LCI Industries - Q2 2023
August 8, 2023
Transcript
Operator (participant)
Good morning or good afternoon all, and welcome to the LCI Industries Q2 2023 Earnings Call. My name is Adam, and I'll be your operator for today. If you'd like to ask a question at the Q&A portion of today's call, you may do so by pressing Star followed by 1 on your telephone keypad. I will now hand the floor over to Lillian Etzkorn to begin. Lillian, please go ahead when you are ready.
Lillian Etzkorn (EVP and CFO)
Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the LCI Industries second quarter 2023 conference call. I am joined on the call today by Jason Lippert, President and CEO, and Kip Emenhiser, VP of Finance and Treasurer. We will discuss the results for the quarter in just a minute. First, I would like to inform you that certain statements made in today's conference call regarding LCI Industries and its operations may be considered forward-looking statements under the security laws and involve a number of risks and uncertainties. As a result, the company cautions you that there are a number of factors, many of which are beyond the company's control, which would cause actual results and events to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. These factors are discussed in our earnings release and in our Form 10-K and other filings to the SEC.
The company disclaims any obligation or undertaking to update forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events that occur after the date of the forward-looking statements are made, except as required by law. With that, I would like to turn the call over to Jason.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Thank you, Lillian. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to LCI's second quarter 2023 earnings call. We delivered solid results in the second quarter, highlighted by continued content growth and sequential margin expansion as we navigate a challenging RV operating environment. Revenues were1 billion, down 34% compared to the prior year, up 41 million sequentially. Net sales from acquisitions completed in 2023 and 2022 contributed approximately 17 million to the quarter. While revenues are down compared to the record highs we reached in 2022, our results are still $386 million above the second quarter of 2019. We continue to benefit from strength in our aftermarket international marine, transportation, and housing businesses, which made up a combined 64% of overall revenues this quarter, partially offsetting the impact from the significant year-over-year drop in RV wholesale unit shipments.
With North American RV being only 36% of our revenues this quarter, our diversified revenues are greatly helping make a difference in our results during the challenging RV environment. Coupled with our steadfast commitment to driving long-term operational improvements throughout our business while continuing to move forward with our diversification strategy, we believe we will continue our trajectory of sustained, profitable growth. Pursuing and capitalizing on operational efficiencies remains a top priority. With the flexibility we've added to our manufacturing footprint, we're able to quickly adjust capacity to match changes in demand while supporting areas in our business that are running strong. Our executive and plant leadership teams have been hard at work driving new cost-saving initiatives, driving new sourcing initiatives, and implementing hundreds of continuous improvement projects around the business to diversify and improve our overall cost structure.
We've been successful in right-sizing our overall cost structure, reducing general and administrative expenses, while also significantly bringing down inventories to drive enhanced cash generation. We continue to rationalize margins across the business and also divested a few smaller business units, focusing on better margin product lines to improve our mix. These combined actions, along with the tailwinds of lower freight and commodity costs, have strengthened our financial profile, putting us in a solid position with sufficient cash amidst ABS systems operating conditions. Needless to say, our company will be in a better position with this reduced cost structure as the industry starts to normalize in the coming quarters. Moving on to RV OEM, sales decreased 55% during the second quarter of 2023 compared to 2022, largely due to decreased wholesale shipments.
We're beginning to see improvements in dealer inventory levels, where we have been most challenged as destocking rates amongst dealers decelerate as inventories reach appropriate levels. In addition, 2022 and 2023 year vehicles are being moved out of the pipeline as 2024 models begin to enter the market just over a month ago. This changeover also creates a major buying opportunity as dealers cut prices on older models, helping bring in new RVers looking for great deals. August and September OEM order forecasts have improved slightly over prior months, a sign that they are likely hitting an inflection point in demand. Camping trends this summer are also up, with millions more taking trips this Memorial Day and Fourth of July versus 2022, against a backdrop of frustrated air travelers.
Compared to air travel and other traditional modes of vacation, are being as 35%-50% more affordable on average, according to a recent RVIA study, which makes it attractive choice in any economic environment. During the quarter, content for total RV increased 2% from the prior year to $5,487, while content for motorhome RV for the quarter increased 6% from the prior year to $3,760. The model changeover has also supported content growth in recent months. As we continue to launch new and innovative products for RVs, we are typically able to capture share and demand from the latest models, which normally feature additional leading-edge content with each successive year.
With the annual RV Open House only a month away in September, we are looking forward to showcasing some of our latest product introductions that have been driving content growth, like our new 4000 Series Windows with built-in shade systems, independent suspensions, and ABS systems, and much more. Moving to the aftermarket, revenues reached a record trailing 12 months of 854 million, decreasing only 2% year-over-year for the quarter, driven by inflationary pressures that have impacted consumer demand, partially offset by improvement in automotive end markets, which weigh positively on aftermarket results. Operating profits of the aftermarket segment expanded significantly year-over-year in the second quarter, driven by market share gains, declining commodity costs, and targeted price increases.
We believe the RV, automotive, and marine aftermarkets will continue to be a major driver for our business as we meet demand for RVers looking to make improvements and repairs to their vehicles. In addition, we feel with the hundreds of thousands of rental nights added annually through rental platforms like RVshare and Outdoorsy, repairs and upgrades will be turbocharged as many RVs go from being used just a few weeks a year to as many as 20 to 30 weeks a year for some renters. We continue to expand our wide aftermarket product catalog by launching many new product and product programs in the RV aftermarket, helping us capitalize on nearly 500,000 RVs entering the repair, replacement, and upgrade cycle annually.
As we become a premier source for our targeted aftermarket, we're continuing to expand our share in a nearly $5 billion addressable market, while strengthening the Lippert brand through our best-in-class customer service. With the support teams in place to directly engage RVers everywhere, we're able to quickly solve problems and help people spend some more time on the road rather than in a repair shop. In the month of June alone, our customer care center took a record 180,000 calls, which is up 80% over last year, which we believe is a sign that we will continue to grow as we add content and continue to make the customer experience and service a central focus of our aftermarket business. We also just announced our third annual Lippert Getaway event, which will be held in Island Park, Idaho, this September.
Our teams are always excited for the opportunity to shape the future of RVing by engaging the community and collecting valuable feedback about the products that keep them in the lifestyle. In July, our customer experience team attended the EAA AirVenture air show event in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, that attracted over 50,000 RVers. Events like these, along with other major initiatives like the Campground Project, Lippert Ambassadors, product giveaways, and Lippert Scouts, have been critical to helping us build trust and lasting relationships with customers, all while helping us create a strong community that is involved with and heavily invested in the Lippert brand. Turning to North American adjacent markets, second quarter revenues were down 8% compared to prior year, primarily due to softness in marine and manufactured housing end markets.
On a positive note, we continue to see stabilization and some growth in other meaningful adjacent markets like transit bus, school bus, and utility trailer markets. We're very focused on continued innovation in the marine markets on products like our anchor systems, thrusters, windshields, and seating, and moving the market to our patented electric bimini product lineup that is quickly becoming an industry standard since we launched it a few years ago. In June, we launched a partnership between our Captains Group and Oasis Marinas, the largest marina management company in the US, to support and donate Lippert Marine products to several events in celebration of National Marina Day. Because our brand is one of the largest product supplier brands in boats, we have our customers' attention and will continue to develop more featured products for the space.
Our international markets had another quarter of solid results due to easing supply chain constraints that have hindered our OEM partners, along with continued operating improvements as we integrate our acquisitions there, helping to drive a sales increase of 6%. As expected, with chassis shipments increasing, European OEMs are able to deliver higher levels of production to meet a pent-up demand, which we anticipate will be a tailwind through the remainder of the year. We continue to leverage European innovations in our North American RV markets to drive long-term content growth with products like window blinds, pop tops, and acrylic windows. These types of products have the potential to strengthen our competitive differentiation in the U.S. with easy access to our proven European product designs and production facilities. We look forward to driving further growth internationally as this business continues to contribute to our overall performance.
I'll now move on to our innovation highlights. In the past months, we've announced many new exciting product launches, including our Solera off-grid awnings with an industry-first solar panel fabric, the OneControl Auto Setup app, BaseCamp leveling systems, independent suspension axles, windows with integrated blind systems, glass entry doors,ABS systems. Set to launch this fall, the Solera off-grid series solar awnings will help us tap into a growing off-grid trend. These awnings provide the added benefit of up to 300 watts of solar power without the added expense and weight of installing conventional rigid panels on the roofs of RVs, redefining the possibilities of sustainable energy integration for off-grid enthusiasts. We believe that our suspension system enhancements pose one of the greatest opportunities for us as we introduce the ABS concept for towable RVs.
That has been around on auto suspensions for decades. We have developed an ABS product that we think meets price point and performance expectations and quickly mining volume that should influence many of the industry-leading brands to make a move in this direction, as many already have. Other innovations, such as the industry's first glass door and windows with integrated blinds, make for a cleaner and better-looking designs inside and outside the RV, allowing all price points to consider these options. We believe that innovation is a significant reason we have grown our business profitably through adding meaningful content to most RVs over the last three decades. On top of innovation, culture remains a true differentiator for our business.
As I've long stated, a strong culture starts with experienced and caring leaders at the top, who work to create trust and meaningful relationships and leadership opportunities for people they have the privilege to lead. Our leadership development programs and in-house leader development staff have made Lippert a place where team members have the opportunity to grow both personally and professionally. Beyond simply creating a better work environment, our cultural focus has had measurable impact on our company, helping us achieve an annualized voluntary turnover rate of 25%. An incredible achievement given the environment, putting us far ahead of our peers. With team members that are excited and energized to show up every day and here for the longer term, we believe we are able to more consistently build high-quality products in a safer, more productive workplace.
Within our culture, in addition to focusing on how we can support our team members, we also focus on how we can improve the communities around us. It's important for our stakeholders to know that we actually measure this. In the first half of 2023, Lippert team members performed 65,000 hours of community service at hundreds of charitable organizations. Over the last year, over 75% of our 15,000 team members participated in at least one serving event. Overall, we could not be more proud of these accomplishments and the efforts from our global teams to give back and serve in the areas where we operate. We look forward to bringing our teams together to make even more of a community impact through the rest of 2023.
Regarding capital allocation, our priority is keeping a strong balance sheet, driving solid cash generation to pay down debt, and maintaining sufficient liquidity amidst challenging operating conditions. We remain open to strategic M&A opportunities and have an acquisition pipeline, our primary focus is on fortifying our balance sheet and making investments in the business to support our growth. We are taking a diligent approach to CapEx, which we expect to be lower this year than last year by approximately $50 million, targeted on high return investments. In the past 18 months, we've invested over $50 million in new automation projects, including significant glass automation dedicated to the towable and motor home window and windshield markets, to drive efficiencies, get in new product markets, and improve product quality.
We believe that automation projects like these have been transformational for our business, and we are already seeing the benefit of these investments in our performance today. In closing, we want to give a very heartfelt thank you to all of our team members for their very hard work this year in what has been a very challenging operating environment. We are proud to see how our teams continue to grow personally and professionally, and contribute to the ongoing success of our business with the guidance of our driven and tenured leadership teams. Moving further into 2023, we believe we are very well positioned to keep moving forward and deliver long-term value for our stakeholders. I'm now going to turn the call over to Lillian Etzkorn, our CFO, to give more detail on our financial results. Lillian?
Lillian Etzkorn (EVP and CFO)
Thank you, Jason. Our consolidated net sales for the quarter decreased 34% to 1 billion compared to the prior year period, primarily impacted by the reduction in North American RV production and decreased selling prices, which are indexed to select commodities, partially offset by acquisitions. For the month of July, sales were down 20% to $295 million versus July of 2022, primarily due to the decline in wholesale RV shipments. As Jason noted, we are continuing to see the benefit from operational improvements that we have made to our business, while also capturing continued tailwinds from our long-term diversification strategy. While sales in North American RV OEMs declined 57%, sales in our adjacent market, aftermarket and international businesses only declined 4%. This significantly reduced the impact of the year-over-year decline in the RV industry production.
The decline in Q2 2023 sales to North American RV OEMs was again driven by a decrease in wholesale shipments, partially offset by content expansion in towables and motor homes. Content per towable RV unit increased 2% to 5,487, while content per motorized unit increased 6% to $3,760 compared to the prior year period. Towable content growth can be attributed to organic market share gains of 7%, while acquired revenues contributed 5% of the year-over-year growth, partially offset by the sales price reductions contractually tied to commodity prices. Sales to the adjacent industries declined 6% versus the prior year. Sales were positively impacted by acquisitions and pricing adjustments to our transportation products, and were offset by lower sales in North American marine, OEM, and manufactured housing.
Marine content per powerboat decreased 17% to $1,457, primarily due to price decreases associated with year-over-year declining input costs and changes in product mix. Q2 2023 sales to the aftermarket decreased 2% compared to the prior year period, driven by inflationary pressures impacting consumer demand. International sales increased 6% year-over-year, including an estimated 2% positive impact of exchange rates for the quarter. Supply chain constraints have been easing, which has enabled European OEMs to meet pent-up demand. Gross margins were 21.5% compared to 26.6% in the prior year period, primarily due to the impact of fixed production costs on lower sales volume and the timing of sales price reductions contractually tied to commodity prices.
Operating margins decreased compared to the prior year period, in line with expectations as we continue to absorb fixed costs on a lower sales base and also decreased prices indexed to select commodities. As a bright spot, we had a year-over-year increase in aftermarket margins, driven by increased material commodity costs, helping to partially offset the impact from lower overall sales. GAAP net income in Q2 of 2023 was $33.4 million, or $1.31 per diluted share, compared to 154.5 million, or $6.06 per diluted share in Q2 of 2022. EBITDA decreased 65% to $88.2 million for the second quarter compared to the prior year period.
Non-cash depreciation and amortization was $65.5 million for the six months ended June 30th, 2023, while non-cash stock-based compensation expense was $9.1 million for the same period. We anticipate depreciation and amortization in the range of $130 million-$140 million during the full year of 2023. For the 6 months ended June 30th, 2023, cash generated from operating activities was $274 million, with $34 million used for capital expenditures, $26 million used for business acquisitions, and $53 million returned to the shareholders in the form of dividends. Operating cash flows were negatively impacted by lower sales partially offset by the positive changes in working capital.
The improvements in working capital were led by the initiatives we put in place to decrease inventory, which has resulted in a decrease of $200 million year to date. As inventories continue to normalize, we expect further improvements to working capital and positive impact to cash flow. We have made net debt repayments on our long-term debt of $179 million year to date through June 30th. At the end of the second quarter, we had an outstanding net debt position of $921 million, 3.1x pro forma EBITDA, adjusted to include LTM EBITDA of acquired businesses and the impact of other non-cash items. As we look forward, we are focused on continuing to maintain a strong balance sheet and targeting a long-term leverage of 1.5x net debt to EBITDA.
In the near term, we are working to integrate recently completed acquisitions, which we expect to positively impact our operating cash flows in the coming quarters. For the full year of 2023, capital expenditures are anticipated in the range of $60 million-$80 million. We continue to expect that RV production levels will remain volatile in the short term. We estimate our July consolidated sales of down roughly 20% to be indicative of third quarter of 2023 results, as RV OEM production remains suppressed as dealers continue destocking to get inventories to more appropriate levels. We anticipate Q3 of 2023 RV shipments will be between 65,000 and 75,000 units, with a full year estimated range of 290,000-310,000 units. We believe third quarter financial results will be very similar to the second quarter.
Looking ahead, we are confident in our ability to keep up our solid performance and are very well positioned to continue managing through operational challenges to create long-term shareholder value. With that, this is the end of our prepared remarks, and we're ready to take questions.
Operator (participant)
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question today, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. When preparing to ask your question, please ensure your headset is fully plugged in and unmuted locally. Our first question today comes from Kathryn Thompson from the Thompson Research Group. Kathryn, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Kathryn Thompson (Analyst)
Hi, thanks for taking my question today. This is just really more about the balance of going into the Elkhart Open House and where inventory is in the field right now. Have you seen, you know, we sort of seen this earlier this year, but are you seeing dealers stretch out orders to a degree before the Open House and are maybe running a little bit leaner in hopes of waiting, placing orders for new units? Or do you feel that inventory right now really reflects current demand? Just really kind of understanding how you think about inventory is going into that show.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Thanks, Kathryn. Hey, I think that it's more the latter of what you just said. I think that, you know, obviously, dealers get to a point where their inventories are so low, where they need to order and need to stay stacked up. You know, dealer inventories have obviously, you know, decelerated the destocking, they're still destocked. I mean, the way we've looked at it is, you know, from Q1 2020, when we felt inventories were fairly normalized, you know, we're about 85,000 units, almost 100,000 units less today in this quarter than what we were back then. It feels, and again, I'm just giving you our, our feeling, yards are empty here. The shipyards at the OEMs are pretty empty.
You know, you go back just 12 months ago, they were, they were chock-full. Their, the orders have, have ticked up. You know, it feels like 10% or so for August and September. Like, they need units because the last, you know, the last handful of months have obviously been. We've been pretty starved for orders. It feels like, you know, they need some of those units to get through Open House, and then we're anticipating, you know, we're anticipating, you know, continued to stock up, as Camping World said in their, their recent, recent release, that they were going to continue to stock through the next 6 months and gain inventory. That's what it feels like.
Kathryn Thompson (Analyst)
Okay. That ties into cash generation. You know, you previously said that inventory, you know, obviously, inventory and cash go hand in hand, especially if you have inventory build-up, but with lower inventory and the debt reduction, are key bogeys that you're, you're focused on. From here, what is your outlook on inventory to cash conversion and, and uses?
Lillian Etzkorn (EVP and CFO)
Yeah. Hey, good morning, Kathryn. It's Lillian. As, you noted, we've done some significant reductions in our inventory. Year-to-date, we've reduced it by about $200 million. We are gonna look to continue to reduce inventory through the second half of the year. Probably not at that type of pace, but we are gonna still continue to rightsize our inventories as we move forward. We've had very strong cash generation in the first half of the year. Expect that we're gonna continue to be generating cash as we move into this next half. The company's been positioned very solidly and very focused on cash generation, and that's going to be something that we will continue to be working towards for the balance of the year.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
It feels, it feels like if volume stays up as we kind of see the trend for August to September, what we have, you know, immediately, immediate visibility for, obviously we can, we can reduce inventory at a quicker clip than what we have the last couple of months. July was obviously a little slow. Again, if August, September, rest of the year pick up, we can, move inventory out and generate more cash.
Kathryn Thompson (Analyst)
Okay. Then final question: Can you touch on any of your updated automation efforts, just where you are?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah.
Kathryn Thompson (Analyst)
And given lower production rates, is this an opportunity to speed up some of those initiatives?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah. We've obviously squeezed CapEx this year, for obvious reasons. We had quite a few projects flowing into the year, that were carryovers from 2022. Probably most notable is, is our, our, our glass automation that we're doing for windshields, which will be a new product line for us, for, for towable and motorized RVs. Especially in the towables, the, the, the windshields have really ticked up over the last few years. You know, you, you see in probably about 30% of the, the towables now with windshields on the, on the fronts, where they didn't have anything, in prior years. So, you know, we've got automation for those two lines. I'd say we've, we've probably got $40 million of automation in one building for glass now.
Half of that is online, the other half is coming online over the next, you know, six to eight months. We've got other projects that we've, you know, we've got on the back burner, warming up for 2024 as soon as cash improves.
Kathryn Thompson (Analyst)
Okay, perfect. Excellent. Thanks very much.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah. Thanks, Catherine.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Fred Wightman from Wolfe Research. Fred, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Fred Wightman (Director, Equity Research)
Hey, guys. Good morning. I just wanted to follow up on the comment about 3Q being similar to 2Q. I wasn't sure if that was a comment in terms of total dollar performance, so sales, EBITDA, earnings. Was that a comment on year-over-year performance? What, what exactly did you mean by that?
Lillian Etzkorn (EVP and CFO)
Hey, good morning, Fred. It's Lillian. Yes, what, what I was referencing with that really is comparability to the second quarter of this year's performance, you know, both from the top line perspective and the overall earnings for the business.
Fred Wightman (Director, Equity Research)
Okay, perfect. Then did you guys... I apologize if I missed it. Did you give an updated retail number for, for 2023?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
I don't know if we did or not, you know, we, we feel the retail for this year is gonna be somewhere in the 375 range, and we feel, you know, 375-400 for 2024. That's kind of what we're throwing out. I think that's in line with some of the other public companies that have stated their, the forecast.
Fred Wightman (Director, Equity Research)
Okay, great. Then just lastly, I think last quarter you said from an inventory mix perspective, model year 22 was, like, 35%. Do you have an updated number for that, sort of where it stands today?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Can, can you repeat that again, Fred?
Fred Wightman (Director, Equity Research)
The, just the mix of model year 22s. I think last quarter you said it was around 35%.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah. Yeah, it, it feels, it feels in, in doing all the dealer touches and talking to all the OEMs, that it's nearing the 10% mark. You know, some dealers have, you know, 15% that we've touched, and others, others are in the 5, 3%-5% range. It's definitely declining pretty good. With, and with, with respect to the, you know, the performance, I just want to be clear that, you know, while we're, while we're challenged in the, the times recently with lower volumes, we, you know, we feel very confident, as we've, we've stated in, in past years, that, that this is a, a double-digit OI business.
We will get back there, but there's some, there's some choppiness in just volume and, you know, getting through some of our inventory challenges and things like that over the next couple quarters. Just wanted to be clear about that.
Fred Wightman (Director, Equity Research)
Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Mike Swartz, from Truist Securities. Mike, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Mike Swartz (Director, Equity Research)
Yeah, hey, good morning, everyone. Just maybe for, for Lillian, a question: I, I think previously you had said you anticipated, you know, mid to high single-digit operating margins for the full year. I think you're implying kind of mid-single-digit again for the third quarter. Do you have an update there? It seems like it'd be probably at the lower end of the range, but I, I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Lillian Etzkorn (EVP and CFO)
Yeah. No, I think that's probably fair. As we're seeing how the cadence for volume coming through and as we're seeing the RV cadencing and, and what have you through the balance of the year, it probably is, you know, more at that mid-single digit for this year. As Jason just commented just immediately previously, you know, we do still see this business on a longer-term basis being a double-digit OI business. It's just taking a little bit of time as, as we get into more normalized operating patterns for the industry to get there.
Mike Swartz (Director, Equity Research)
Gotcha. Okay. And then just a, a point of clarification, I think you said your, your kind of visibility into August and September RV production looks better than past months. I'm guessing you're talking about maybe June and July. Was that on-
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah
Mike Swartz (Director, Equity Research)
a year-over-year base, or was that absolute production levels? I just want to clarify that.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Well, I think, I think one of the things that we want, you know, we want a lot of the investors to understand specifically is the, the ramp down that we've seen over the last, you know, you go back to, you know, April of 2022, just over a year ago, you know, we were on a run rate of 725,000 units as an industry. That was what-- if you annualize the monthly production in April, that's what we were kind of shooting toward. If you look to, you know, one year later in April 2023, we're, you know, running at a 260,000 run rate.
You know, the deceleration of the business is a lot greater than what it might have looked at from the outside, saying, "Hey, we finished, you know, 2022 at a 500,000 unit wholesale, and 2023, looking at a, at a 300,000+ unit wholesale." The difference is a lot greater. Yeah, I think that what, what we have visibility on today, August and September being up, we should get into better comps, obviously, significantly better comps, you know, as we get closer to first quarter. Right now, all we have visibility on is August and September, and it feels like 10, 10% over what we saw in May, June, and July, which had, you know, several weeks of downtime in all three of those months, more than, more than normal for those months.
I, I hope that answered your question. If not, we can keep trying.
Mike Swartz (Director, Equity Research)
Okay. Nope, nope. That, that, that's helpful. Thanks, Jason.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Okay.
Operator (participant)
The next question is from Bret Jordan, from Jefferies. Brett, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Bret Jordan (Analyst)
Yeah, on that prior topic, I guess you'd said Q3 is similar to Q2, but it sounds like most of Q3 is going to be running better than Q2, or is that just better year-over-year? I'm trying to reconcile the August and September being up, versus the second quarter.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think we've got some puts and takes with our diversified businesses. That might be where some of the clarity needs to be. You look at August and Europe, you know, they take the entire month down, where you look at, you know, Q2, we had a pretty robust quarter for Europe. You got to look at all the different industries and segments independently. For the RV segment, I think is what we're speaking to, is we see orders at least for August and September, not knowing what October is going to be yet.
Still there, there's, you know, we can't be certain that they don't come back, after, you know, after Open House or even in the next few weeks and say, "Hey, we need to take a week down in September." Just telling you what we see today.
Lillian Etzkorn (EVP and CFO)
Yeah, maybe, Bret, building on that a little-
Bret Jordan (Analyst)
Sorry, go ahead.
Lillian Etzkorn (EVP and CFO)
Oh. Brett, just to expand a little bit on that from a sequential perspective, as we look at some of the other, other industries, I think it is important to note that, you know, Europe, generally speaking, is, is lighter from a seasonality perspective for Q3 because of the shutdowns that we have in the various countries. The other area that, that we're seeing softness, as expected, is in the marine side of the business. That, that was down a little bit sequentially in the second quarter, and as we progress through into the third quarter, that's also going to be down again sequentially. Again, to, to the point that everything kind of the puts and takes, we are seeing strength in, you know, certain areas. Clearly, you know, clearly, some of these adjacent markets are being puts and takes with the RV.
Bret Jordan (Analyst)
Okay. What's the second half impact from commodities? I mean, what you can see in price deals that you have now?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah, we've, we've got, I mean, again, lots of, lots of, you know, positives and negatives there. We have some commodity, pricing going down. We have some that are going up. We have commodity indexes, where some of our pricing to customers is, is going up, some of it's going down. Again, overall, you know, I think that it's a, it's a pretty net neutral result. We'll know, we'll know more about Q4 next, next quarter, but that's kind of, kind of where we're at.
Bret Jordan (Analyst)
Okay.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Does that-
Bret Jordan (Analyst)
One last question: the outlook on sort of content as the OEs, the manufacturers are rolling out the 2024s, is there a bias to sort of try to get consumer prices lower by, on average, moving content down? Or is it, you know, sort of trying to make them more appealing by moving content up? Is there any shift there?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah, I mean, definitely the, the shift is to, to, as you've, as you've heard maybe from some of the other public calls, that, you know, there's a, there's a real, real push to get pricing down as pricing crept up over the last couple of years. Some of that's coming through decontenting, some of that's coming through just pure discounting. You know, when I look at our products, and I've said this, me, in the past, but, I think it's helpful to repeat it, that, you know, when, when a unit's taking a, a slide out, or axles, or a chassis, there's not really much that, that changes from a content standpoint on that. Because they need those products, you know, windows, awnings, you know, you can't really build units without those.
They're decontenting largely on product, a lot of products that we don't sell. When I think about our products and decontenting, the only time we get, we get a little pinched is when the market tends to go from high-end units to entry-level units or, you know, bigger travel trailers to smaller travel trailers, and the market shifts that way. Which, you know, we're seeing a little bit of, especially, you know, when you look at, you know, big Class A motor homes and diesel motor homes, those are certainly taking the biggest hit. Again, it's a, it's a small overall part of the entire market. I hope that's helpful.
Daniel Moore (Partner, Director of Research)
Great. Yeah, great, thank you.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yep.
Operator (participant)
The next question comes from Scott Stember from Roth MKM. Scott, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Scott Stember (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)
Good morning, guys, and thanks for taking my questions.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Morning.
Scott Stember (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)
Can we go, go back to the content conversation? Sounds like you won't be as impacted by decontenting. You know, factoring everything in, where do you see organic content growing? I know you've been in a 3%-5% range as a goal, right? Do we still stay there?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think if you, if I think if you peel out inflation and, and, and those pressures, you know, certainly, you know, our goal is to continue to add bells and whistles and features to existing products, and then continue to come out with, with new product lineups. You know, we've been doing that for the better part of 20 years and been pretty successful. I'd, I'd also add that, you know, we haven't, we haven't lost market share during this time, so, you know, it's another strength we've got as we tend to tend to continue to keep, you know, our market share, pretty level or grow it over time. You know, given all that, I think that that's a, a still a, a fairly safe assumption, again, netting out any kind of inflationary issues and things like that.
Scott Stember (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)
All right. Then looking at the marine side, getting a little bit softer than the previous quarters, but could you maybe just flesh that out, pontoon versus more expensive types of boats?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think that, you know, obviously, you know, we sell a lot of, a lot into the pontoons, but we sell, you know, we sell a lot of windshields to all the, all the bigger boats as well, so we have some decent content there. I think because over the last couple of years, they just, as, as you all know, they haven't ramped the marine business hasn't ramped up as high and as fast and to the levels that RV did compared to where they were. We feel that this cycle's gonna be relatively short-lived. Most of the OEM customers we talk to, you know, are talking, you know, first quarter to get some of the inventory flushed out.
The, you know, I don't feel that the dealers have the same type of problem or the, the size of the problem with marine inventory that the RV dealers had with the RV inventory, and especially on the towable side.
Scott Stember (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)
All right, and then last question on the aftermarket. You talked about your customer call centers having a tremendous increases of inbound calls. Can you maybe talk about, you know, where is that coming from? Is that related to repair work, break, fix, or? What are you hearing from dealers as far as, you know, you know, warranty and, and things like that?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah. Yeah, sure. That's a great question. It's, yeah, 180,000, 180,000 calls and communications in each of the last two months. You know, we, if you look over the last, you know, 10 or so years, that we've really had our, our call center running and running full tilt, and we, you know, we really rarely had a quarter, you know, that had less service impact and, and calls than the prior quarter. You know, we put more RVs out there, we're gonna get more calls. We put more content out there, we're gonna get more calls.
I think the other thing that leads to, to more calls and opportunities is the fact that, you know, I think we're servicing better than anybody else in the industry, so we tend to get calls when, you know, maybe other people's lines are busy. We're monitoring every single call, how quickly we answer, how much we're, we're putting toward, you know, sales on each of those calls. There are sales efforts, obviously, in each of those calls, even if it comes in for repair. To answer your question on repairs, it's, you know, my guess would be, you know, 65%-70% of the calls come in for service, repairs, warranty, things like that. The rest are, "Hey, I'm thinking about getting this or that product from my RV. You know, where do I, where do I get it?
How do I get it? How do I get it installed?" Then we've got service to handle, to handle all of those things. You know, in our best estimation, the calls into our service center are gonna continue to grow over time, especially as we put more RVs and more content out there. Which is, which is good for our aftermarket, one of the reasons why it's growing like it has.
Scott Stember (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)
Got it. That's all I have. Thank you.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Thanks, Scott.
Operator (participant)
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question, that's star followed by one on your telephone keypad. The next question is from Daniel Moore, from CJS Securities. Daniel, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Daniel Moore (Partner, Director of Research)
Thank you. Good morning, Jason. Morning, Lillian. covered a lot of ground already-
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Morning
Daniel Moore (Partner, Director of Research)
Maybe just 1 or 2 quick ones. The decontenting, decontenting discussion, maybe if we take that over to marine, content was down, I think I heard 17%. What was the split between price and mix, and do you anticipate mix being maybe a little bit more of a headwind, at least near term, you know, if customers are looking for kinda lower price point, lower amenity models?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Well, they're, they're looking for some of those exact numbers. I'll, I'll say a couple things. One is, you know, we just started measuring marine content, you know, within the last year, so some of those numbers might just be fuzzy because we're starting to-- just starting to measure it. Certainly, some of that's inflationary because we have given some decreases. But I would tell you that just when we look at the pontoon market, and Forest River had their, their dealer show just the other day, I mean, the pontoon boats feel like they're, they're as expensive as they've ever been, in terms of what, what dealers are looking to buy. You don't see very many of the, you know, the entry-level, you know, $30,000 pontoons anymore like you used to.
I mean, there's a lot of, a lot of pontoons that are in the, you know, $70,000-$100,000 range. You know, with lots of bells and whistles and feature. You look at electric biminis, you look at some of the power arches. Obviously, they're putting more windshields on pontoons today, which they didn't do in the past. Seating packages that we do a lot of are getting more expensive. I, I, I'd say that that's probably the best, the best color we can give you there, and maybe the, the color will become more clear in future quarters as we get more time under our belt reporting the, the content.
Daniel Moore (Partner, Director of Research)
Daniel, that's, that's helpful.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Daniel?
Daniel Moore (Partner, Director of Research)
Maybe, you know, one A and one B on, on capital allocation. CapEx, as you mentioned, you know, tightening the belt a little bit. Are there projects that you deem as less necessary, or maybe just sort of pushing things out to fiscal 2024 when things get a little bit clearer?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah, I'd say that we're just, we're just pushing them out. I mean, all the projects that we've got on the, the, the block right now are, we feel are important. You know, we wouldn't, we wouldn't put them on. We'd, we'd deprioritize them. You know, some of those projects are automation projects, so, those usually take priority because, you know, we're improving our, our labor and quality and safety, all while, you know, putting, putting these CapEx in place. You know, when we look at last year at $130-ish million in CapEx, and this year at $65, we're just trying to put the most important, important projects. Sixty-five-ish million in CapEx this year is, is what we look to be at.
You know, we're just trying to prioritize the most important ones we can do in that, in that range.
Daniel Moore (Partner, Director of Research)
Makes sense. Lastly, appreciate the color, Lillian. You mentioned your leverage target 1.5 times again. Would you want to get back down, you know, 90%-100% of the way there or all the way there before you kind of start looking at M&A again? If you made meaningful progress, would you start to consider smaller tuck-ins along the way? Thank you.
Lillian Etzkorn (EVP and CFO)
Yeah, no, I think it's I think what I would want to see is that we're making meaningful progress. We're always going to be looking for opportunities from an M&A perspective to the extent that, you know, it makes sense for the business and it's strategically aligned with our objectives. If the right opportunity came forward and we were making meaningful progress, then, you know, I'd be comfortable doing that. You know, I'd say for right now, as we've stated, you know, really focused on making sure that the balance sheet is very strong and it supports us, basically. Always willing to, to entertain opportunities as long as we're making that progress.
Daniel Moore (Partner, Director of Research)
Makes sense. Thank you again.
Lillian Etzkorn (EVP and CFO)
Thank you.
Operator (participant)
The next, the next question comes from Craig Kennison from Baird. Craig, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Craig Kennison (Senior Research Analyst and Director of Research Operations)
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question as well. It's been a good call. I think I have a decent handle on stocking trends in the RV channel and then in the marine channel. Wondering if there's any color you can shed or any light you can shed on any stocking trends in your aftermarket channel?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah, it's real difficult, Craig, you know, to, to answer that question, in a way that's gonna provide you any kind of better color than maybe what, what we already- what you already have. I would say that the trends typically, typically follow the, the retail unit, you know, the retail unit trend. You know, when the, the dealers are, are, you know, challenged a little bit, they're typically holding back on those, those inventories. There's also the, you know, the factor that you have with, you know, when, when retail slows down and, and people are moving more used product, they're tending to, to use a little bit more of aftermarket parts to upgrade and things like that. Obviously, we sell a lot of those. You know, all I can tell you is that our...
You know, you look at our, our quarter, you know, we're, we're 2% down, which, you know, is a lot better than obviously what the market's doing. I think a lot of that, as we continue to just put more content into the, into the channels, the aftermarket channels, you know, our, our automotive side is a factor to that. That's, that's been bumping up a little bit recently. It was a little bit challenged in, in past quarters. Then you've got the, the marine channel as well. You've kind of got three channels in aftermarket when you look at that number, you know, you know, versus just, you know, our RV OEM, which is strictly RV. Is that helpful?
Craig Kennison (Senior Research Analyst and Director of Research Operations)
It is. Thank you, Jason. Just an unrelated question, hopped on a little late, but did you offer any commentary on your appetite for acquisitions in this environment?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah, I think, you know, we're obviously staying super diligent on the CapEx side, and we're just, you know, looking at companies. We've got a pipeline. You know, we're pushing some of those out right now for obvious reasons, but, you know, I don't, I don't anticipate when we get back to 2024. I mean, M&A is still an important part of our growth strategy. We're still gonna continue to look at acquisitions as actively as we have in the past. It might look a little bit different as we look more to marine and aftermarket and a little bit less in RV. It just depends on what presents itself. We're gonna stay active.
Mike Swartz (Director, Equity Research)
Great. Thank you.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
More tuck-ins, more tuck-ins likely that are smaller like we've, like we've announced this year. We announced 2, 2 smaller deals. If those types of things come along, obviously, those would be easier to consider.
Mike Swartz (Director, Equity Research)
That's helpful. Thank you, Jason.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yep. See you, Craig.
Operator (participant)
The next question is from from Daniel Moore D.A. Davidson. Daniel Moore, your line is open. Please go ahead.
Brandon Rolle (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)
Good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I just had a quick one on the labor situation in Elkhart. Could you comment on the availability and maybe competition for labor as the industry starts to ramp up production?
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah, sure. I'll start by saying it's, it's a little bit of a mystery to me. We are having obviously one of the biggest downturns in RV the industry's ever seen. This, this community is, you know, pretty heavily relying on that industry. Different than 2008, 2009, I mean, and I've, I've talked to a lot of people recently, I haven't heard, you know, I haven't heard a lot of people screaming and complaining that they can't find work. You know, there, there's a lot of people, obviously, that have, you know, done, done really well. The RV workforce probably that, you know, are comfortable staying for a period at this kind of four-day workweek level.
You know, unlike the last, you know, big dip we had, we're just not hearing about a lot of people having trouble finding jobs. I think the other industries in the area are finally getting some of the labor that they need, and a lot of those businesses are doing okay. You know, this, you know, this industry, or the economy in general, is still growing a little bit. You know, there's the RV industry, you know, is struggling right now and has for the last 12 months. You know, it's good to know that people seem to be sticking around. Long answer to the question, hopefully that's helpful.
Brandon Rolle (Managing Director, Senior Research Analyst)
Yep. Thank you.
Operator (participant)
We have no further questions, so I'll turn the call back to Jason for concluding remarks.
Jason Lippert (President and CEO)
Yeah. I just want to thank everybody for joining the call. Obviously, it's been a year of dealing with some of the RV challenges, but it feels like we're starting to see some of the light at the end of the tunnel. We look forward to updating you on that over the next couple quarters. Thanks for joining the call.
Operator (participant)
This concludes today's call. Thank you very much for your attendance. You may now disconnect your-