Watsco - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 was seasonally soft and mixed: revenue fell 2% year over year to $1.53B, EPS declined to $1.93 from $2.17, while gross margin expanded 60bps to 28.1% and operating margin was 7.3%.
• Core U.S. residential replacement was strong (+10% y/y; +12% on a same‑day non‑GAAP basis), offset by weakness in international (−9%) and non‑equipment/commercial categories; management cited improved sales/margin trends ahead of the summer season.
• The A2L refrigerant transition is underway (affecting ~55% of sales); Watsco is converting nearly $1B of inventory, implemented April price increases via its tech stack, and targets a 30% gross margin over time.
• Results missed Wall Street consensus on revenue and EPS; management flagged mid‑single‑digit domestic growth in early Q2 and stable margins, with pricing actions largely via list increases rather than surcharges [GetEstimates]*.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Core U.S. residential replacement sales grew 10% (12% same‑day) aided by new customers, unit growth, pricing, higher‑efficiency mix, and improved gross margins.
• Gross margin improved 60bps to 28.1% despite a mixed demand backdrop, reflecting favorable mix and early transition dynamics.
• Execution on A2L transition and pricing: “The transition to the new A2L products is well underway…strength in sales, margins and improved efficiency mix in our core replacement market” (CEO); management reiterated a long‑term goal of ~30% gross margin.

What Went Wrong

• International sales fell 9% (9% of total), and non‑equipment and commercial product categories were down; commercial products declined ~10% y/y amid transition timing.
• Seasonality plus one fewer selling day weighed on the quarter (management noted ~2% sales impact), amplifying the effect of mixed demand and transition cadence in a small quarter.
• Street misses on EPS, revenue, and EBITDA versus consensus (see Estimates Context), reflecting transition frictions and category softness [GetEstimates]*.

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Good day and welcome to the Watsco first quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your questions, please press star then two. Please note this event has been recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Albert Nahmad, Chief Executive Officer. Thank you. Over to you sir.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning everyone. Welcome to Watsco's first quarter 2025 earnings call. This is Albert Nahmad, Chairman and CEO, and with me is A.J. Nahmad, President, Paul Johnston, Barry Logan, and Rick Gomez.

Before we start our cautionary statement, this conference call has forward looking statements as defined by SEC laws and regulations that are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of these various laws. Ultimate results may differ materially from the forward looking statements. Moving on to our report, Watsco reported a good first quarter. We have a lot of positive things going on related to the transition of products to the new A2L system. They will ultimately impact around 55% of our total sales. Our teams are working to convert nearly $1 billion in inventory. We have trained thousands of customers and we have updated our technology platforms to provide the needed functionality to our customers ahead of the selling season. Similar regulatory mandates have occurred every 10 to 15 years and have historically been good for business.

The new systems offer solutions to homeowners and businesses that are both more efficient and more sustainable and provide enhanced sales and profitability for both us and our customers. In terms of trends, our core HVAC replacement business is off to a strong start. Sales in replacement systems, the core of our business, increased 10% on higher volumes, new pricing was introduced and realized in the market, and we also sold a richer mix of high efficiency systems. Gross margins also improved, an important benchmark following the launch of the new systems, which continues to be an area of future opportunity. I want to emphasize that the first quarter is the smallest and most seasonal quarter of the year, and while they deserved early in the selling season, recent sales and margin trends have improved.

Looking forward, we expect the benefits of the new A2L products will become proportionally larger over the remainder of the year, especially during the seasonally stronger second and third quarters. Our balance sheet remains in pristine condition with $430 million in cash, no debt and over $3 billion in equity. We raised our annual dividend 11% to $12 per share in April. 2025 marks our 51st consecutive year of paying dividends. Now, turning to current events, we are carefully monitoring the potential impact of proposed tariffs on our business. On the domestic front, which represents 91% of first quarter sales, we are collaborating closely with our OEM partners on current and future pricing actions that may be required as folks. In response to the tariffs, we see greater uncertainty for 9% of our sales that are in Canada and Latin America.

We will act and react as needed to grow sales and profitability in those markets. Big picture, we possess the scale, the technology, and the relationship to act quickly and efficiently to these changing market conditions. As always, we feel it's important to keep the long term perspective in mind. Watsco has delivered superior long term returns over most any time period. We are the market leaders in a highly fragmented $74 billion distribution market. The products we sell are a necessity and the installed base continues to grow. We have deep collaborative relationships with the industry leaders, OEMs, we offer the broadest product variety, and operate the largest network. Our unique ownership culture, which is shared by more than 4,000 employees, rewards and incentivizes long term performance.

As always, we invite you to come and visit in Miami if you want to learn more and share the continued optimism that we have for our company. With that, let's turn to Q and A.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you are using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. If at any time your question has been addressed and you would like to withdraw your question, please press star then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Stephen Volkmann from Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Stephen Volkmann (CFA and Equity Analyst)

Wow. First, good morning everybody. Thank you for taking the question. Maybe I'll dive in on the residential side. I think you said plus 10%.

Can you give us a sense of what you're seeing? You know how much of that was kind of R-454B versus 410A and how the pricing kind of layered into that?

Paul Johnston (VP)

Yeah, most what we saw in the first quarter was 410A. We only had about 20-25% of it that came out as 454. When you look at the residential, what we were talking about being up over 10% is the replacement market, not the new construction. The bulk of that in the first quarter was 410A. Early in the second quarter we're starting to see the transition over to the A2L product and hopefully that'll continue as the summer goes on because we're going to be out of 410 probably by the end of the quarter.

Stephen Volkmann (CFA and Equity Analyst)

Okay, great.

Maybe just following up, we've seen a fair amount of price that's come through from a variety of suppliers across the industry and traditionally that drives your gross margin a little bit higher, at least in the near term. Is there any reason to think we shouldn't see that happening as the year progresses?

Paul Johnston (VP)

I think after April. April is when we had the two big price increases from the OEM. That could be an impact obviously in our gross margin. In the first quarter we were fairly clean as far as price increases. Most of the improvement in the gross margin really was related to the segment mix that we had, moving more towards add-on replacement, less towards commercial, less towards residential new construction.

Stephen Volkmann (CFA and Equity Analyst)

Understood, thank you. I'll pass it on.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from David Manthey with Baird. Please go ahead.

David Manthey (Senior Research Analyst)

Good morning. Hi, Al. As it relates to the top line, it seems international was weak but really not big enough to move the needle. What Paul just said about the mix and that along with other HVAC products being somewhat weak, parts and supplies. I understand, but should we read into this that residential new construction, even though it's less significant for you guys, was substantially softer year to year and are you holding share there, do you think?

Barry Logan (EVP of Planning and Strategy and Secretary)

I mean, I'll give some insight. Go ahead, let's get some insight to it. First, we don't really do the algebra for you, but there is one less sales day in the quarter. That has actually a bigger impact than new construction does, by the way, in terms of algebra.

The new construction element of it is also a choice being made by the contractors that do work for builders in the quarter to use 410A or wait to use 454B upon availability. There is some disparity in how a market like that this time of year operates in terms of this transition. The other reality, Dave, as you know, is we're a 40% larger business in the second quarter. New housing, which is relatively equal in four quarters, has a bigger impact in this small quarter and should have less of an impact over time. I think also there's some backlog that's built that will consume 454B and as time goes on.

Paul Johnston (VP)

I don't think there was a. I don't think we've lost any share in the new construction market. I think we're still, you know, where we do it, we do it well.

I think it had more of an impact on the supply side than it did on the equipment side.

David Manthey (Senior Research Analyst)

That's good to hear. Pressing on gross margin a little bit here too. As you think about the transition of refrigerant and along with the kind of the mix driven by seasonality and so forth. Then you've got these, what I assume are apples to apples, kind of tariff driven and general price increases. We're seeing, as you pointed out in April, Paul, as we think about the normal cadence of gross margin from first quarter through the year, just directionally and bigger than a breadbox, can you tell us, do you think it'll be less of a degradation as we move forward because of those positive factors that are rolling in here?

Paul Johnston (VP)

Wow, that's a lot of questions.

I wish I could see that far out in the future.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Let me give you an aspirational goal that we've stated before. Watsco is working to achieve its goal of 30% gross profit margin. That's where we think we're headed. I don't know when we're going to get there, but we're working to achieve that and we have several different ideas on how to get there. Now, do we have short term changes to that? Yeah, but that's our goal and we aspire to it.

David Manthey (Senior Research Analyst)

Fair enough, guys. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Jeffrey Sprague with Vertical Research.

Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Sprague (Managing Partner and Senior Analyst)

Thank you. Good morning, everyone.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Morning.

Jeffrey Sprague (Managing Partner and Senior Analyst)

Good morning. Interesting times, no doubt. Hope everybody's doing well. Just wanted to kind of think about sort of the cadence of what the OEMs are, you know, are doing on, on the price side.

I think you said you're collaborating closely with them. You know, just got off call with Key Player. They said price has gone up twice here just in the last several weeks or so. Maybe just give some view on how this collaboration is working, how the lags of getting price through into the channel and whether you are seeing any kind of negative demand response, given the magnitude of price that's coming through the pipeline.

Paul Johnston (VP)

No, I don't think we're seeing any real pushback yet from the customers. It's such a newsworthy subject, the tariffs that I think most contractors and consumers were assuming that there's going to be higher prices. How much of that price is being relayed to the consumer. We really don't have visibility to that. The OEMs have been very prudent as far as getting the price increases out.

We have the technology to go ahead and implement the price increases instantaneously. So it really hasn't been that much of an issue to date. We'll have to wait and see what happens in Q2 and Q3 as far as how long these price increases stay and what the impact has on the consumer.

Jeffrey Sprague (Managing Partner and Senior Analyst)

Is there a mechanism in place or should we expect if the tariff pressure changes that, you know, this will feed back into the market as some relief on price, you know, how much of the price is, you know, surcharge, which is visible and could go away versus what might be in the base and you know, what you might be able to maintain even if there is some tariff release.

Paul Johnston (VP)

Yeah, there is, you know, outside of one manufacturer, I think every, every pricing, every pricing action by every manufacturer right now is a price increase. It's not a surcharge.

Jeffrey Sprague (Managing Partner and Senior Analyst)

Okay, thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Tommy Moll from Stephens. Please go ahead.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Morning, Tommy.

Tommy Moll (Equity Research Analyst)

Morning, All. Thanks for taking my questions. In the earnings release. And I think as Paul just mentioned, you talked about being able to leverage the technology to quickly, if not instantaneously, implement some of these price increases. But I want to unpack what other levers you have with the technology because as you discussed before, it's not just one standard increase across your entire customer base. You have to be a lot more nimble.

In this environment of OEM price increases, what additional capabilities do you have through the technology to really customize, if not profitize some of that at the branch level?

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

A.J., you want to share that?

Aaron Nahmad (President)

Yeah, yeah, I'll take that one. My instinct to that answer is, I don't mean this to be flippant, but it's infinite because the technology we put in place, what it does is provide visibility and tooling for world class analysts to see opportunities across all of our business units and collectively as an enterprise. Just for an example, you know, and this is an environment where there are raising prices, which by the way, there are and there will be from not just our major equipment manufacturers, but from the thousand parts and supplies manufacturers that we buy products from.

Just to give you a sense of the scale, it's a thousand parts and, excuse me, a thousand manufacturers of products. We sell products to 100,000 contractors. It's not too hyperbolic to say that we have a different price for every product for every customer almost. The tooling enables that sort of intricacies and being dynamic and seeing where there are opportunities to raise prices to a market level that you see customers of a particular segment or size buying at, which perhaps needs to be adjusted for others or the other way around. Perhaps we're out of market with the price and we need to get in line so that we can effectuate more sales. Just, I mean, again, as a small example, say we sell products A, B, C in one market. Take Miami.

We probably sell it in 20 locations here to several thousand customers at several thousand prices. If you put that on a histogram, the spread is too big. Right. If we can put a floor and a ceiling and do some intricate analytics, we can affect margin impacts as well.

Tommy Moll (Equity Research Analyst)

Thank you, A.J. As a follow up, I wanted to ask for a little more detail on the early selling season trends. Al, you mentioned that there's been some improvement. While we're all here live, I wanted to just give the opportunity to give any questions, quantification there or additional insight into what you were referencing there. Thank you.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Barry, you want to deal with that?

Barry Logan (EVP of Planning and Strategy and Secretary)

Sure. Again, I'll focus on domestic.

We've said that international is still probably greater uncertainty, but if I address the domestic 91% of our business, it's mid single digit growth thus far in the quarter.

Tommy Moll (Equity Research Analyst)

Great, I appreciate it. I'll turn it back.

Barry Logan (EVP of Planning and Strategy and Secretary)

And if I add a sentence to that. Margins are behaving well additionally.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Ryan Merkel with William Blair. Please go ahead.

Ryan Merkel (Analyst)

Morning. Hey everyone. Good morning. I guess I'm going to follow up on that last question. I guess it sounds like we shouldn't extrapolate the weak first quarter to the rest of the year. Is that the right read here? You feel like the business has found better footing?

Paul Johnston (VP)

Yes.

Ryan Merkel (Analyst)

Okay. That's a simple, simple answer. Can you just unpack? I think you mentioned the A2L transition was a negative in the quarter. What was the impact there and what was that?

Paul Johnston (VP)

Negative, negative. No.

Ryan Merkel (Analyst)

Okay, I misunderstood that. Yeah, yeah. Okay. The one-third of the business that was weak, it was the international down 9%. What else was in there that caused the weakness? Because again, the algebra is kind of difficult for some of us to figure out.

Barry Logan (EVP of Planning and Strategy and Secretary)

Sure, I understand. Let's go through it. I think a lot of the numbers are there in the press release. Ryan, you have non equipment going down for the quarter. It's about 30% of the business. Right. Refrigeration has a small component. Nonetheless, it's part of what else is down, which is what your question is. We have commercial products, which is down right around 10% for the quarter. That too has a heavy influence going on with the product transition and 410A versus 454B.

We think that levels out or at least has less disruption or less disparity going on as time goes on. Commercial products is a component of what else went down. International we talked about. There are some other products that I would just, some other segments I would categorize as large accounts, national accounts, where again, the 410A versus 454B has some disruption in it. That is short term and we do not see that as a seasonal reality over time. I mentioned the same day, one less selling day. This quarter is about almost a 2% impact on sales.

Ryan Merkel (Analyst)

Okay, I got it. That is helpful. The commercial pieces. Yeah, I thought that might be part of it. Last question, the price mix outlook. You know, we have had some new price increases. Any chance you would help us with what you are thinking there for the year?

Barry Logan (EVP of Planning and Strategy and Secretary)

I would say we tend to talk factual about what we see, what we experienced in the first quarter and not extrapolate that until we have more data and more time in the season, Ryan. But price was up about price and mix for what is our unitary business was up about 5% for the quarter.

Ryan Merkel (Analyst)

Okay. All right, great. Thanks, Barry. I'll pass it on.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Brett Linzey with Mizuho. Please go ahead.

Brett Linzey (Research Analyst)

Hey, good morning, everyone. Hey. Wanted to come back to the A2L transition. One of your peers had noted some delays there, maybe a little bit more on the commercial side, but it was related to the learning curve. I'm just curious, what's the industry readiness like on the transition from a technician standpoint? Are you seeing any bottlenecks? Is it driving some delays in residential? Any color would be great.

Paul Johnston (VP)

This is. Paul. I don't see any real delays with the product. I mean, if you consider that 410A is, you know, basically 50% of 410A is 32 and the balance of it is a 125 combination. Whereas when you get into the 454 and the 32 products that we sell, they just become 70% on the 454 becomes 32. And of course 32 is 100%. So we're really not seeing a bottleneck from the mechanics viewpoint. No, I just think it was a. You know there is a price difference between an A2L product and a 410 product. And I think the contractor gravitated towards the 410. That's just an opinion.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah. I think editorialize that probably the right way is this is a quarter that's as we said, seven times thus far, the smallest time of year.

Also had a lot going on with whether 410A was in the channel or not. If you owned a lot of 410 and you leaned into it, you have some short term benefit this quarter. You have long term risk of obsolescence. It should be obvious by our balance sheet at year end we did not lean into 410. We did not choose short term consequences with longer term risk. We wanted to move to the 454B. We have the pricing, the margins, the activity with replacement is a good indicator of that decision. Maybe some of the large giant customers that wanted to chisel into 410A and get some short term wins. That is a transient business. That is short term.

Brett Linzey (Research Analyst)

Yep, got it. Just a follow up on the second quarter I guess near term.

I think the industry is talking about some destocking on the R-410A but also we're seeing the industry raise prices really across the board on tariffs. Would you expect some level of pre buy on price escalation here in the near term or how do we think about the netting of those two pieces as we get into the selling season here?

Paul Johnston (VP)

I don't see, I don't see any pre buy, you know, coming on on the A2L product. You know, you can't really get 410 product from any of the OEMs. They had to stop manufacturing that on December 31. So anything that we would have in stock right now that's coming in is going to be an A2L product. The price increases are very rapid. They happened on April 1 and then a second price increase occurred for most of the OEMs on the 3rd.

Unless there's a reversal of the tariff, I really don't see much of a pre buy opportunity for 454.

Brett Linzey (Research Analyst)

Okay, understood. All right, thanks. I'll pass it along. Thanks.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Patrick Baumann with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Good morning, Patrick.

Patrick Baumann (Analyst)

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I just had a question on the gross margin in the first quarter and I was wondering if you were able to optimize price on the 410A inventory that was sold and whether that had a benefit there. I'm asking kind of in context of, I think you said price mix was a 5% benefit in the quarter. I don't think the OEMs raised price on the 410A since they're not really making it anymore. Just curious if you'd give any color on that.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, Pat, it's a good question and answer it. I think most distributors were able to gain some price on 410A as we started the year. It wasn't said in this call so far, but mix also improved, meaning energy efficiency mix that tends to help margin to an extent. Third, as Paul said, or I think is we have a higher mix of replacement versus new construction. That helps margins to an extent. The rest of the pricing discussion is, I think Paul mentioned 25% of the business is 454B in the quarter. Obviously the higher pricing contributed something to that equation.

Patrick Baumann (Analyst)

Yep, that makes sense. The benefit on the price optimization, maybe in the 410A stuff, is that like in the tens of basis points?

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Yeah, it's not material enough. It was not like something to exploit, Pat.

It was something to add a bit of inflation as we started the year. It's in basis points.

Patrick Baumann (Analyst)

Helpful. Then we've been hearing about shortages of the 454B refrigerant due in part to container issues. Just wondering if you've seen or heard anything on this front and what your view is on whether this could have any impact on the selling season.

Paul Johnston (VP)

Yeah, we have heard that it's supposed to be over by June as far as the containers, but it's not just on 454. It's also on 32A. They both use almost the same container. There's no real difference. Yeah, there's been a shortage. We've been on allocation. Everybody in the industry is on allocation right now. There apparently is still some 32 out in the marketplace. But the 454 has become increasingly difficult to obtain. Is it going to impact us longer term?

No, it's not. Our creative branches have come up with other ideas to be able to satisfy the need of the contractor to be able to get the refrigerant they need to top off a new system. You do know that all the equipment is pre-charged with 454. There's no shortage of 454. It's strictly the container that's missing right now.

Patrick Baumann (Analyst)

Okay. Appreciate the color.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Jeff Hammond with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Jeffrey Hammond (Managing Director)

Hey, good morning, guys.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Morning, Jeff.

Jeffrey Hammond (Managing Director)

You know, the consumer just can't catch a break. They keep getting hit with these price increases and high rates. Just wondering if you're hearing or seeing anything on kind of repair versus replace or mix down as people maybe choose a defeatured product.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Very good question.

In the first quarter you really aren't going to see a lot of compressor sales. Compressor sales, when you look at parts and supplies, parts is what it takes to repair a unit. Supplies is generally what it takes to install a unit. When we look at it, we look at the motors and we look at the compressors and as I've said, I think on the last call, on the call before, I'm hoping that we have a repair and a replace market. Motor sales for the quarter were up 7% which is good. We were up slightly with the compressors. It wouldn't really be indicative of a repair versus a replace type mode yet.

I think with the dichotomy that we have in the homeowner, I think we're going to see, I think we're going to see a lot of replacement and I also think we're going to see a lot of repair.

Jeffrey Hammond (Managing Director)

And the trade down dynamic?

Barry Logan (EVP of Planning and Strategy and Secretary)

I'm not sure. Go ahead. It's obviously two comments. First, energy efficiency mix actually improved this quarter. I want to ring the bell in October when we have our third quarter conference call if the trend continues. Also, what's competitive for us. Every location in Watsco has multiple brands, multiple price points. Many of our competitors, including OEM networks, do not have that variety, do not have that functionality or flexibility at a store level. We can make hay in a tricky environment if that's where the consumer is. I'm glad we have that variety in our stores.

Jeffrey Hammond (Managing Director)

Okay. Barry, you mentioned people that leaned in on 410A, which was not your TAC, maybe benefited 1Q and maybe they are a little bit behind. I am just wondering if you think 1Q was impacted at all because maybe you had less than your fair share of 410A and maybe you catch up some of that. It seems like your inventory position is really strong coming out of 1Q. Just kind of thoughts around playing the merchant and gross margin arbitrage around these kind of follow-on increases.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

I mean, obviously I do not have access to anyone else's financial statements to know what somebody else sold versus what we sold. The anecdote in the market is there are some national accounts, multifamily channel, facilities, maintenance channel that consume 410A.

I think that provided that short term opportunity, those are not channels that we necessarily are going to take product away from our other good higher margin customers and serve that market. Instead, we are going to try to serve the good customers that will be there longer term. That is just an anecdote, Jeff. I do not. That is volume where those customers in a more conventional environment 60 days from now, when 410A is gone, are customers that as opposed to maybe being more opportunistic over the last quarter or so.

Barry Logan (EVP of Planning and Strategy and Secretary)

I think that is perfectly framed. I mean you can see it even within our business. Some of our business units who did have a higher position of 410A products, they did have bumps this quarter en masse in total. That was not our tack, as you said, but I think that was a Q1 dynamic.

As A2L becomes the prevalent or the more prominent product set, it's going to level out that playing field. Yes, we will be merchants. Again, I think looking at Q1's, our core performance and our core AOR business, it shows that we're healthy and strong and poised for a good year.

Jeffrey Hammond (Managing Director)

Okay, Barry, we thought you were all knowing over 25 years I've known you, but I understand you can't see everything. Appreciate the time, guys.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. Again, If you have a question, please press star then one. The next question is from the line of Chris Snyder with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Chris Snyder (Executive Director and U.S. Multi-Industry Analyst)

Thank you. Hey, good morning. I appreciate the question.

I want to follow up on some of the prior commentary and it seems like you guys didn't lean into 410A as hard as others and maybe there was some softness in Q1 as a result. I guess my question is, do you have any sense of how much 410A your distributor competitors still have into Q2? Because it seems like maybe that share shift back to you or 454B will happen really ultimately when the 410A is just totally done being sold.

Barry Logan (EVP of Planning and Strategy and Secretary)

I really have no idea.

Chris Snyder (Executive Director and U.S. Multi-Industry Analyst)

Yeah, go ahead.

Paul Johnston (VP)

I was going to say that that's awfully hard to have a line of sight into at best and it's purely anecdotal, but obviously we talk to a lot of other distributors in our quest for more acquisitions and as we do that, this is obviously a recurring topic and something that is on everyone's mind.

I don't get the sense in talking to those independent distributors that they have, you know, that they're planning on or that they have enough 410A inventory to get very much past the second quarter. Nor could the OEMs supply a whole lot of that to close out the year. I think by the end of 2Q, 410A will largely be in the rearview mirror.

Chris Snyder (Executive Director and U.S. Multi-Industry Analyst)

Thank you. I appreciate that. I think you guys said maybe 20% or 25% of your volumes in the quarter were 454B, if I heard that right. I imagine we're still, the field is still not installing a ton of 454B, maybe in April. That's changing. I guess do you have any sense of the rate at which 454B is being installed?

Just trying to figure out, have we tested the demand or even maybe the price elasticity on 454B? Because it still seems pretty early in the process. Thank you.

Aaron Nahmad (President)

Yeah, I was going to say I don't feel like it's that early. I feel like it's going on materially and importantly. We do have a view into what's going on. I mean, 25% of the first quarter is probably $250 million of product. I don't think that's a small number. That's larger than most distributors for a full year. There is some insight into it. If I look at the last two weeks, it's probably over 60% of what we're selling is 454B products. The ramp is happening pretty quickly. When we talk about current trend and current margin visibility, you know, we're satisfied the new product is being accepted.

Chris Snyder (Executive Director and U.S. Multi-Industry Analyst)

Appreciate that. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. The next question comes from Steve Tusa from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.

Steve Tusa (Managing Director)

Hey guys. Good morning. Hey. Sorry. Just to follow up to Pat's questions, just philosophically, as a distributor and when you're looking, looking at these situations, what is the difference between a. How do you look at the difference between a surcharge and a price increase? And what is there to read into from OEMs that are picking surcharges versus price increases just broadly? What do you take away from that from an industry perspective?

Paul Johnston (VP)

I think a surcharge is temporary and I, you know, because of some exterior condition and a price increase is longer term, a surcharge doesn't affect your inventory, a price increase does. To my knowledge, there's only been one OEM that's issued a surcharge. Right.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

I would say, look, this is such a, this is a new and dynamic environment we're in with these, these extreme tariffs or potential tariffs. Everybody's working their models and figuring out the best approach. This is where we referenced our great relationships with our OEMs and the collaboration. There's a lot of conversation about how to do this without creating much friction or as little friction as possible and make this harmonious as possible. That's one of the dimensions that was discussed thoroughly. There are pros and cons of doing a surcharge versus a price increase. Like Paul said, I think one OEM went with surcharge, but I don't think there's too much to read into that other than just trying to do the best we can or anybody can to keep harmony in the market.

Paul Johnston (VP)

Are you guys doing any surcharges or are you mostly price increases? Obviously you guys can be pretty agile with the tech you have. Is mostly of what you do surcharges or price increases or mix?

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

It's mostly price increases.

Steve Tusa (Managing Director)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense.

Paul Johnston (VP)

Steve, to remind you of the texture of this because it's just important to know the two-sided equation we deal with. AJ said earlier, if we have 1,000 customers in South Florida, we may sell the same product at 1,000 different prices. We also buy the product, purchase the product, the same product at different prices depending on the market segment we're addressing. An OEM's price to us varies depending on those variables.

In that double sided equation there's a lot of, I think, artistic and good ways to use technology to deal with these kind of environments where again, I'm not sure competitors have it.

Steve Tusa (Managing Director)

Hey, one last one, Paul, just from an industry perspective, how much of the unitary product do you think is sourced directly from China, where you have a Chinese manufacturer who may be shipping it over here and sticking a label with the US guys? Sticking a label on it. My guess, it's not huge, but like it's been growing in the last couple years. How much do you think there is of the industry?

Paul Johnston (VP)

I think, I think in the industry it's less than 5% on the ducted side. And then on the, on the duct-free side, obviously it's higher.

You know, I don't think we make a single unit in the U.S. There's a few units made in Mexico, but the ductless side would be, you know, heavier. The ducted side would be very small. The only, there's maybe one manufacturer left I think that's using a product that's made in China.

Steve Tusa (Managing Director)

Right. Sorry, one last one. I know we got like 15 minutes left for the hour, so might as well get one more in. I heard the kind of the tail end of Pat's question on 454B. Why is Honeywell putting this huge price increase out there if there's such abundance? It's just, it's a, you know, container issue. Trying to, like, figure that one out.

I would, too. I'd like to figure out, you know, why there's not more of a shortage on 32. Because it's the same container. But, you know, no clue.

Paul Johnston (VP)

You know, at the same time that there's only two manufacturers that make 454, you know, and that's Honeywell and Chemours. And Chemours had a price increase, a fairly sizable price increase. The primary reason why they had that price increase is because majority, 80+% of the 32 that's brought into the U.S. is from China. There's been a lot of inventory of 32 in the U.S. but I think those two manufacturers with 70% of 454 represented by 32 felt like they had to have a price increase. Both of them went up. It wasn't just Honeywell. On the other side, we're starting to see allocations forming around 32. Yesterday we saw a material price increase on 32 that we buy. The price spread between the two products now is narrowed to just a little over $3 a pound.

It is not as big of a difference or delta as it was when they were introduced.

Steve Tusa (Managing Director)

Okay, that's great color. Thank you very much.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to the management for any closing remarks.

Albert Nahmad (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you for your interest in our company and we look forward to catching you up at the end of the next quarter. Bye bye now.

Operator (participant)

The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.