To the Otis Worldwide Corporation 2025 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. My name is Julianne, and I will be hosting the meeting today. I would now like to turn the call over to Judy Marks, Chair, Chief Executive Officer, and President of Otis.
Thank you, Julianne, and good morning to all of you on the call. It's my pleasure to welcome you to our fifth annual meeting of shareholders. It's my absolute honor to lead this organization, and I could not be prouder of our Otis colleagues who every day prioritize the safe and reliable movement of passengers around the world. Guided by our results-driven, digitally focused, and service-oriented growth strategy, we're deepening our customer relationships, safely moving the riding public, and making ourselves more efficient with innovative connected solutions. Through our Transformational Uplift Program, we've also optimized our organizational structure to leverage our global scale, become more customer-centric, and drive efficiency at all levels of the organization. In short, we're building the future of Otis, and we thank you, our shareholders, for joining us on this journey and for your continuing support.
As you saw from our proxy and annual report, 2024 was a year marked by solid execution of our strategy, operational excellence, and strong financial performance. This was made possible through the passion and commitment of our 72,000 colleagues, including 44,000 field professionals serving customers in more than 200 countries and territories. We maintain approximately 2.4 million elevators and escalators around the world, the industry's largest service portfolio, and we move an estimated 2.4 billion people a day. Our founder made travel by elevator safe for people, enabling the modern vertical city, transforming how people live and work, and revolutionizing architecture itself.
As we look to build on this proud legacy, we aspire to contribute to a world where safe and reliable movement is a priority, where mobility and infrastructure transcend boundaries and physical limitations, where our workforce, technologies, solutions, services, and customer experience advance along with global macro trends and new expectations. Our vision to give people freedom to connect and thrive in a taller, faster, smarter world sets the tone and defines our course for the future. Our mission is clear: to be a world-class, customer-centric, service-oriented company. We do that thanks to our service flywheel. We sell and install new equipment units and modernize off-portfolio units, convert them into our service portfolio, and maintain and repair them for 20 years or so before they need to be modernized.
Once we modernize the units, we return them to our service portfolio for continued maintenance and compounding growth as we go forward. Despite this simple and elegant business model, we also acknowledge the complex and dynamic nature of our modern world, demanding resiliency and clarity of mission. We're focused on our business strategy, which is based on resilience, strengthening our culture, and adapting to evolving market needs, allowing us to be closer to our customers and pursue new opportunities that move us closer to our vision. I am confirming that all of our board directors and a representative of our independent auditor at PricewaterhouseCoopers are attending this annual meeting. We're hosting our meeting virtually today, which allows us to be more inclusive and reach a greater number of our shareholders. We will conduct the formal portion of our meeting first and then spend time answering your questions.
It is now 9:04 A.M. Eastern Time on May 15th, 2025, and this meeting is officially called to order. Toby Smith, Otis Senior Vice President and Corporate Secretary, will act as Secretary of the Meeting, and Otis has appointed Michael Barbera of Broadridge Financial Services to act as Inspector of Election. Michael took the oath of Inspector of Election earlier today. After the formal meeting has been adjourned, we will provide time for your questions. Only validated shareholders may submit questions or comments in the Q&A section on the web console. As detailed in the rules of conduct and procedures, we will only address questions or comments that are pertinent and appropriate. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. However, no one attending is permitted to use any audio recording device.
The board of directors fixed March 17th, 2025, as the record date for determining shareholders entitled to attend and vote at this meeting. Broadridge commenced mailing the notice of the 2025 annual meeting on April 4th, 2025, to shareholders of record at the close of business on the record date. The shareholder list shows that, as of the record date, there were 395,629,196 shares of common stock outstanding and entitled to vote at this meeting. We are informed by the Inspector of Election that there are represented in person virtually or by proxy shares of common stock representing 354,494,382 votes, or approximately 89.6% of the voting power on the record date. Since this represents more than a majority of the voting power of all issued and outstanding stock entitled to vote on the record date, a quorum is present for purposes of transacting business.
The polls are open for voting on the four proposals that will be presented. Any shareholder who hasn't yet voted or wishes to change his or her vote may do so by clicking on the voting button on the web console and following the instructions. Shareholders who have sent in proxies or previously voted via telephone or internet do not need to take further action unless they wish to change their vote. After the proposals are presented, the polls will close. Now I'll turn the call over to Toby to present the proposals.
Thanks, Judy. I will now present the proposals to be voted upon at this meeting. Proposal one is the election of directors. Our proxy statement provides information about the 11 nominees. The board unanimously recommends a vote for each nominee. Proposal two is an advisory vote to approve the compensation of the executive officers named in the proxy statement. The board unanimously recommends a vote for this proposal. Proposal three is the appointment of an independent auditor for 2025. The audit committee has nominated PricewaterhouseCoopers. The board endorsed this nomination and unanimously recommends a vote for this proposal. Proposal four is a shareholder proposal. I turn the floor over to John Chevedin to present the proposal.
Hello, this is John Chevedin. Proposal four, transparency and political spending. Charles requests that Otis Worldwide provide a report updated semi-annually disclosing the company's policies and procedures for making contributions to participate in any campaign on behalf of any candidate for public office or influence the general public with respect to an election. Monetary and non-monetary contributions used in the manner above, including the identity of the recipient as well as the amount paid to each, and the titles and persons in the company responsible for decision-making. The report shall be made available within 12 months of the annual meeting and identify all recipients and amounts paid to each recipient from company funds. This proposal does not encompass lobbying spending. Long-term Otis shareholders support transparency and accountability in corporate election spending.
The under-a-microscope report warns political activity can pose increasingly significant risk for companies, including the perception that political contributions are at odds with core company values. A recent poll of retail shareholders by Mason Dixon Polling and Research found that 83% of respondents said they would have more confidence investing in companies that have adopted reforms that provide for transparency and accountability in political spending. The current Otis policy does not address ballot measure spending and critically does not require disclosure of any corporate-funded election spendings. Otis scored only 29% out of a potential 100% in the 2024 Center for Political Accountability Ziklin Index of Corporate Political Disclosure and Accountability. This proposal asks Otis to disclose all of its election spending, including payments to 527 groups, payments to 501(c)(4) social welfare organizations, which may be used for election purposes.
This would bring Otis in line with a growing number of leading companies, including Western Digital Corporation, Ford Motor Company, and Illinois Tool Works, which present this information on their websites. Without knowing the recipients of our company's political dollars, Otis directors and Otis shareholders cannot sufficiently assess whether our company's election-related spending aligns with or conflicts with its policies on climate change and sustainability or other areas of growing concern. Improved Otis political spending disclosure will protect the reputation of Otis and preserve shareholder value.
Thank you, Mr. Chevedin. As noted in the proxy, the board unanimously recommends a vote against this proposal for the reasons set forth therein. Judy, I will now hand the call back to you to close the voting.
Now that everyone has had the opportunity to vote, I declare the polls for the 2025 annual meeting of shareholders closed. I will turn the call over to our Inspector of Election, Michael Barbera, to provide the preliminary vote report. Otis will be reporting the final vote results in a Form 8K to be filed within four business days of this meeting.
Thank you, Judy. The preliminary vote report shows that each of the nominees for election to the board of directors received at least 92.8% of the votes for his or her election. The advisory vote for the compensation of the named executive officers has been approved by 39.3% of the votes. The appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers as independent auditor has been approved by 99.7% of the votes, and the shareholder proposal has been rejected by 59.1% of the votes.
Thank you, Michael. There being no further business to come before the meeting, the 2025 annual meeting of shareholders is now adjourned. Now we will begin the shareholder question and answer session. Please note that we will attempt to answer as many pertinent and appropriate questions today as time allows. Out of consideration for others, please limit yourself to one question. Our first question: What areas of Otis will be impacted by tariffs, and what is being done to minimize the impact? Thank you for your question. The areas of Otis that are impacted by tariffs are primarily our new equipment business, and these are fairly limited. As we shared at our first quarter earnings report, we estimate these to range from $45 million-$75 million of impact for the remainder of the 2025 fiscal year.
We are working diligently to minimize this impact by expanding our supply chain to multiple suppliers, by moving some of this supply chain to the United States, and by continuing to work on mitigation plans with our customers to make sure that Otis remains protected from future tariffs where we can pass through additional price increases with our customers as needed as the environment changes. I thank you for your question. We thank you for your attendance today and your continued support. We look forward to continuing our exciting journey with you. Have a great and safe day.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.