XPEL - Earnings Call - Q1 2025

Executive Summary

• Q1 2025 delivered a clean beat: revenue $103.8M (+15.2% YoY) and diluted EPS $0.31 (+28.8% YoY), with gross margin at 42.3%; both top and bottom lines exceeded S&P Global consensus estimates. Management guided Q2 revenue to $117–$119M and announced a $50M stock repurchase authorization, adding a potential support to shares.
• Revenue beat vs consensus: $103.8M actual vs $97.4M estimate; EPS beat: $0.31 vs $0.265; consensus built on limited coverage (3 revenue, 2 EPS estimates)*. The beat was driven by strong U.S. performance (+11.6% YoY), normalization in China ($8.1M), and record Middle East/Africa revenue.
• Margin quality improved modestly YoY (GM 42.3% vs 42.0%), with EBITDA rising 23.2% to $14.4M (13.9% margin). SG&A growth moderated, though Q1 included ~$0.4M restructuring and ~$1.2M dealer conference costs, with tax rate elevated to 23.9% for the quarter before a 21% go-forward planning rate.
• Near-term narrative catalysts: tariff mitigation and supply-chain optionality (manufacturing capacity in three countries), expanding product portfolio (windshield protection film, color films, architectural surface protection), and dealership/OEM programs (Rivian, referral platform) supporting demand and channel breadth.

What Went Well and What Went Wrong

What Went Well

• Strong U.S. performance and global breadth: U.S. revenue +11.6% YoY to $58.1M; Middle East/Africa delivered a record quarter; Europe improved sequentially vs Q4.
• Product momentum and mix: window film revenue +28.1% YoY; total product revenue +17.7% YoY; EBITDA +23.2% to $14.4M with GM at 42.3% (up 30bps YoY).
• Management confidence on tariffs: “From a product standpoint, we don’t anticipate significant impact from the tariffs…we have manufacturing now available to us in 3 countries,” positioning XPEL to mitigate both U.S. and retaliatory tariff regimes.

What Went Wrong

• Canada softness: revenue down 14.9% YoY; sentiment “relatively poor” with timing headwinds, though management believes the worst may be behind them.
• Operating costs: SG&A grew 14.4% YoY (Q1 includes ~$0.4M restructuring; ~$1.2M dealer conference costs), limiting margin leverage in the quarter despite strong revenue growth.
• Ongoing macro/tariff uncertainty: management refrained from full-year guidance, citing unpredictable impacts on new car demand, dealer inventory behavior, and currency volatility.

Transcript

Operator 1 (participant)

Everyone, and welcome to the XPEL first quarter 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode, and the floor will be open for questions following the presentation. If anyone should require operator assistance during this conference, please press star zero on your phone keypad. Please note this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to your host, John Nesbett.

John Nesbett (Founder and President)

Good morning and welcome to our conference call to discuss XPEL's first quarter 2025 financial results. On the call today, Ryan Pape, XPEL's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Barry Wood, XPEL's Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will provide an overview of the business operations and review the company's financial results. Immediately after they're prepared with comments, we will take questions from our call participants. A transcript of this call will be available on the company's website after the call. I'll now take a moment to read the Safe Harbor Statement. During the course of this call, we'll make certain forward-looking statements regarding XPEL and its business, which may include but are not limited to anticipated use of proceeds from capital transactions, expansion into new markets, and execution of the company's growth strategy.

Such statements are based on our current expectations and assumptions, which are subject to known and unknown risk factors and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to be materially different from those expressed in these statements. Some of these factors are discussed in detail in our most recent Form 10-K, including under item 1A, risk factors, filed with the SEC. XPEL undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Okay, with that, I'll now turn the call over to Ryan. Go ahead, Ryan.

Ryan Pape (President and CEO)

Thank you, John, and good morning, everyone, as well. Welcome to the first quarter 2025 call. We're off to a good start this year. Solid top and bottom line performance in the first quarter. Revenue grew 15.2% to $103.8 million. I think a good headline number for us, and obviously more detail as you look at our different regions. U.S. region grew 11.6% to $58.1 million in the quarter. This included sales into the aftermarket independent channel that grew over 10%. I think a good result there relative to what we've been seeing. U.S. car sales in the quarter were good. New car buyer seems to be wanting to get ahead of the tariffs.

Obviously, you saw a really good SAAR in March, which, you know, hard to know how that helps and hurts us in this dynamic, but it's not a bad thing when more cars are sold. What that means for the rest of the year, I think, remains to be seen. Obviously, still a lot of uncertainty. Really impossible to predict what happens and how it might impact the business. We have good momentum in the U.S. right now, and I see that continuing, all things equal. Canada region revenue declined 14.9% to $9.4 million in the quarter. If we adjust for some timing differences from the previous year, revenue decline was around 10%, so still rather significant. Sentiment from customers in Canada is, I would say, relatively poor, similar to how the U.S. started the year last year, if you recall, in the first quarter.

It was very challenging for the U.S., and Canada outperformed handily in that quarter. We started into the busy season, and Canada has passed their election, so we will keep working hard there. I think the worst is probably behind us, but time will tell. China revenue came in at $8.1 million. This was in line with what we expected. At this point, everything is proceeding on track relative to all of our plans in China. We are still engaged with our distributor on evolving the go-to-market to be more direct in China, and we will probably have more to discuss than that over the next quarter or two. We saw solid growth in most of the other regions. Europe had its second highest quarter in history from a revenue standpoint, which was better, you know, off of some of the sluggishness in Q4.

I think our view on Europe for the year is probably improving at this point. We saw record revenue in the Middle East. As I mentioned earlier, it's impossible to predict what's going to happen in the coming quarters with all the tariff noise, so we won't be providing any guidance for the year. It's hard to say what the near-term impacts will be. We saw good momentum in April. Obviously, that could change, but we're feeling pretty good about that. Our view right now is Q2 revenue should be in the $117 million-$119 million range. Again, you know, the environment we're in, it could be on either side of that, potentially. A good gross margin performance in the quarter, which came in at 42.3%, this probably approximates our sort of near-term run rate, plus or minus.

As we discussed previously, we still see upside opportunity for that over the midterm, although, you know, our expectations of achieving that this year may be somewhat muted just given all of the noise and things we're having to do. We saw nice leverage in the quarter on our SG&A growth, or nice leverage in the quarter as our SG&A growth rates moderated. As we discussed on the last call, we did do a restructuring initiative. We had about $400,000 in costs related to that in SG&A for the quarter, another $300,000 in Q2. We're making good progress on our expense initiatives, and that will continue to be a focus for us. To be clear, you know, we're continuing to invest in SG&A where it drives future revenue of the business.

Examples of that being, you know, our in-country distribution businesses, which we're actively building, or services expansion where there may be SG&A investment needed. The focus on SG&A is really on our overhead and back office, where we have to spend more conservatively, but also where we've invested substantially over the past several years to build the team that we have. I feel pretty good about that. Continues to be a laser focus for us going forward, but I think we're making progress. EBITDA grew 23.2% for the quarter to $14.4 million, which is a great result. I briefly touched on the tariff situation earlier. Our team, obviously, is closely monitoring the ever-changing situation, and, you know, we can take steps to mitigate potential impacts.

From a product standpoint, we do not anticipate significant impact from the tariffs based on how we make and how we sell products and where we do it, including in China. There may be transient noise if we have the wrong product in the wrong place for a quarter or for having to consider and having to consider planning around tariffs and retaliatory tariffs. It does not help with our goal of optimizing and ultimately reducing total inventory because it is just less efficient, but we are in a good position. I think much harder to understand is the impact on the new car business and the resulting trickle-down impact to our business of tariffs. You know, questions we are asking are, will there be pull ahead in demand? You know, maybe we have seen some of that in March or April.

Will buyers ultimately substitute one vehicle for another if there's a large pricing disparity? You know, if that substitution happens, how does that impact their decision to accessorize? Will new vehicle inventory become constrained due to production cuts or other factors? How will that impact dealership behavior? Is that good or bad for us? You know, these are the kind of things that I think we're working to strategize on, but really our response to all of them is pretty simple. We're not actively doing anything today to change what the business does, except to, you know, stay focused on providing the best products, services, and support to all of our customers. As things change, or if things change relative to the car market and the impacts on the business, we'll, of course, adjust our business and strategy appropriately.

On the product front, we've talked a lot over the past couple of calls, but windshield film continues to do well. We're launching additional colored films in Q2, as well as surface protection films for architectural application. I think what you'll see in that line is, you know, our internal mantra to protect everything. We'll see a lot more protection applications in the architectural space going forward. Today, we announced our board-approved $50 million share repurchase plan authorization. We still view the number one priority for capital allocation as investing in the business via M&A primarily, and then secondarily, the possibility of more CapEx to drive our costs lower. Having said that, there's always a price where buying yourself is obvious, and now we have the vehicle in place to do that. Relative to our inorganic activities, we've discussed our efforts to expand a services business, so that work continues.

We're, I would say, prudently cautious in our approach, given the end market for that business and sort of some of the uncertainty, but we continue to work through that. I think a big part of managing that correctly is to ensure we get the right valuation for anything we look at and that, you know, that valuation, the valuations of some of the targets we're looking at, that they move appropriately relative even to our valuation that's moved. These are things we're focused on, but continuing to push ahead even in light of that uncertainty. The call in all, I think, a good quarter. The team's really done a good job. Everybody's really focused on all the details that matter to ensure we optimize the business and run it in the best possible way, and I couldn't be more thankful for that.

With that, we'll turn it over to Barry. Barry, take it away.

Barry Wood (Senior VP and CFO)

Thanks, Ryan, and good morning, everyone. As we said, our total revenue growth in the quarter was 15.2%. If you take China out of that, the revenue growth in the quarter would have been approximately 8%. Obviously, the Canada performance had a bit of a drag to that, but I think a good takeaway for the quarter is the U.S. business, which is our largest and most mature market and represents 56% of our total revenue, grew at 11.6% and was almost flat sequentially. That and the strong performance in most of our other regions are certainly all positives for the quarter. Our total window film product line grew 28.1% the quarter, with our new windshield protection film product contributing to that. Automotive window tint grew 16.2% in the quarter, and architectural window film grew 9.6%. Sequentially, total window film revenue was flat to Q4.

As Ryan also mentioned, our SG&A expense grew 14.4% in the quarter to $32.8 million, and sequentially, this was up about 4.5% versus Q4. In addition to the $0.4 million of RIF costs that Ryan mentioned, we also had approximately $1.2 million in net costs associated with our dealer conference included in our Q1 SG&A. Ryan also mentioned our solid EBITDA performance, which grew 23.2% to $14.4 million, and this was about a 14% EBITDA margin for us. Sequentially, EBITDA was up a little over 1% versus Q4. Net income for the quarter increased 28.8%, reflecting an 8.3% net income margin, and EPS for the quarter was $0.31 per share. Just to note, our effective tax rate for the quarter was higher than normal at 23.9%, due mainly to some foreign taxes paid that will not reoccur.

For planning purposes moving forward, you should assume a 21% effective tax rate in future quarters. Cash flow provided by ops was $3.2 million for the quarter, and we continue to build cash on the balance sheet and have substantial debt capacity. We feel good about our ability and are well positioned to execute on our capital allocation priorities as we move forward here. With that, Operator, we'll now open up the call up for questions.

Operator 2 (participant)

Certainly. Everyone at this time will be conducting a question and answer session. If you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone at this time. We do ask that while posing your question, please pick up your handset if you're listening on speakerphone to provide optimum sound quality. Once again, if you have any questions or comments, please press star one on your phone. Thank you. Your first question is coming from Jeff Van Sinderen from B. Riley Securities. Your line is live.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Senior Research Analyst)

Good morning, everyone, and congrats on the strong metrics in the quarter. Wanted to see if you could give us any more color on kind of what you're seeing and hearing from a U.S. dealer network in terms of velocity of business, maybe a little bit of pull forward there, just given the overall general macro uncertainty out there.

Ryan Pape (President and CEO)

Yeah, Jeff, thanks for the question. I mean, I think if you look at the data, you look at the March SAAR as an example, I think it suggests some amount of pull ahead. I think as you talk to dealerships, you get maybe more of a mixed answer. Some definitely think they saw that, some not so much. I think it sort of stands to reason that we probably see some of that. I think, you know, the question there is if the age of the fleet has continued to grow, obviously there is pent-up demand. If we pull ahead now, are we going to pay for that later? You know, will that just be sort of a permanent pull ahead to help fill some of the deficit of what has not been sold? I think there is definitely some of that that is occurring.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay. If we could shift to China for a minute, just wondering any more color you can provide on what we might expect there. Obviously, the business was up a lot year-over-year in the quarter. I am just wondering any more thoughts you can share there.

Ryan Pape (President and CEO)

I think what you're seeing, Jeff, is our work paying off to make the entire supply chain more efficient and the sell-in, sell-through match. You are not seeing these oscillations in revenue quarter to quarter like we had. Obviously, that was painful by comparison in Q4 and positive by comparison in Q1, but it is going to be much more normalized going forward. I think our approach, current issues notwithstanding, is that, you know, we very much want to pursue a more direct business model in China like we have in other markets. That is something we are still very actively working on and we will continue over this quarter.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, great. Just one more, if I could squeeze it in on the tariff situation. Realize that's really fluid and kind of a tough question, but tariff impact on the China business, how do we think about that?

Ryan Pape (President and CEO)

Yeah, no, it's a great question. I mean, I think that, you know, the conventional view on China as it impacts tariffs is from the perspective of a Chinese supply base supplying into the U.S. market. Obviously, there's, you know, a massive tariff load on that. For us, that's a non-factor because we just don't trade in that way. There isn't a meaningful flow of goods for us from China to the U.S. The second impact is really from retaliatory tariffs being the flow of U.S. goods into China now. For us, there is historically more exposure there, but with the diversification of our manufacturing and manufacturing locations, product being made, the paint protection film products being made in three countries globally, we're able to supply the portion of that China demand that formerly came out of the U.S. from elsewhere.

We're really, I think, in a good position to weather that. You know, as we said, you know, there's the supply chain, not everything is always in the right place every exact second. As you have to react to these, you're incurring, you know, logistics expense and probably inflation of working capital a little bit, then maybe there's some tariffs paid on a very transitory basis to get things in the right place. To the heart of your question, the China tariffs and then retaliatory tariff impact for us is really a non-factor.

Jeff Van Sinderen (Senior Research Analyst)

Okay, great to hear. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll take the rest offline.

Ryan Pape (President and CEO)

Thanks, Jeff.

Operator 2 (participant)

Thank you. Once again, everyone, if you have any questions or comments, please press star, then one on your phone. Your next question is coming from Steve Dyer from Craig-Hallum. Your line is live.

Matthew Raab (Equity Research Analyst)

Hey, thanks. This is Matthew Raab on for Steve. I want to ask a question on pull forward of demand, but I'll ask it in a little different way. On the take rate for PPF and film, mostly in the U.S., have you seen any meaningful change there from what is kind of a typical steady state versus the last few weeks of Q1 and thus far into Q2? I guess I would have thought that a buyer that's rushing out to get a car probably wouldn't add film, but just curious on that.

Ryan Pape (President and CEO)

Yeah, I think your hypothesis is certainly one that we've been asking ourselves too. If you are a, if there is a pull forward customer and you are one of those, you know, how does that impact your take rate? I think our instinct is that that's probably not our core buyer necessarily. I think we're not really of the mindset that we've sort of benefited from that in some outsized way, that the pull forward is actually bringing demand forward for us. I think our view on that is probably that it's not. I think in the metrics we have, you know, there's really nothing that stands out to highlight the answer to your question. I think everything seems pretty stable from our perspective.

Matthew Raab (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay, got it. On preloading in the dealership channel, noted it was pretty close to a steady state last quarter. Given dealer inventories turning a little bit lower and that probably continues in the near term, you know, has that or will that be a headwind for you guys? Are there any strategies that you can take to offset?

Ryan Pape (President and CEO)

I think the biggest headwind for us was the shift from the majority of dealerships or a plurality of dealerships, you know, building inventory and moving to that sort of steady state inventory environment that, you know, maybe we transitioned to in more of the second half of last year. That was really the onset of that headwind. Now it is sort of stable in that sense. You know, if inventory contracts, you know, certainly we saw that at the onset of COVID or the aftermath of COVID and the supply chain shortages, you know, inventory contracting is a near-term negative for that. I think it is probably too early to really see that that is going to happen here.

I think, you know, that's certainly a risk if there's production cuts and, you know, production cuts combined with pull forward of demand or something, that would be a negative for that. You know, right now, I don't, I think it's too early to really call that out as an actual risk for us.

Matthew Raab (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. Yeah. And then just sort of curious, has there been any headwind from Audi and Porsche vehicles being held at port? You know, at least that's what our checks have said, you know, starting maybe late in Q1, but probably more impactful in Q2. Have you guys seen that? Is that any impact on the business near term?

Ryan Pape (President and CEO)

Yeah, we've not seen that. I mean, we're sort of watching all of the talk track around, you know, what folks are doing with logistics and whether they're holding shipments or not. I think we've not seen that. I mean, that end market's been pretty good for us. I think that'll be kind of a wait and see.

Matthew Raab (Equity Research Analyst)

Okay. That's great. That's all for me. Thanks, guys.

Ryan Pape (President and CEO)

Yep. Thank you.

Operator 2 (participant)

Thank you. That concludes our Q&A session. I'll now hand the conference back to management for closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Ryan Pape (President and CEO)

I want to thank everybody for joining us today for the first quarter call. I want to thank our whole team at XPEL for doing great work. I look forward to talking with everyone soon.

Operator 2 (participant)

Thank you. Everyone, this concludes today's event. You may disconnect at this time and have a wonderful day. Thank you for your participation.