Earnings Call: Q4 2018

Jan 29, 2019

Summary

FY 2018 delivered record revenue of $23.5B and net income of $2.2B; Q4 revenue reached $6.3B. The 2019 outlook anticipated higher deliveries and 14%-15% Truck and Parts gross margins, alongside increased investment.

Good morning, and welcome to Paccar's fourth quarter 2018 earnings conference call. All lines will be in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session. Today's call is being recorded, and if anyone has an objection, they should disconnect at this time. I would now like to introduce Mr. Ken Hastings, Paccar's Director of Investor Relations. Mr. Hastings, please go ahead. Good morning. We would like to welcome those listening by phone and those on the webcast. My name is Ken Hastings, Paccar's Director of Investor Relations, and joining me this morning are Ron Armstrong, Chief Executive Officer, Harrie Schippers, President and Chief Financial Officer, Preston Feight, Executive Vice President, and Michael Barkley, Senior Vice President and Controller. As with prior conference calls, we ask that any members of the media on the line participate in a listen-only mode. Certain information presented today will be forward-looking and involve risks and uncertainties, including general economic and competitive conditions that may affect expected results. A summary of risks and uncertainties is described in more detail in our periodic reports filed with the SEC. For additional information, please see our SEC filings and the investor relations page of paccar.com. I would now like to introduce Ron Armstrong. Good morning. Harrie Schippers, Preston Feight, and I will update you on our excellent fourth quarter and full year results for 2018, important business highlights, and Paccar's focus on innovation. Thanks to Paccar's 28,000 outstanding employees around the world, 2018 was a record-setting year for the company. Paccar achieved record revenues of $23.5 billion and record net income of $2.2 billion, a 9.3% after-tax return on revenues. Paccar Parts set annual revenue and profit records, and Paccar Financial achieved record new business volume and a 17% improvement in pre-tax income. Paccar is celebrating 80 consecutive years of net income. We celebrated many other 2018 accomplishments. Paccar delivered a record 189,000 trucks worldwide. DAF earned the prestigious International Truck of the Year 2018 award. Kenworth, Peterbilt, and DAF introduced a broad range of battery electric, hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell truck models, which are currently in field testing with customers. DAF Brazil earned the Truck Brand of the Year honor for the third consecutive year and increased its market share in just five years of operation to 6.7%. Paccar's focus on sustainable business practices were recognized by the environmental reporting firm CDP. Paccar achieved an A rating, which puts us in the top 2% of the over 6,000 companies which report to CDP. We are especially proud that Peterbilt and Kenworth were recognized as top workplaces for women by the organization Women in Trucking. Paccar has a strong record of shareholder returns. Paccar has paid a dividend every year since 1941 and has delivered annual dividends of approximately 50% of net income for many years. In 2018, Paccar declared dividends of $3.09 per share, which was a 41% increase over 2017. Total dividends declared exceeded $1 billion for the first time. Paccar has increased its regular quarterly dividend an average of 11% per year during the last 20 years and raised the quarterly dividend another 14% beginning in 2019. Paccar's total dividends declared for 2018 result in a robust yield of 5.4% at year-end. Paccar repurchased 5.8 million shares for $354 million in 2018, which was the most since 2007. The board of directors authorized additional share repurchases last year, with $540 million remaining at year-end. Paccar's fourth quarter revenues were a record $6.3 billion, and fourth quarter net income was $578 million. Revenues were 15% higher than the fourth quarter last year, and net income was 39% greater compared to the adjusted net income of $416 million earned in the fourth quarter last year. Paccar delivered a record 50,400 trucks during the fourth quarter, 6% more than the third quarter. The increase in production resulted from more build days in Europe compared to the third quarter and better supplier performance. Truck and parts gross margins were 14.2% in the fourth quarter. Truck pricing was good, with price realization comparable to the second and third quarter at about 2%. During the quarter, we incurred some additional material and labor costs due to supplier constraints, but conditions improved compared to the third quarter. By the end of the fourth quarter, supplier deliveries to the factories were in good shape. Our Peterbilt, Kenworth, and DAF factories and purchasing and supplier management teams again did a fantastic job of managing production, delivering a record number of trucks, and achieving the highest operating margins in the industry. In the first quarter, we're expecting slightly higher deliveries compared to the fourth quarter. Deliveries are projected to be up over 15% when compared to last year's first quarter. Truck and Parts gross margins are estimated to increase in the first quarter to around 14.5%. Preston Feight will provide an update on DAF, Paccar Parts, and Paccar Financial Services. Thanks, Ron. DAF had an outstanding 2018. DAF achieved record European above 16-ton market share of 16.6%, compared to 15.3% in 2017. DAF was the market leader in European tractor registrations and is making great progress towards its goal of 20% market share. Europe's greater than 16-ton truck market was a robust 319,000 registrations, reflecting continued strong demand in growing European economies. European economies and freight transport activity are projected to grow again in 2019. We expect 2019 to be another excellent year, with the market in the range of 290,000-320,000 trucks. In 2018, Paccar's Parts business generated record annual revenues of $3.8 billion and record annual pre-tax profit of $769 million. Annual revenue grew 15% and annual profit grew 26% compared to 2017. Parts' fourth quarter revenues were a record $971 million, and quarterly pre-tax profit was a strong $194 million. Paccar has steadily increased its truck and engine market share over the years, resulting in greater number of Paccar trucks and engines in operation. This, combined with consistent investments in parts distribution capacity and customer-focused technologies, has created a very strong growth environment for Paccar Parts. We expect parts sales to grow by 5%-8% this year. Paccar Financial Services annual pre-tax income increased 17% in 2018 to $306 million. 2018 revenues were $1.36 billion. Fourth quarter pre-tax income increased 21% to $87 million. The portfolio increased to record size and continues to perform well. Kenworth and Peterbilt Class 8 used truck values increased over 10% in the fourth quarter compared to the same period last year. Kenworth and Peterbilt truck resale values command a 10%-20% premium over competitors' vehicles. We expect 2019 to be another good year for used truck volumes and prices. Paccar Parts and Paccar Financial Services profit contributions are much larger than they were 20 years ago. These businesses are inherently less cyclical than the sale of new trucks, and their consistent profitability enhances Paccar's financial results throughout all phases of the business cycle. Harrie Schippers will now provide an update on Kenworth and Peterbilt and Paccar Innovation. Thanks, Preston. In 2018, U.S. and Canadian Class 8 truck retail sales were 285,000 units. Kenworth and Peterbilt had record production and achieved a strong 29.4% market share. In 2019, we expect the U.S. and Canada Class 8 truck market to expand further to a range of 285,000-315,000 vehicles. Kenworth and Peterbilt have a record backlog, with production visibility into late 2019. U.S. economic and freight indicators were strong in 2018, with nearly 3% GDP growth, 3.8% industrial production growth, and 6.6% freight tonnage growth. Fleet utilization levels are very high, at 97% in the fourth quarter of 2018. In 2019, U.S. GDP and industrial production are expected to grow another 2%-3%, which bodes well for freight volumes and demand for trucks. In the past, a surge in orders was often driven by a pre-buy related to an emissions change. That is not the case in this cycle, which has been driven by economic and freight growth. Kenworth and Peterbilt customers are benefiting from the industry-leading operating efficiency provided by our trucks, as well as superior aftermarket support from Paccar Parts and Paccar Financial Services. Paccar showcased many innovative products and technologies last year. DAF introduced the CF Electric, LF Electric, XF Hybrid, and CF Hybrid trucks. Peterbilt introduced Model 579, Model 520, and Model 220 electric trucks. Kenworth introduced a T680 hybrid truck and two T680 hydrogen fuel cell models. Earlier this month, several of these trucks were on display at the CES technology show in Las Vegas. We had a terrific turnout of people interested in Paccar technology and the opportunity to see the trucks and technology firsthand. We were the only OEM displaying trucks at the show. Kenworth, Peterbilt, and DAF's alternative powertrain products are in field trials with customers, focusing on regional distribution, refuse, urban delivery, and port applications. These applications will be the most economically feasible for customers in the medium term. Longer term, alternative powertrain vehicles will likely be competitive in more applications. While we are preparing for the long term by making investments in alternative powertrain technologies, we do expect diesel to remain the most efficient and cost-effective powertrain technology in heavy truck applications for the foreseeable future. The Paccar Innovation Center in Silicon Valley completed its first full year of operations in 2018. The innovation center team complements Paccar's extensive R&D efforts and is focused on developing a production-ready Level 4 autonomous Paccar truck. The team has developed an excellent reputation with the entrepreneurial community of startup companies, venture capital firms, and academia. Paccar was recognized in 2018 for its innovations in software and manufacturing. DAF was honored with the Computable Award 2018 in the Netherlands for its 3D truck configurator web application. Peterbilt in Denton, Texas, the Paccar Engines factory in Columbus, Mississippi, and the Paccar truck factory in Sainte-Thérèse, Canada, each earned a prestigious manufacturing leadership award from Frost & Sullivan. These manufacturing innovations enhance factory capacity, efficiency, and safety and exemplify Paccar's operational excellence. We invested $437 million in capital and $306 million in R&D expenses in 2018. In 2019, we are planning to increase capital investments to $525 million-$575 million and increase R&D expenses to $320 million-$350 million. These investments will develop the next generation of Kenworth, Peterbilt, and DAF trucks, enhance Paccar's diesel and alternative powertrain technologies, and add additional capacity and efficiency to the company's manufacturing and parts distribution facilities. Thank you. We would be pleased to answer your questions. At this time, if you would like to ask a question, please press star then the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Our first question comes from the line of Ross Gilardi with Bank of America, Merrill Lynch. Your line is now open. Hey, good morning, good afternoon, everybody. Just got a couple of questions. First of all, maybe you could talk a little bit more about the Paccar Parts business. Where do you think we are in the cycle? You're going to be factoring in some deceleration this year, but I remember an interesting chart you had at your Investor Day showing that we're in somewhat of a sweet spot for parts given the age class of the active fleet. So why would that actually even slow down this year? Well, I'd just say last year was an extraordinary year for Paccar Parts. It put a lot of things in place, which we reaped the benefits of those last year. We continue to invest in additional capacity this year, so we've got two pretty major projects, one in Las Vegas and one in Brazil for next year. The programs that have been put in place will continue to generate positive returns. So, we think we're at this point somewhere in the 5%-8% range, but we'll see how the year progresses, and we'll have better insight into that as we have this discussion three months from now. Yep, got it. Thanks, Ron. Then maybe you could just talk about Class 8 order trends a bit. Obviously, they were at supernormal levels throughout the year, and they've started to slow just back towards more normal levels. What are you seeing there? Is it the big fleets? Is it smaller fleets? Is it really just everybody there? You sound like you're still quite positive this year, but any color on order trends would be great. Yeah. Over 450,000 orders last year was, I would still call it supernormal. I'd call it abnormal, which was great for the backlog. I was just at the ATD meeting last week, meeting with several of our dealers. The dealers are very confident about the ability to deliver the trucks that are in the backlog, and very confident about orders that will continue to fill in the openings that are there, and we're already taking some orders for 2020. So industry conditions are very positive from our perspective. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Joel Tiss with BMO. Your line is now open. Well, I'm not used to making it on so early. Joel, we love you. Two things. Can you give us a sense, maybe this is more of a Harry question, why the inventories are running up 27.5% at the end of the year? Usually you normalize them toward the end of the year, and I just wondered if there's something unusual in there, or you're just gearing up for a strong 2019. Are you talking about by looking at the balance sheet? Yeah The carrying value from year to year? Yeah. Harry can have his thoughts, but I think it's mostly just reflecting the higher production levels. Exactly right, Ron. Reflecting the higher build rates. Yep. Can you give us a little background? Can you tell us what your penetration rate is on your parts out of your total installed base? What do you guess your market share is on the parts penetration? Is it 15% or 40% or just an idea so we can also gauge how much growth potential there is longer term. Thank you. Yeah. Unfortunately, there's not a real strong gauge of the parts market like there is on trucks. But I would say based on seeing our Paccar Parts revenue growth relative to the competition, what we can glean from that is that our share position improved in really all of our markets last year. Again, kudos to the Paccar Parts team for the great things and investments they've made in warehousing and programs, and I think we'll continue to grow our share, again, without knowing precise numbers. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Steve Volkmann with Jefferies. Your line is now open. Hi, good morning, guys. Good morning, Steve. Ron, I was going to see if I could push you a little bit for a little bit more color on your pricing commentary. I think you said the prices were up about 2% in the second, third, and sounds like also the fourth quarter, and I am curious about two things. One, how does that sort of compare with the increases that you saw in things like parts costs and labor inflation and so forth? In other words, price cost neutral, negative, or positive. I would just be curious on how that trended. Then as we look into 2019, are there some opportunities to maybe get a little bit more price with the backlog being as long as it is, and how does the price cost kind of balance look to you guys going forward? Thank you. I am going to let Michael talk a little bit about the details of the cost side, and then I will talk about 2019. Michael? Yeah, the cost side for the fourth quarter, they were up about 1.6%, which was less than our revenue side, which is up over 2%. So we had some positive price realization during the quarter. But as you look next year, Steven, I think the orders are pretty well in the house for North America. So we know what that pricing is, and we commented on what we think the first quarter margin is a little bit enhancement up to around 14.5% the first quarter. And we would say, if you look at the full year, probably in the 14%-15% range for the year. Okay, thanks. That's helpful. Yes, sir. Our next question comes from Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. Your line is now open. Hi, good morning and good afternoon, everyone. Good morning, Jerry. I wonder if you could talk about the new products that you were stepping through at the beginning of the call. The battery power products are in various stages of customer testing. Can you talk about what are the most successful variants so far, and when do you think we'll see them in commercial production in your facilities? I appreciate that it's early, but maybe you could share with us the early results. Yeah. I think we sort of think about it in three different layers. I think we view where we're at today in sort of the demonstration phase, where we're learning about new technologies and how they work. Next step would probably be some level of low volume production, which would probably be starting next year. Then at some point, once the commercial viability of these technologies are good and the customer demand is there, I mean, ultimately for us, it's all about the customer demand, and I think the economic feasibility will dictate a lot of that as time goes on. We're doing everything we can to be prepared and be ready and be as smart as we can be about those technologies. We'll be ready to start production when the customer's demand is there for those products. Okay. On the low volume production that's expected next year, can you talk about what the powertrain looks like in terms of, is it a Paccar supplied powertrain? Is it third party? I guess what we've seen from you folks in the past on the diesel side is lower volume products. You've tended to use third-party powertrains, and where you have more scale, you've done in-house, and I'm wondering, is that the framework we should be thinking about, at least in the early stages of EV? Yeah, I think in the early stages, we're working with a variety of partners to identify what technologies work best, but also getting smarter about what role we want to play and what position we want to have in these alternative powertrain components. That's still being studied and evaluated for the long term. In Paccar Financial, you folks had really strong margins this quarter. Sounds like used truck values were a contributor to that. Can you just flesh that out? Was that a mark to market, or is that a sustained benefit now that values have moved higher? Can you just give us a bit more context behind the strong parts, or excuse me, FinCo margin improvement? Yeah, there's no mark to market. We look at valuations of our used truck inventories every quarter, and once we adjust, typically, if there's a write-down needed, we take the write-down, and then that becomes the basis going forward. So no mark to market enhancements. It's all about just the market pricing is better, and we're getting a better result from our used truck activities, particularly in North America. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of David Raso with Evercore ISI. Your line is now open. Hi. Thank you very much. Good morning, David. Regarding the first quarter delivery comment, if I heard correctly, up 15% year-over-year, can you help us geographically how we are thinking about deliveries sequentially? I think the lion's share of that will probably be in North America, with some improvement in Europe as well, compared to last year's first quarter. We will see some improvement in South America as well. I think most of the regions will be up, and Mexico, I think, will be up as well. I am just trying to look at normal sequentials. Usually, Europe and the rest of world are down for Q2 to 1Q, so most of the sequential growth is North America. I guess what was driving it, you have not sounded this constructive on the supply chain for a little while. Sounds like that is improving. It is. While I appreciate the price cost, I have to believe the inefficiencies in the supply chain have been rather notable the last couple of quarters. With that starting to pass, I guess maybe I'm just pushing a little bit on the gross margin. To have the gross margin in the first quarter still down year-over-year, I'm just trying to get a sense of, do we see at some point the gross margins can grow on that strong a delivery growth, especially if North America is sort of driving the growth? I would've thought the supply chain improvements might be able to bump up the gross margin thoughts. Yeah. If you look at truck margins, truck margins in the fourth quarter, I think we're about 11.8%-11.9%. Because the revenue growth in the first quarter will be more related to trucks than parts, you get a bit of a mix effect that has a margin impact. That's sort of what we're seeing, and we're seeing really good performance by our suppliers in the month of January. Should that continue, there could be some upside, but right now we're making our best call based on how we see it currently. No, I appreciate that. Yeah. On a pre-tax level, margin truck was still down year-over-year in the fourth quarter. Are you saying there at least is a chance, say, the pre-tax truck margin should have a chance to start growing year-over-year with the deliveries? I think that's what we're looking for that extra little pop to earnings power. Can we start to assume some improving year-over-year margin? It could. Again, I think we'll see how things progress here as we work through the first quarter. Okay. And quick follow-up on Europe. I appreciate the de-risking the guide down a little bit, but can you help us with how the orders were in the fourth quarter year-over-year? If we can. Well, the orders were strong while we looked for the numbers. We had a really strong December in Europe and Yeah, fourth quarter orders were up 8%, and for the full year, orders were up 17% in Europe. Okay. Well, so it's up 8% going into the year. Yeah. Lastly, the repo. The repo was a nice step-up in the fourth quarter. Maybe if you can just help us how you think about the cycle and how it maybe influences your thoughts on the share repo. Yeah. When the valuation is attractive, as it is currently, we step up our efforts on the repurchase activity. That has been the approach we have taken for years, and we will continue to apply that. We still have $540 million of authorization that we will continue to manage through 2019. Okay, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thank you, David. Our next question comes from the line of Seth Weber with RBC. Your line is now open. Hey, good morning. Good afternoon, everybody. Just going back to David's question on the gross margin. Is there any way to quantify how much the supply chain disruption or some hiccups cost you in margin in the fourth quarter? I think you said it was maybe 50 basis points in the third quarter. Did it get less onerous in the fourth quarter? Yeah, that's a tough one. There's so many inputs that go with that. I don't recall that being that specific. It is an impact, and it's tens of millions, but it's hard to quantify. Okay. Fair enough. I wanted to ask about the higher CapEx that you're looking for in 2019. You did mention some incremental spend on manufacturing facilities. I'm wondering, are you adding brick and mortar, or is it just adding incremental machine tools or what? Can you just give us any color on that specific part of the higher CapEx on the manufacturing side? Also, are you ramping up spending on any suppliers? Thanks. I would say it is a combination of all those things. There will be some additional bricks and mortar added to some of our facilities to really increase the efficiency. One of the things that we are going to be doing, we are going to be investing in a new paint shop in Chillicothe, Ohio. That will be a pretty sizable addition, and we will redirect the current paint shop to be more involved with assembly capacity. We are also looking at machining investments to support the success of the Paccar MX engine, and just to continue to increase the efficiency of all of our factories around the world, and we will be preparing for new product launches, and the facility requirements that go with that. Okay. Are you investing in suppliers to help them along a little bit these days? Or is that- We definitely are. Where there is a supplier, you cannot get it done fast enough to support what we want to do, then yeah, definitely we are providing suppliers with a capital investment and where it is going to benefit Paccar. Great. Okay. Thank you very much, guys. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Andrew Casey with Wells Fargo. Your line is now open. Good morning out there. How's everybody doing? Great, Andy, and you? Doing fine, thanks. Staying warm? Trying. The worst is coming. You are welcome to come out and join us. Sunny here in Seattle today. Oh, that's great. Hey, in your European outlook, some of the questions already have been asked, but you're expecting the industry sales down around 4% at the midpoint. You had 8% organic growth, or sorry, order growth in the fourth quarter. Should we read that to mean that you expect industry trends, not necessarily Paccar, but industry trends to kind of deteriorate through the year? The European market has been above 300,000 for three straight years. Based on how we see things, we think 2019 could be the fourth. We're starting the year in a real positive vein with where we're at. But four years, and we'll see how long it runs. But we do have some conservatism baked into our thinking as we progress through the year. But hopefully, that doesn't turn out to be the case. Okay. Thanks for that, Ron. Just a little bit further on that topic, have you started to see any weakness in any of those select countries that create the Europe region? You could say that Germany is the place where if there's anything, there's a little bit of noise, and obviously the U.K. But in general, as Ron just said, we see strong performance in order intake and how the trucks are certainly being received with the customers. So order intake up and market share growth that we've achieved feels pretty good for 2019. Yeah, we're pretty fortunate in the U.K. We're the only OEM in Europe that has a plant manufacturing products in the U.K., and that provides us a bit of a competitive advantage, depending on how things play out with Brexit. I think everybody believes that there won't be a hard Brexit, but in the event there is, it actually from a competitive situation, actually plays into our favor. We'll see how it all develops, but we're hopeful that there's a nice, smooth approach to the transition there. Okay, thank you. Then if we could flip over to Paccar Parts, if I look at it on an annual basis, you had around 150 basis points of operating margin improvement year-over-year. Clearly a very strong performance. When you look back on the entire year, could you review what the main factors driving that improvement were and then reflect on whether you expect further upside to the margin during 2019? The big thing is just the operating leverage on the warehouse and sales and marketing spend, and so you get the benefit of that. We continue to see growth in our engine park and engine parts sales, which typically have a little bit higher than average margin, and I don't think that's going to change. I think we'll continue to see engine parts growth probably still be a leading product line that will help us develop the Paccar Parts business into 2019. Offsetting that, last year we constructed the Toronto PDC, which is now up and running and doing great. You have some project costs that we continue to encourage us to support the growth of the business going forward. That tends to offset a little bit, but it'll be all pretty normal. We'd see probably some leverage from that 5%-8% revenue growth. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question comes from Ann Duignan with J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open. Morning, Anne. Oh, sorry, I had you on mute. Sorry. Good morning. I guess a lot of my questions have been answered, but if we could take a step back and look at your backlog again, particularly in North America, can you talk a little bit about the mix in there of sleeper versus Class 8 and also maybe large fleet versus smaller owner/operator or any other color you can give us on the mix of that backlog would be great. Thank you. If I look at the backlog for 2019, it is pretty normal. We have got a very normal mix of fleet business, bigger fleets and smaller fleets. A retail business by our dealers. We try to manage that backlog also that in a year where our lead times extend, that we are able to supply all our loyal customers with the trucks that they need. Nothing unusual, sleeper versus Class 8 straight. I am thinking more oil and gas kind of related infrastructure. No, very normal. Okay, that's good to hear. Thank you. Yep. In that context also, perhaps you could talk about used values and also cancellations. They've escalated for the industry over the last couple of months. Can you talk about what you've seen in cancellation rates, or were your dealers not ordering for stock to begin with, so there have not been the same level of cancellations? If you could talk a little bit about that'd be good. Yeah. Used truck prices have improved nicely, as we mentioned. If we look at cancellations, we don't see a lot of real cancellations. If we see cancellations, it's cancellations for reorders. So a dealer changes the type or the customer for a truck, but not any significant cancellations so far. Is that your assessment of the industry cancellation rates, that it was more canceling and resetting of delivery dates rather than- We do not know what the other- We know what our situation is, but we do not really have any read into what the competitor numbers look like. Okay. One quick follow-up on your European outlook. What exactly do you have baked in the outlook for Brexit? You are assuming it is a normal or that it does not happen? What is the downside risk if we do not get order past the expiration date? I think there is bound to be some. If there is a hard Brexit, there is bound to be some temporary disruption. But again, that is temporary. Again, because we are the sole producer in the U.K. from a competitive standpoint, it is actually a bit of an advantage for us. That would be in the long term, post any disruption, obviously. Yeah. I think long term, it all sorts itself out. Yeah. But short term, there could be challenges. Yeah. Okay. I'll leave it there and get back in line. Thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Thanks, Ann. Our next question comes from the line of Jamie Cook with Credit Suisse. Your line is now open. Hi, good morning. Good morning, Jamie. First question, I was surprised when you talked about customers already starting to talk about 2020, and obviously, when we look at your stock price and the multiple, the world assumes in 2020, the truck market obviously rolls over. Can you just talk, understanding it is far out, but what your customers are talking about in terms of how they are thinking about 2020 and how far out you are? Then my second question, I am sorry, I just wanted to push again on the margins for 2019. I think you said 14%-15%, but how is not the midpoint to the high end, 14.5%-15% more realistic, just given price? Material costs are going down. The supplier constraints and inefficiencies should be going away. I do not understand how we get to the low end. The backlog, the customers are engaging in discussions about 2020. They've got their build slots outlined for 2019, and some of those discussions are occurring. But it's still very limited for 2020. The big fleets plan their requirements into 2020. In general, we haven't issued our pricing for 2020 yet, so that's still to come. So once we launch or issue our pricing for 2020, we'll see more orders for 2020. Yeah, and the margins. I'm just wondering if you have a strong view on whatever the industry forecasts are out there for 2020, down 25%, based on what you're hearing, if you think the market is too pessimistic or you don't forecast, you'll run the business, no matter what the. Yeah. What will actually be 2020, that is to be determined. But as we see it right now, people still need and want trucks. We are trying to figure out how to build more trucks. That is right. That is what you see a little bit in our first quarter delivery plan. As far as margins, we are just starting the year, giving a pretty broad range. We will have a better feel for how suppliers are going to perform over the year and how cost movements will be, what is the impact of commodities and tariffs, et cetera. So we think we have all that pretty well dialed in, but we will see how it progresses as we go through the first quarter. Okay, thanks. I will get back in queue. Thank you. Our next question comes from Steven Fisher with UBS. Your line is now open. Hi, guys. Hey, Steven. Hi. I wanted to follow up on the supply chain topic. I think, Ron, you said that the suppliers reached a good shape by the end of the fourth quarter. I guess I'm curious, you're confident that they'll be able to seamlessly ramp up further to meet a still higher rate of production in 2019? Yeah, our materials teams, our purchasing teams, Paccar quality teams, they're working closely with our suppliers. Our suppliers had some difficult hands they got dealt with a few hurricanes and a few things like that in the second half of last year, which, that's sort of behind us. They've gotten their legs under them, so we're just working closely with them to be able to support the progression of build that we want to achieve during 2019. So is it smooth so far in, say, the month of January? Yeah. January has been the best we've seen it in two couple of quarters. Okay, terrific. On financial services, just curious how much visibility you have at this point for 2019. The current quarter of profit was a nice run rate at $87 million. Is that something you expect to build on in 2019, or might it kind of sustain here and then moderate after a couple of quarters? Well, we've grown the portfolio with the additional truck deliveries, record truck deliveries, and the ability that we've financed about 24% of those globally last year, and we expect that will continue next year. I think we'll continue to see some modest portfolio growth and right now, the portfolio is performing excellently. Our past dues are really at historically low levels, and so we enter 2019 in good shape, and so we feel good about where we're at for 2019 with our financial services business for sure. Very good. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Joe O'Dea with Vertical Research. Your line is now open. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Got you. First, just wanted to understand gross margin potential. When you talk about another strong year in 2019 in a 14%-15% range, and you go back to the middle part of last decade and in a strong market conditions when you're doing a 15%-16% range, a host of things on the emissions front, obviously price cost considerations. Just wanted to understand the major kind of structural swings that appear to mark a step down in the structural sort of gross margin potential. Yeah, 14%-15% margins are excellent. There could have been some unusual circumstances 10 years ago, 15 years ago, but I think we're in great shape. The cost and the revenue side of trucks these days are much higher given all the emissions add-ons that have occurred over time, so that probably could have some impact on the percentage realization over time. But whether it's 14% or 15% or 15% to 16%, it's pretty strong. Okay. On the share repo front, stepping it up in 2018, but vis-à-vis the cash that's on the balance sheet, the potential to do something much larger. I guess maybe just, why not step it up and be a little bit more active on the share repo front? Yeah, we feel really good. If you look at our cash over time, it plus or minus 15% of our balance sheet, and we're basically sitting about that point. So we're quite comfortable with where we're at and continuing to opportunistically buy shares has worked for us, and we will continue to apply that approach in 2019. Then just one on DAF and the share gains in 2018. I think some nice progress toward the 20% target. When you think about the momentum you have there, the good orders that you have in Q4, do you have any kind of sense on sort of hitting that 20% target? Does that timeline look more in view today than it has over the past couple of years, I imagine? Just trying to think about what you see out there as a reasonable timeline to get there. Yeah, so if you look at 20 years history, we were at 10%, 20 years ago, and now we've progressed to 16.6. So is 20 in our sights? Absolutely. A key reason for the success this year was that Model Year '17 truck, that was an excellent investment, both from a performance standpoint, an appearance standpoint, a fit and finish standpoint. So the truck has just gotten better and better, and we're continuing to make investments for the future, and I think it's just as we've seen in North America, in that 20-year period, we've grown basically nine share points in North America from 21 to 30. So, yeah, 20 is definitely in our sights. Great. Thanks very much. Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Neil Frohnapple with Buckingham Research. Your line is now open. Hi, guys. Morning, Neil. Hi, guys. Good morning. At the Investor Day, Ron, you guys talked about the potential down the road of expanding further into China. Can you provide any commentary here? Has the vision changed at all with all the crosscurrents? It hasn't changed. We continue to look for a window of opportunity that can provide a return, and that's the challenge in China is finding the right combination where you can get a reasonable return. Harry, Preston, and I, we've all traveled there in the last several months, and so we continue to be there, evaluate it. The window will open, but it's an area of future opportunity, and we'll continue to evaluate just there as we do other parts of Asia. All right. Could you provide an outlook for the North American medium-duty market? It seemed to show more signs of life and exhibit faster growth in 2018. Just curious on what your thoughts are for that market in 2019. The class 6 and 7 market, which is where we play, was roughly 100,000 trucks in 2018, and Peterbilt and Kenworth achieved record deliveries, record market share, 17.5%. The products that we have are doing great and, just like everything else, we will continue to make investments into product enhancements as we go forward. As time goes on, more and more of our dealers get more engaged in that business. As we look at 2019, we think 100,000 trucks is probably a pretty reasonable approximation of that market for this year. Okay. Thanks, Ron. I will pass it on. Sure. Our next question comes from the line of Adam Uhlman with Cleveland Research. Your line is now open. Hi. Good morning, everybody. Morning. Yeah. I was wondering if we could chat about the MX engine. I think I heard earlier, Ron, you mentioned adding some more machining capacity. I assume that you're kind of maxed out on production today, but maybe correct me if I'm wrong. What type of growth should we expect in that business, either in terms of penetration or production rates in 2019 as that investment comes online? Yeah. We'll start making those investments in 2019. The coming online is probably 2020, and that'll be able to support the increased penetration. As we said before, the MX engine basically will support 80% of customer applications, and it just takes time to increase that penetration. We could put more in today if we had the capacity, and so that's why we're making the additional investments. We'll continue to see that penetration grow to 50%, 60% over the coming near-term period, I think. Where did we end in 2018? Yeah, just over 40% in North America. Of course, it's 100% for all the DAF products that get sold in Brazil and Europe. So, I think overall for Paccar, it's above 60% penetration for all of Paccar. Got you. Can we switch back to Europe? Could you talk about what you are seeing in used truck pricing there? Is there any difference between Western Europe or Eastern Europe? Any kind of changes would be helpful. Thank you. Yeah. Pricing is pretty steady, not seeing any appreciation, but just pretty steady. Demand, more of the used trucks tend to go towards Central and Eastern Europe, but that is also a big growth area for DAF for new trucks. DAF is the leader in the Central European markets. Steady as she goes is how I would think about it. That is what we saw in 2018, and how we are thinking about 2019 at this point. Great. Thanks. Our next question comes from the line of Scott Group with Wolfe Research. Your line is now open. Hey, good morning, good afternoon. It's Rob Salmon on for Scott. Morning, Rob. Morning, guys. In the guidance that you provide at the midpoint, it's implying roughly a little under 10% growth in the R&D budget. Could you talk about how we should be thinking about the R&D as we look out a few years in light of some of the emission standards changes as well as the investments that you guys are making into some new trucking products? And what the flexibility you guys have on that line item, if we do encounter an industry downturn in 2020? Well, the flexibility of managing cost structure is a real strength of Paccar, and we can manage that quite well. We're also making some great investments, as we always do in the products for the future. I would say incrementally, we're seeing more investment in R&D on the alternative powertrain and software development side. That's where the intellectual property is being created, and we're making those investments there. We continue to make good, strong investments in diesel powertrains. We've got emissions requirements being enhanced in really all of our markets, and so we continue to invest in those arenas, in the new products of the future that are going to get us to those market share goals that we talked about earlier. Okay. That makes sense. With the record backlog, has that given you any ability to make the pricing as well as the orders be much more firm throughout 2019, just given that we are looking at roughly a 12-month delay in terms of when a truck is ordered to when it gets produced today? The pricing has been negotiated, agreed, and it is representative of our market price and the great value that our products bring to our customers. So it is pretty well set. That makes sense. That is what we are hearing from your end customer as well here. So I appreciate the time, guys. Sure. Our next question comes from the line of Joel Tiss with BMO. Your line is now open. I love you guys too much. I can't stay away. I appreciate it, Joel. I just wondered if you could talk a little bit about your approach on autonomous. Are you guys going to outsource that whole process, or are you thinking that there's parts of that that you'd like to take control of? Or just give me a little sense in that regard of how you guys are thinking about that. Yeah, we're still working through that, Joel. We've worked with quite a few companies who are developing autonomous technology, so partnering with them, but we're also developing our own capabilities. We have our Silicon Valley Innovation Center, and we've hired software engineers specifically focusing on developing our own Level 4 capability. We're very focused on, again, sort of like alternative powertrains, trying to figure out where we want to have the intellectual property and where we want to partner with others on developing that capability. Okay. Thank you. Everything else has been asked already. Thank you. Okay. Thanks, Joel. There are no other questions in queue at this time. Are there any additional remarks from the company? We'd like to thank everyone for joining the call, and thank you, operator. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes Paccar's earnings call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.