and ATVs both experienced strong consumer demand with retail up in the mid-30% and 40% respectively. 3-wheel vehicle and personal watercraft are both off to a strong start of this season, with retail up in the high-30% and 90% respectively. We are having a very good snowmobile season, posting a second consecutive quarter of over 20% retail growth despite product availability affecting our growth at the tail end of the quarter. We are very pleased with the strength of our lineups, which continue to drive strong consumer demand. Turning to slide nine for an update of our inventory and production capacity.
As you can observe, our dealer network inventory is down 67% compared to the same period last year. In order to improve product availability and reach our long-term market share objective, we are ramping up production and investing in additional capacity. Recall that we are in the process of building a third side-by-side facility in Juárez, which expected to provide us with an additional 50% of capacity. The project is progressing as planned, the production ramp-up is scheduled by the end of third quarter. We are also moving forward with investment in our Querétaro facility for another assembly line, providing us with an additional 30% capacity for personal watercraft, as well as for Project M motorized hull. The Project M motorized hull will be assembled in Querétaro, the final assembly of the pontoon will be done at our Sturtevant facility in the U.S.
Both projects are progressing as planned. The production ramp-up is expected to start in the fourth quarter. These capacity expansion initiatives will allow us to grow and seize market share opportunities, supporting the achievement of our growth objectives. Let's turn to slide 10 for the year-round product. Revenue were up 8%, driven by a richer product mix in side-by-side and lower sales program, partially offset by a lower volume of three-wheel vehicle. We shifted some of the production of three-wheel vehicle into fiscal year 2022, so that we could extend the production schedule for snowmobile to seize the strong demand opportunity this winter. Recall that we're producing the Spyder F3 and RT and the Ski-Doo snowmobile on the same assembly line in Valcourt. On the retail side, seven months into the season 2021, the North American side-by-side industry is up in the high 20%.
Can-Am side-by-side is gaining share season to date, especially in the utility segment, with retail up in the low 30%. We also perform well in international market as the inventory availability improve, with retail being up about 40% in EMEA and in the high 20% in Asia Pacific. For side-by-side, we recently introduced an all-new Commander platform for model year 2021. The product was well received by both the media and our dealer network. This should allow us to resume market share gain in the Rec-Ute segment, a category in which we had been losing ground in recent years due to our aging offering. Turning to ATV. The North American industry is also seven months into its season 2021, retail is up in the high 20%.
Can-Am is gaining share season to date, especially in the mid-cc segment, with retail up in the low 30% over the same period. We are very happy with the momentum we are seeing in the ATV business. Now looking at three-wheel vehicles. Very early in the season, the North American three-wheel industry retail is up in the low teens%, while Can-Am three-wheel vehicle retail is up in the high 30%. We are ready for another good season with a very solid go-to-market plan. We continue to drive solid momentum with the media. The product continue to attract a diversified consumer base, notably experiencing incredible momentum with women. We are focusing on inclusion and education to attract more women to the sport. I encourage you to go to our website and watch our new Women of On-Road video, which was launched a few weeks ago.
I am very proud of this initiative. Finally, the Rider Education Program registration continued to trend above expectation. We have a very good plan for a successful season 2021. Turning to seasonal product on slide 11. Seasonal product revenue were up 24%, resulting from higher shipment of both snowmobile and personal watercraft, as well as from lower sales program due to a strong retail environment. Now looking at retail. 10 months into its season 2021, the North American snowmobile industry is up in the high teen %. Our Ski-Doo lineup continued to outpace the industry with retail growth that is up in the low 20% over the same period. As a result, our market share continued to grow, reaching a new record level. Looking at the international market, our Ski-Doo and Lynx lineup are performing very well in Russia, outpacing the industry, with retail up in the high 20%.
In Scandinavia, the industry is down mid-single digits due to the late arrival of snow, but retail accelerated in February and we are outpacing the industry. We recently held our virtual product introduction event where we introduced our model year 22 Ski-Doo and Lynx lineups. One of the key highlights of this product announcement was the introduction of Lynx, the first new snowmobile brand to the North American market in decades, bringing an exclusive new alternative for snowmobile riders with three high-end Lynx models. These premium models provide a different riding experience and should attract a new type of rider to BRP. They will only be available as pre-sold orders in spring and will be offered as a premium brand. As a reminder, in Scandinavia, we have over 60% market share with our combined Ski-Doo and Lynx product lines.
The Lynx introduction is a new growth opportunity for us and marks an exciting new chapter in snowmobiling history, with a fifth brand now available in North America. We also strengthened our Ski-Doo lineup with the introduction of the Smart-Shox technology, as we have done with the Trixx last year. The addition of two new turbo engine options and the return of the Mach Z muscle sled for this year only. With these additions, we believe that our lineup is very well positioned to have a successful season 2022. Turning to personal watercraft. While still very early in the season, the North American industry retail is up in the low 70%. Sea-Doo retail is up mid-50%, slightly lagging industry growth since we ended last season with record low level of inventory in the network. As we improve our product availability, we started to outpace the industry in Q4.
The trend is also very good in counter-seasonal markets, with retail up mid-20% in Australia and New Zealand and up over 30% in Brazil. Current trends are very strong, and on top, we have unprecedented level of customer preseason certificates. In fact, as of today, over 50% of Sea-Doos are already pre-sold to consumers in North America. Continuing on slide 12 with a look at Powersport parts, accessories, and apparel in OEM engine, which experienced a similar trend as vehicles. Revenue was up 19%, driven by a higher volume of PA&A coming from a higher replacement parts revenue due to increased usage of products and strong unit retail that generated a lot of accessories sales. The focus on our linked ecosystem is paying off. Now looking at Marine. Revenue was down 17%, impacted by the wind-down of the Evinrude outboard engine.
At the retail level, Telwater is in the core of its retail season in Australia and is performing very well with retail up over 20% for the quarter. In North America, we are off-season, but our booking for the season 2021 is completed, and we'll be running at maximum production capacity until the end of July. We are pleased with the performance of our boat brand and the progress we are making on our strategy to transform the marine industry. The wind-down of Evinrude is now completed, and we are focusing on our boat brand with accelerated investment in new technology and innovative products as well as Project M and Project Ghost. With that, I will turn the call over to Sébastien.
Thank you, José, and good morning, everyone. We completed fiscal year 2021 with record results for our fourth quarter as we delivered on our production plan and continued benefiting from a lower sales program environment and a richer product mix driven by the very strong consumer demand for our products. Our revenues reached a record level for our fourth quarter at CAD 1.8 billion, up 12%. Our normalized gross profit margin ended at 27.8%, representing a 410 basis point increase, driven by higher volume and richer mix of products sold and a favorable impact from pricing and sales programs, which were partly offset by unfavorable foreign exchange rate variations. Driven by this strong improvement in our normalized gross profit, our normalized EBITDA ended the quarter up 41% to reach CAD 313 million, and our normalized diluted EPS was up 63% to CAD 1.82.
This resulted in a very strong free cash flow generation of CAD 198 million for the quarter, bringing the total to CAD 674 million for the year. Also, just after the end of the year, we took advantage of our solid liquidity position with CAD 1.3 billion of cash to deleverage our balance sheet by CAD 300 million and significantly reduce the overall interest rate on our debt, leaving us with a much lower interest expense and a very robust balance sheet that provides us with the flexibility to sustain our investments in the business, all the while continuing to return capital to our shareholders. Turning to slide 15 for a look at the key drivers of our normalized gross profit margin improvement for the year.
Our normalized gross profit margin was up 190 basis points for the year to reach 25.9%, driven by a positive impact from volume mix pricing and sales programs for 440 basis points, which was partly offset by negative impacts from production costs and depreciation expense for 130 basis points, unfavorable fixed cost absorption due to the temporary plant closure earlier this year for 50 basis points, and unfavorable foreign exchange rate variation for 70 basis points. Looking ahead, our normalized gross profit margin should be mostly flattish in fiscal 2022, as we expect the positive impact from lapping the two months of plant closure to be mostly offset by inflationary pressures related to commodity pricing and logistics. Moving to slide 16 for a look at our network inventory position.
Despite that we had increased our facilities output and delivered on our production plan in the fourth quarter, the consumer demand for our products continued to outpace the supply we had. We ended the year with both our network and our yard inventory at low levels, down 67% and 38% respectively. This dynamic is experienced across the product portfolio. We are taking necessary actions to manage the growth in all of our product lines. For personal watercraft, boats, and 3-wheel, our factories are running at full capacity. We are on plan to meet dealer orders in time for the peak retail season. For off-road vehicles, we ramped up the production rate. We are optimizing our product mix. We have additional production capacity coming online in the third quarter.
As for snowmobile, we expect to end the season with a low level of inventory in the network, we are well-positioned to restock our dealers in time for the next season. While our inventory remains below optimal levels at the moment, we are taking necessary actions to manage the growth in our business and meet the strong demand for our products. We believe we are well-positioned to make the most of the opportunity that lies ahead of us. Now on to the guidance starting on slide 17. Given the sustained strong retail demand for our products and the inventory restocking cycle we have in front of us, fiscal 2022 is poised to be a very strong year for BRP.
We expect to see robust revenue growth across our powersports products, driven by the continued strong consumer interest for powersports products, a solid year of new product introductions, and increased production volumes supported by our plants running at full capacity throughout the year and by additional capacity coming online in the latter part of the year. In terms of profitability, we expect another year of very strong EBITDA margin driven by the positive impact coming from volume growth, the full-year benefit of winding down the production of Evinrude outboard engines, and as we get better leverage effect on operations, notably as we lap a year where we suffered from inefficiencies due to the two months of production shutdown. As indicated, the guidance assumes that we will be able to run our plants throughout the year without shutdowns like we experienced last year.
However, like all companies in our industry, we are dealing with supply chain challenges that need constant monitoring and attention in order to keep our plants running. Commodity costs have also increased coming from the surge in the worldwide demand. Both these factors are increasing our operating costs, and we have assumed in our guidance that we will be operating in this environment for most of the year. We also expect, as all OEMs ramp up their production, we may see an increase in the level of promotional activity in the back half of the year. Given the more uncertain and unpredictable nature of these elements, we have provided guidance ranges for normalized EBITDA and normalized EPS that are wider than usual for this time of year.
Given our investments in additional production capacity and as we are catching up on certain projects we had deprioritized from last year, fiscal 2022 is expected to be a big year in terms of CapEx investment. Let's go through the numbers on slide 18. As I mentioned, we expect very solid growth across all our product lines, with total company revenue guidance up 25%-30%. While our guidance calls for solid top-line growth, we expect that consumer demand will continue to outpace the supply of our products for the better part of the year, despite running our factories at full capacity, which means that we will only plan to start rebuilding our dealer network inventory later in the year and throughout fiscal 2023.
Turning to the profitability, for the reasons discussed previously, we are starting the year with a wider than usual EBITDA guidance range with a growth of 22%-30% for the year. We are assuming a depreciation expense of CAD 280 million, an interest expense of CAD 75 million resulting from the refinancing of our debt done earlier in February, and using a share count of 87 million shares, which accounts for the shares repurchased under our NCIB so far. Our guidance calls for normalized EPS growth of 35%-48%, resulting in a range of CAD 7.25-CAD 8. In terms of capital allocation, as I mentioned, fiscal 2022 will be a big year in terms of CapEx, as we are planning for investments between CAD 575 million and CAD 600 million for next year. Even with this important level of investment, we expect to generate positive free cash flow for the year.
With our strong balance sheet, we are well-positioned to continue returning capital to our shareholders, notably as we announce the increase of our quarterly dividend by 18% to CAD 0.13. Finally, as you already realize, our plan calls for the potential achievement of our M25 EPS financial objective this year. While the current situation definitely accelerated our volume growth, we still have many key strategic initiatives to deliver on our long-term plan, such as the marine strategy, our cost-saving initiatives, the electrification of our lineup, and a strong pipeline of product introductions that are expected to drive continued market share gains, notably for side-by-side. On top of these initiatives, last year provided us with many key learnings and new opportunities, such as an influx of new entrants that will benefit our business going forward.
While we may achieve our initial financial objectives this year, we remain focused on delivering on our key strategic initiatives, and we are confident that with our plan and the opportunities we have in front of us, that we are well positioned to continue delivering solid growth in the years to come. We look forward to updating you on our long-term financial targets at a later date when the global situation is more predictable. With this, I will turn the call back to José.
Thank you, Sébastien. Before I conclude, I would like to briefly discuss the announcement we made this morning regarding electric vehicles. We have always said electrification was not a question of if, but when. Today, we are very excited to unveil more detail of our plan of delivering market-shifting product that will enhance the consumer experience by offering new electric options for our products. This announcement builds on previous investment we already made in this space over the years. For instance, recall that we introduced electric kart for racing in 2017 and for our Rotax MAX Dome facility in 2019. More specifically, we are developing our own Rotax modular electric powertrain technology, which can be leveraged across our product line and provide us with a more cost-effective solution, just like we do for our combustion engine
There will be two poles of development, one in Austria focusing on the torque side, the inverter, and the high-performance electric motors, and another in Valcourt, which will focus on the energy side, the charger, the battery pack, as well as the complete integration into the vehicle. As a result, we will be adding many resources to our team in Austria and in Canada. We intend to invest CAD 300 million over the next five years to electrify our existing product line by the end of calendar 2026. In fact, you can expect the first product to be introduced to the market within the next two years, followed by a rapid rollout across all our product lines. With the engineering knowhow and innovation capabilities of our team, we've been working hard to define the best strategy for our electric power technology.
While our current product portfolio is very strong and exciting, our objective is to expand our offering with electric option for each product line to attract new customers to continue to grow the industry. To conclude, we had an exceptional fiscal year 2021 with record results. We were fortunate to be able to take advantage of an unexpected surge in consumer demand. We are sustaining this momentum in fiscal year 2022 as we are off to a very strong start, seeing continued strong retail demand across all our product lines. Our recent snowmobile and side-by-side product launches generated a lot of excitement with dealers and consumer alike. Our summer product season looks very promising with the continuing trend of first-time buyers and staycation. We are committed to ensuring that these new entrants are converted into lifelong customers once they have experienced our vehicles and boats.
While the health and safety of our people remain a priority, we are focused on managing the supply chain tightly, keeping our operation running, and ensuring the smooth production ramp-up of Juarez 3 and Querétaro. In fiscal year 2022, we will be focusing on several important investments that will drive growth in fiscal year 2023 and beyond. We are working on electrifying all our product lines by the end of 2026 and are accelerating our investment in R&D. We are planning for a strong year of product introduction and building a third side-by-side facility in Juárez. We are also investing in our boat brand as part of our marine strategy with Project M and Project Ghost. With our solid start of the year, combined with these key investments, we are well positioned to drive solid results in fiscal year 2022 and are confident that we will deliver on our guidance.
The guidance has a wider range than usual, with normalized EPS between CAD 7.25 and CAD 8 as the market and the dependability of the supply chain remain uncertain. As mentioned by Sébastien, with this guidance, we are in line to meet the financial target of M25 earlier than anticipated. While our strategy remains largely intact, we intend to give you an update at a later date. I would like to express my gratitude to our employees, suppliers, and dealers for their agility, dedication, and resilience during this past year, which helped drive our exceptional results. On that note, I turn the call over to the operator for questions.
Your first question comes to the line of Craig Kennison from Baird. Your line is now open.
Good morning. Congratulations on the performance. Excellent work. I had a question on the longer-term, I guess, plan for infrastructure around electric vehicle charging. Obviously, these are not products that are on roads, so you're going to have to invent the infrastructure as well. Are you going to rely on homeowners or ranchers, or is there a plan in place to ensure, I guess, charging infrastructure?
Yeah. Good morning, Craig. No, there is no immediate plan for the infrastructure. Obviously, like you just said, the usage of our product is mainly off-road. It's very difficult to develop that infrastructure everywhere in the world. That being said, you will be able to charge the product at home. You will be able to charge the product in any car charging station. The plan for the charging station off-road is not finalized at this point.
Got it. Maybe you're not prepared to comment on this, but I think you alluded to some modular construction to your battery packs. That would suggest maybe you could buy a multiplicity of these packs and then charge them as you're operating the vehicle and then replace a dead battery with a charged one. Is that the right mindset?
No. I think the way you should see it is, I'll give you an example. I think we are good to design product with a modular approach, and I gave you the example. The 900 ACE engine , we are able to use it on snowmobile, on watercraft, on 3-wheel, and on side-by-side. It's a basic same engine with three different application, different transmission system, and that's what we need when we talk about modular approach. We're designing a few module of different component that you can combine them differently to be applied to all product line. I will conclude on this. The EV challenge is to balance the range, the weight, and the cost.
You can have longer range, but it will affect the weight and the cost, then we need to find the right balance that is acceptable for the customers and to be able to have a great customer experience.
Awesome. Thank you so much. I'll get back in the queue.
Thank you.
Your next question comes to the line of Brian Morrison from TD Securities. Your line is now open.
Good morning. I understand that you can make up some of the capacity in the second half of the year as the new facilities come online. I'm a little bit more curious on the existing facilities right now. On slide nine, you talk about the ramping capacity. I'm wondering, can you give us comfort how you can optimize your current facilities to keep up with the retail demand in the first half of the year until you get additional capacity coming on in the back half?
Good morning, Brian. As of now, we are running our plants at full capacity, and we do expect that we'll be able to meet retail demand, especially for the seasonal products, so personal watercraft, 3-wheel. We are well positioned in the boats as well. That's obviously positive. We are running at full capacity our ORV plants, because obviously demand continues to be strong, even better than expected in February and early March. That being said, we'll still be unable to build network inventory in the first half of the year. We believe that we will meet demand, and that's it. It's more going to happen in the second half of the year and more as well, as I said in my prepared remarks, in fiscal year 2023. It's still going to be tight in terms of offering.
Consumers will not necessarily have the full choice that they used to have two or three years ago.
Were side-by-sides, were they constrained in Q4 by available capacity?
Yes. Inventory is very lean, and yes, we're still constrained.
Thank you. Last question, just in terms of leverage, you're well below your ceiling, Seb, and I'm wondering if you would consider potential accelerated return to shareholders such as you've done before.
Yeah. Well, obviously, you probably saw we were active with the NCIB in the end of fourth quarter, and we continue to be. The share count reflects that. Obviously, these are discussions we are having with the board. We do have ample financial flexibility, so all the options are open for now.
Thank you very much.
Your next question comes from the line of Robin Farley from UBS. Your line is now open.
Great. Thanks. I know you talked about your shipments that you would probably only be able to meet demand in the first half. Can you give us a sense of the cadence? I guess I'd like to sort of try to be able to back into kind of what retail growth rate your planned shipments could support in the first half.
Yeah. Well, maybe if I give you my, or let's say, some expectation on how I see retail progressing, let's say, going forward. Q1, again, is off to a good start. We believe that retail is going to be up probably high single digits in the first quarter. We are lapping, obviously, a strong quarter in Q2. Retail was up 40%. You might remember that our plants were closed during for Q1 and part of Q2 as well. Therefore, that retail growth came from inventory replenishment, which is a lever we don't have this year. My expectation is that retail will be down in the second quarter, maybe high single digit to low teens.
As the year progresses, we expect probably retail to be flattish to low single digit again, depending on the quarter. As I said, we don't have that big lever that we had in fiscal year 2021 to drive retail.
Okay. No, great. That's helpful. I'm also curious, your guidance assumes that promotional activity comes back in the second half, and yet everybody seems to be fairly supply constrained. I don't know if you're just being conservative there, but I don't know if I missed, if you said in your opening remarks what ASP was in Q4 and for the full year, just so we can think about what we're comping there without having a lot of promotional activity.
Yeah. When I look at fiscal year 2021 and the impact of the favorable promotional environment, it brought about 200 basis points of a favorable lift to the margin. Q1 was a tough quarter, where we were more intense in terms of promotional activity. Our expectation is that for next year, that 200 basis points should be there. Continue to be favorable in Q1, Q2, and probably a bit more, we'll call it more conservative in our planning for Q3, Q4, which brings it to about 200 basis points for the full year.
Okay, great. Just my last quick one. Can you get to the top end of your range with current supply chain, the rate at which you're getting, or would the top end of your range need the supply chain to improve?
No, the guidance has a wide range because of the supply chain. We believe the demand will be there this year. Obviously, like everywhere in the world, I think right now there is a challenge on a daily basis. If we are able to not interrupt the production, we could be on the high range of the supply chain. The range, sorry. If obviously there is more interruption than we're planning, we could be on the low range of the guidance. That's the way to see it.
Okay. All right, great. Thank you very much.
Your next question comes in line of Benoit Poirier from Desjardins. Your line is now open.
Good morning, gentlemen, and congratulations for the strong finish. Could you talk a little bit about the contribution of key strategic initiatives that will be impacting your revenue going forward? Especially referring to the Project M and Project Ghost in terms of what we could expect, beyond FY 2022 in terms of revenue contribution from key strategic initiatives.
Yeah, good morning, Benoit. Maybe the way to position it is, we believe that in fiscal year 2022, the demand will remain strong until the end of the year. The question is to manage the supply chain, and this is why we have a wide range in our guidance. If I look at fiscal year 2023 and beyond, obviously we're investing. Juarez 3 will be up and running on the back end of Q3, then it will be in ramp-up in Q4 and will be fully operational next year. Project M will start delivery late in Q4, then big impact will be in fiscal year 2023. We're also adding additional capacity for watercraft in Querétaro, 30% that will come fiscal year 2023. All those key strategic initiatives will benefit more 2023 than 2022. Basically, we're quite optimistic about the demand for 2022.
2023, it's too early to call obviously, but 2023, we're preparing to be ready if the demand remains.
That's great color, José. How should we be thinking about the contribution specific to Project M and Project Ghost, in the long term from a revenue standpoint?
Well, obviously it's part of our pillar from M25, which we shared with everyone now 18 months ago. Obviously, we have strong ambitions for the Marine business. It is a big industry, over CAD 20 billion, we believe that we have the ability of getting a big share of that. Project M, you saw some bits of it. It's about creating an entry-level product that brings value to consumer and leveraging the knowhow that we have. We believe that could be a good driver of growth for us. Obviously with our innovation abilities on Project Ghost and with our Marine brands, again, who knows where we can bring it, again, our plan for Marine is quite ambitious, as you saw when we presented the Mission 25.
That's perfect. My last question with respect to electrification, you provided great details about the strategy going forward. I would be curious to have more color about the assembly line, whether you need a separate assembly line, whether there will be some cannibalization or the revenue would be incremental to your current product line, and whether it would be margin accretive or dilutive at the beginning, and how you see the overall margin impact from electrification.
That's a loaded question, Benoit. No, I mean, the plan is to assemble the product in the same line than where we're assembling combustion engine. A combustion engine vehicle. Every line will be upgraded, I would say, to assemble the new electric vehicle. This is one. The other thing is the whole strategy about the electrification is to attract a new set of customers. I'll give you some example. A person that use an ATV to go hunting for a week will not be attracted to an electric ATV because there is no charging station where he goes in the woods.
We want to create, in each product line, a new product category that will appeal to some of our existing customer, but also to new customers, because there is an appeal riding electric vehicle, and we believe we will be able to grow the industry in a different way. The other thing, the last thing I would say about cannibalization, my philosophy on this, I prefer to cannibalize ourself than let someone else cannibalize us. That's why for us, going electric, it's a normal evolution in the technology.
Thanks very much for the color and congrats again.
Thank you.
Your next question comes to the line of Mark Petrie from CIBC. Your line is now open.
Yeah, good morning, and I'll echo the congrats from others. I just want to come back to the dynamic of new to industry. Wondering if you could just provide some more context about how that evolved through the year, and more detail about how that varied by product.
Good morning, Mark. Like I said in my remark, we ended the year with about 30% of buyer, of people who purchased our unit that are new to the industry, versus about 20% in the past. If I look product line by product line, snowmobile typically has a very, very low ratio of new entrant, and this year was three times, but it is still high single digit. Watercraft, this year, half of the people who purchased our product were new entrant. Three-wheel, two-third were new entrant, for off-road, we were about 20%, 25% new entrant. What is amazing, we have done a detailed survey in the last few weeks, if you survey customer, those new entrant right now, 90% say that they want to stay in the industry for long term. This is quite amazing ratio.
The other thing that is interesting, and I believe we are well-positioned because of our experience on Spark and Ryker, we are well-positioned to talk to those new entrant and keep them in the powersports industry. We improve the quality of the shopping experience. We launch specific initiative like Rider Education Program, the Women's Mentoring Program, the Uncharted Society. We have a lot of digital tool to talk to those people. I believe we are extremely well-positioned to make them lifetime consumer, but more to come. We are ready to do the best to convert as many as we can.
Okay, great. That's helpful. Also, just wanted to ask about your expectations for OpEx through the course of fiscal 2022. Obviously, there's lots of noise in fiscal 2021. You talked about wanting to invest specifically in the initiatives around electric vehicles. Could you just give us a sense of sort of how to think about fiscal 2022, I guess specifically on selling and marketing and G&A?
Yeah. Good morning, Mark. If you look at our Q4 results, our OpEx was up about 13% versus a year ago. We expect that trend to continue in terms of absolute increase next year. OpEx should increase at the same level as revenue growth. As you mentioned, last year was a funny year with a lot of noise, but obviously, we have a lot of growth initiatives that we are investing in. R&D will continue being an area where we want to continue to invest. Ballpark, OpEx should follow the trend of revenue growth.
Okay, great. Helpful. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Martin Landry from Stifel GMP. Your line is now open.
Hi, good morning, everyone. My first question is with regards to pricing. Commodity costs are increasing. You also have additional costs related to logistics and supply chain inefficiencies. I was wondering, have you taken price increases this year to offset these additional costs?
So far, no. You need, Martin, to balance the short term and mid-term. In our product, our product are not commodity. If you buy a snowmobile at a high price and the year after the OEM reduce the price, then you're stuck with the resale value that is lower and it's very sensitive. In a typical year, we increase pricing of about 1%. That's the average of the last few years. We, right now, are monitoring, obviously, the cost increase for commodity and everything, and even our efficiency. This is a lever that we have, but so far we didn't do it, and we will continue to monitor the overall situation. It's something we will consider if things get very difficult, but we didn't do it so far.
Okay. My second question is more longer term. COVID and staycations have been a really good driver for the industry, and wondering, in your longer term plans, what do you think is going to happen to demand when travel returns to normal? How do you see things evolving?
Obviously, that's not our field of expertise. If you read more and more article or expert regarding traveling, vacation, cruise, airline, people believe it's more two, three, four years before we go back to the old normal, I will call it that way. That's why we believe people will probably travel more in the meantime, but we don't see the trend that we're going right now through, going on and on. It will take some time to taper down. That's why we like the challenge to convert those new entrants to the industry.
Okay, perfect. Thank you for your results.
Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Gerrick Johnson from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is now open.
Good morning. Thank you. Year-end revenue was up about 8%, right, in the fourth quarter, and I think the back half, call it 9%. By my estimate, ORV was probably up 11% or 12%. Sorry to bring them up, but Polaris grew off-road by about 23% in the back half. You lost some wholesale share there, and it looks like you lost some side-by-side retail share. Not a lot, but a little bit in the quarter. What is your ability to reclaim that wholesale share with the capacity you have now? That's one. Number 2, how dependent are you on the new side-by-side facility to achieve the guidance that you have? I realize it's a 3Q, 4Q ramp, but how dependent on a, let's call it a 10, it's a perfect ramp-up, and 0, it's an abject disaster.
What level does that have to be between zero and 10 to achieve your numbers?
Good morning, Gerrick. I'll give you some numbers about our side-by-side growth over the years. From fiscal year 2016 to fiscal year 2020, every year, we grew between 25% and 35% retail. We used to grow and chase capacity, and since the Defender intro back in 2015, we deliver on our plan. Right now in fiscal year 2021, we grew 40%, then an incredible momentum. The volume we deliver in 2021 is five times in unit what we were delivering before Defender, then significant growth. For us, we might lose a few share a quarter and gaining back the following quarter, but when you look at the big picture and the long-term trajectory, I'm very confident that we can achieve our objective of 35%+ market share in the timeline that we have set before.
For me, obviously, I don't like to lose 1.1 quarter, but I can live with it because I believe our plan is very strong to achieve our long-term trajectory. In terms of the facility, obviously, and you know us, we've been ramping up new facility a lot of time in the last few years. We never miss a beat. Right now, Juarez 3 construction is on plan. Obviously, we depend on Juarez 3 startup to deliver on this year's guidance. We have some flexibility that we always put some cushion. Overall, we depend on the Juarez 3 to deliver on the year-end guidance.
I think the area which is the risk for all OEMs, Gerrick, is more on the supply chain stability. As you see in the news, it is very fluid every day, every week. This week is the Suez Canal that's clogged up. Next week, who knows what's going to happen. That's probably the area where, in terms of risk factor, is much higher versus our ability to start up the new plant. Yeah.
Okay, yeah, I'm still waiting for my barbecue grill that I ordered two months ago. Jose, I've got to say, since I've known you since 2013, you've basically achieved everything you set out to achieve. I applaud you for that and put faith in the numbers that you put out there. Thank you very much.
Thank you. More pressure, huh? Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Fred Wightman from Wolfe Research. Your line is now open.
Hey, guys, just a quick follow-up. Seb, in one of the earlier responses for the retail outlook, did you say that you were expecting 1Q retail to be up high single digit, or did I mishear that?
No, you heard correctly.
Okay. Could you just sort of touch on what would drive that number relative to what we saw this quarter, just given sort of the commentary you've had on quarter-to-date performance and the fact that compares aren't too much tougher until next quarter. Sort of what's driving the slowdown in that outlook?
Well, listen, obviously, inventory availability is one of the factors. Delivery of units to the network as well is another factor. Our side-by-side deliveries will be higher in the second quarter than in the first quarter. It's obviously a combination of factor. Personal watercraft really kicks up in terms of retail, usually in the second quarter. Can some retail or personal watercraft be accelerated in the first quarter? We'll see what the next few weeks reserve. That's our current read.
Okay, just to sort of tie that with Gerrick question, I mean, understand over time market share generally is up and to the right and really positive, given some of that product tightness and the comments for the retail outlook, should we expect some choppiness on the market share side here for the next few quarters until some of that capacity comes online in the back half of the year?
We don't believe that our competitors have that much excess capacity versus us. I think everyone is facing the same challenges of ramping up supply chain, et cetera. Again, there might be a bit of choppiness. As José mentioned, our long term plan is very solid. Our product lineup is also very solid. Our target of being a leader in the side-by-side industry as we are today and even growing is still very, very valid.
Great. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Cameron Doerksen from National Bank Financial. Your line is now open.
Thanks. Yeah, good morning. I guess a question on the M25 plan that obviously you are achieving well ahead of schedule. You did mention that you still have some of these tailwinds from some of the cost initiatives that you had laid out in that plan. Can you just maybe go through what is left to be done on that front and what we should expect from, I guess, the margin tailwind from those costs, and leaning out initiatives?
Well, we're still very early in our M25 plan on the cost initiatives. Honestly, obviously with COVID, priorities were shifted from our operations team to manage the day to day. As we said, it's a CAD 300 million saving that we want to achieve. That is going to provide a big lift to the margin improvement. The other one is the volume growth objective of growing our side-by-side market share. We're still at 20% market share for side-by-side. That better asset utilization coming from the volume growth is also going to be a big driver of our margin improvement down the road.
Okay. That's helpful. Just a question on the cash flow in 2022. What should we expect from working capital? I mean, fiscal 2021 was, again, a pretty weird year, but what's your expectation for working capital usage in fiscal 2022?
Yeah. The inventory, we finished the year quite lean, down about CAD 185 million of inventory compared to the previous year. Obviously our objective is to rebuild that yard inventory. We're looking at a potential working cap investment in fiscal year 2022, ranging from CAD 150 million-CAD 200 million.
Okay, perfect. That's all I have. Thanks very much.
Your next question comes from the line of Jaime Katz from Morningstar. Your line is now open.
Hi. Good morning. Nice quarter. Thanks for taking my questions. I hope you can just clarify whether or not there's any leftover Evinrude flow through in marine this year. I'm just trying to think about what that base standalone marine business can look like or whether we are pretty much completely through that.
We are completely through that. There's no units left in inventory at the end of the year.
Okay. I think I heard you guys say that the gross margin would be flat in 2022, and that 200 basis points were gained from lower promotions, but basically that if the promotional environment picks up, it will not happen until next year, and that's when some of that might give back, not this current year that we're in now. Is that correct?
Yeah, that's correct. If I compare, obviously fiscal 2022 to 2020, that's two years, there is a lift coming from the promotional activity, about 200 basis points. When I compare 2022 to 2021, the promotional activity should be flattish in terms of margin impact.
Okay. Lastly, because this is a pretty high year of capital spending for you guys project wise, is it right to think about CapEx longer term in that CAD 300 million-CAD 400 million range, or is there a better number for that?
There is a better number, which is higher than the CAD 400 million range. Obviously, as the business grows, as we continue investing in technology, because we believe that is a big part of being successful in our business, that requires CapEx investments. We expect meaningful dollars of investments going forward, yes.
Great. That's all I have. Thank you so much.
Yep.
Your next question comes from Derek Dley from Canaccord Genuity. Your line is now open.
Hi, guys, and congrats on a strong quarter and really strong outlook. This might be a bit early to ask this question, but I'm just wondering what you guys have seen with some of the new customers that came into this quarter into the space during COVID. Have you seen these folks look to perhaps upgrade their products or buy additional products? Just wondering how their activity has been.
Yeah. It's like you say, Derek, it's a bit early to try to pinpoint any trend. I can tell you that those people are typically younger. The ratio of women are higher than it used to be. The dealer even say that they see customers that they've never seen before in their dealership. It's a different profile of customers.
It's difficult to see where they will go next time. The only thing we survey in the last month was, are you happy with your powersport or your product, and do you intend to remain into the industry? Again, 90% said, "Yes, we remain to intend in the industry.
When they come in for the first time, are they typically looking for more of an entry-level product? Or are they just buying whatever they can get their hands on at this point?
No, I think your assumption is right. If I look at the number, in last year, 50% of watercraft sold was to new customers, and for 3-wheel, two-thirds, and that's where we had the Spark and the Ryker, then your assumption is totally right. That being said, what we developed as a strategy is to talk to them often. When they come to the industry, they don't know where to ride. That's why the Women's Mentoring Program is important because it's a woman who purchased a unit who speaks to the new entrant to say, "Hey, come to ride. There is a club there. There is a nice ride there." What is important is that the minute they purchase the unit, they know what to do with it.
This is a big learning that we had from the Spark and the three-wheel, and that's what we're trying to implement everywhere into our other product line.
Okay. That's great. Thank you.
There are no more questions. I will turn the call to Monsieur José Boisjoli to close the meeting.
Great. Thank you. Thanks, everyone, for joining us this morning and for your interest in BRP. We look forward to speaking with you again for our first quarter conference call in June. Thanks again, everyone, have a good day.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.