Earnings Labs

Brunswick Corporation (BC)

Q2 2022 Earnings Call· Thu, Jul 28, 2022

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning, and welcome to Brunswick Corporation's Second Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode until the question-and-answer session period. Today's meeting will be recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to introduce Neha Clark, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Finance, Brunswick Corporation.

Neha Clark

Management

Good morning, and thank you for joining us. With me on the call this morning are Dave Foulkes, Brunswick's CEO; and Ryan Gwillim, CFO. Before we begin with our prepared remarks, I would like to remind everyone that during the call our comments will include certain forward-looking statements about future results. Please keep in mind that our actual results could differ materially from these expectations. For details on the factors to consider, please refer to our recent SEC filings and today's press release. All of these documents are available on our website at brunswick.com. During our presentation, we will be referring to certain non-GAAP financial information. Reconciliations of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures are provided in the appendix to this presentation and the reconciliation section of the unaudited consolidated financial statements accompanying today's results. I will now turn the call over to Dave.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Thanks, Neha, and good morning, everyone. In the second quarter, we delivered our first ever quarter with more than $300 million of adjusted operating earnings and together with record revenue and EPS continued our trend of exceptional performance in the challenging macroeconomic landscape. We maintained our strong focus on cost control and operational efficiencies while continuing to invest in new capacity, new product programs and ACES initiatives necessary to fuel future growth and market share gains. All our divisions contributed to the strong performance while continuing to actively manage our supply chain and negotiate macro volatility. Consumer demand for our products remain strong as we work through a period of tougher year-over-year retail comparisons versus a particularly strong first half of 2021 while being impacted by continued low field inventory and some enduring supply chain disruptions. Global boat field inventory levels increased in the quarter over the same prior year period although they remained 55% lower versus the same time in 2019. This is notable as the 2022 retail season had a slower start in some parts of the US and Canada while gaining momentum in the latter part of the quarter. Our P&A business backlogs remain elevated. Overall, our production remains on track and the percentage of our boat production that is already retail sold continues to be high, especially for our fiberglass brands with no evidence of wholesale cancellations across the enterprise. As the economic outlook continues to create overall market and sector dislocation, we executed $140 million of share repurchases in the second quarter bringing our year-to-date share repurchases to $220 million. And we plan to continue an aggressive repurchase schedule in the back half of the year. Prior to discussing our segment performance for the quarter, let me spend a few minutes updating our view on…

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Thanks, Dave. Good morning, everyone. Brunswick delivered yet another fantastic quarter with record sales, operating earnings and EPS for any quarter on record. When compared to prior year, second quarter net sales were up 18% with adjusted operating margins of 16.4%. Operating earnings on an as-adjusted basis increased by 13%, and adjusted EPS of $2.82 increased by 12%. Sales in each segment benefited from price actions taken in the last 12 months, partially offset by unfavorable changes in foreign currency exchange rates and supply chain inefficiencies. While each segment's operating earnings were also impacted by continued material, labor and freight inflationary pressures and spending on growth-related initiatives. Note that changes in foreign currency exchange rates were a mid-double-digit million dollar earnings headwind in the quarter, more than double the anticipated impact. On a year-to-date basis, Brunswick has also delivered record results, including over $3.5 billion of net sales, $568 million of operating earnings and $5.35 of diluted EPS, which is higher than any previous full year in Brunswick's history aside from last year. You'll note that we have shown comparisons to 2019 on these two slides to highlight the strong growth CAGRs over the last three years and the record performance of the business versus the second quarter of last year, which was the previous best quarter in company history. Turning to our segments. Our Propulsion business delivered yet another quarter of outstanding results with record top line, earnings and operating margins. Revenue increased 13% versus the second quarter of 2021 as continued strong global demand for all product categories resulted in increased sales volume, which continues to be enabled by increased production levels. Mercury also enacted certain price increases in May, primarily targeting 175-horsepower and above outboard categories. Operating margins were up 50 basis points and operating earnings up…

Dave Foulkes

Management

Thanks, Ryan. I'm delighted to share some recent highlights from across the company. During Q2, we launched the all-new Sea Ray SLX 260, which is designed by an all-female design team and is the first sport boat to showcase the new Sea Ray design language. The model has been tremendously well received in the marketplace.. Mercury continues to advance market share and deliver new products with the recent announcement of the next generation of 25- and 30-horsepower FourStroke outboards. I'll speak more about both of these in a moment. As I mentioned earlier, Freedom Boat Club has accelerated at a rapid pace. We now have more than 360 global locations and 80,000 members globally. Integration of our recent franchise territory acquisitions is proceeding well, including the Tampa Bay operation and territory, the largest territory in the Freedom network. We advanced our sustainability initiatives with the completion of the installation of an array of photovoltaic solar panels in Portugal. Additionally, we recently announced a partnership between Mercury Marine and Alliant Energy to build a 5-megawatt 32-acre solar array in Eastern Fond du Lac County. Construction on this project is anticipated to start in spring 2023. We're very excited about the launch and tremendous momentum of All Blue Planet, a global Brunswick initiative focused on inspiring our communities, particularly those who are underrepresented on the water to engage with and enjoy the restorative power of being on and around water. The recent launch events generated more than 2.5 million impressions. And in June, we had four of our fantastic women leaders selected to the Boating Industry magazine 2022 list of Women Making Waves, which celebrates women making outstanding contributions to the recreational marine industry. I'm going to finish this morning discussing new products, which is always one of my favorite subjects. We…

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And at this time we will be conducting a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Xian Siew with BNP Pariba. Please go ahead with your question.

Xian Siew

Analyst

Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my question. It's nice to see the improvement on a monthly basis for the retail numbers. Just wondering, has that continued into July? And then last time you talked about potentially a slow start to the season and weather kind of delaying some registration of units. I think given your own, you mentioned something like 4,000. Did that show up in the data, like the May or June? And how do we think about retail excluding those, I guess, shifted registrations?

Dave Foulkes

Management

Yeah. Thank you for your question. Good question. I think July is strong, I think. Actually, P&A is extremely robust in the first three weeks of the month. I think retail overall is try and see why the trends would not continue. The only – it's somewhat difficult partway through a month to predict exactly how the month is going to end up, because dealers tend to prioritize getting boats on the water and then the registrations come in the back half of the month, but nothing tells us anything materially different there. And the more kind of contemporary data that we get around P&A and on-water participation is very, very strong in July.

Ryan Gwillim

Management

I would say also some leading indicators like financing applications are about the same as year-over-year versus last year.

Xian Siew

Analyst

Okay. Got it. Thanks. And then I wanted to ask about Freedom. You mentioned it's up to like 6% of the Boat division revenues. But wondering how much of the flywheel is kind of kicking in? Is there a way to frame like how much sales of like P&A and propulsion are go into Freedom as well because that's the higher usage and the need for maintenance of those – that boat fleet. Just wondering how that is going.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Yeah. Well, Freedom is growing very fast organically and also because of the acquisitions that we made in 2021 and early this year, those are being integrated extremely strongly. I think one of the metrics that's worth looking at is on a kind of a same-store base, if you like, or same location basis, membership growth in the second quarter of this year was up 30% versus last year, which indicates a lot of strength. I would say that, yeah, boat sell-through and engine sell-through and P&A sell-through are very strong. One of the things this year, though, is that because of boat availability, Brunswick Boat Group was only able to supply about a-third, about a-third of the boats that Freedom needed. So the balance was secured from other OEMs. And over time, we will be building that percentage up to in excess of 75%, I would say. That opportunity to grow the Brunswick portion of the Freedom fleet is also, if you like, another, if you like, a safety valve on retail. I mean there are several thousand units of potential growth in Freedom that we need to accommodate in addition to building supply -- building the inventory and pipeline for the balance of the year.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from James Hardiman with Citi. Please state your question.

James Hardiman

Analyst · Citi. Please state your question.

Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my call. So I wanted to hone in a little bit here on the Boat segment. Obviously, a pretty big beep there, at least versus our numbers. I guess first, do you have a wholesale unit number you can share and whether or not sort of that production has been raised for the year? I guess one of the things I'm trying to square is it seems like better unit shipments in the quarter versus retail that was, I think, safe to say, weaker than expected. At least through the whole quarter two, it sounds like it was better. Square those two things along with this notion it's not just you saying it. MarineMax said it today, every dealer we say -- we talk to says that this notion that supply is ultimately holding back retail even though shipments seem like they're better and inventory seems to have built a little bit.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Yes. James, I think Ryan kind of take this one a little bit. I think the situation has improved somewhat in inventory. And certainly, supply is in aggregate better than it was. Although we had some continuing challenges, I would say they're more isolated than they were before, which is -- and Ryan will give you data some on shipments. The position on the kind of supply-demand balance, I would say supply is clearly governing in fiberglass, particularly in large fiberglass. Essentially everything that we make is pretty much retail sold. I would say the northern markets, which are mostly the aluminum markets, were the ones most affected by the late summer. But retail is catching up. But we certainly were able to build a bit more inventory in those northern markets and aluminum fish, which tends to be a shorter season. So it's a little bit of a bifurcation. Generally, supply is continuing to govern a lot of our retail, but not equally across segments.

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Yes. That's right. And James, good morning, James. our Q2 wholesale was just over 10,000 units, which actually is the first time we've gotten 10,000 units out in the quarter since the second quarter of 2018. So supply chain, still enduring issues throughout the lineup, but certainly better than it was year-over-year, and we were able to keep up a pretty nice production schedule. As Dave said, I think we've said on a couple of quarters in a row, we think it's critical to get inventory in the hands of our dealers to continue to spur retail. You're just not going to get a lot of walk-in customers should there not be any boats on the lot. So we feel like this is a really nice quarter across the boat group.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Yes. I think, James, one thing to think about on a kind of dealer basis, even in aluminum fish, you have five or six boats at a dealer. So they haven't to sell-through very high proportion of their inventory every month and every quarter. And they don't have the model diversity and availability of options necessarily that they would normally have.

James Hardiman

Analyst · Citi. Please state your question.

Makes sense. And maybe by way of a follow-up, related question. I mean you've talked in the last couple of quarters about not getting back to normalized inventory levels until 2024. Is that still the case? And I think you know where I'm going with this question, right? I'm sure you've heard this developing bear case that the boat industry is essentially heading down the same path as RVs, which as you know, talked about this multiyear replenishment cycle, and that was ultimately pretty quickly condensed into a couple of quarters. So maybe speak to that idea.

David Foulkes

Analyst · Citi. Please state your question.

Yeah. I think we're in a very, very different place to the RV industry. I won't attempt to speak for the RV industry, but obviously, we follow what's going on there. And I would say that we are continue -- I mean if you looked at the data, even though we're 55% down on 2019 globally, we're more than 60% down in the US, which means boat availability continues to be very constrained. And although we're building some inventory in some segments, we're not building fast enough to create that issue. I would say it's very clear that broadly in the fiberglass segments, probably, I think, pontoons, we're talking about -- still talking about 2024 for a normalization of pipelines. It's possible that it might be a little earlier in aluminum fish, for example. But it's -- our inventory levels are still very low, so it would take a lot to rebuild. So I would say the thesis is pretty intact, just a bit more nuanced maybe by segment.

James Hardiman

Analyst · Citi. Please state your question.

Got it. Makes a lot of sense. Thanks guys.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Kevin Heenan with JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Kevin Heenan

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi. Good morning, guys. Thanks for taking my question.

David Foulkes

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Hi, Jason.

Kevin Heenan

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

I just wanted to ask on the Propulsion segment, can you just talk about the visibility you have to the demand for the new production that's coming on later this year in terms of new OEMs lined up or lines of business that may have been underserved as well as the margin impact of that new product that's coming online? Thanks.

David Foulkes

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. Great question. We have very high visibility, extremely high visibility down to an OEM and every other level on where that additional capacity will be dispositioned. We are genuinely extremely excited to get that capacity on board. I mentioned -- we mentioned in the calls that although we have focused a lot of our commentary on the US market, we are gaining share very quickly elsewhere. I wouldn't be surprised we crossed 50% in Canada pretty soon. We're building in all the European markets Australia, New Zealand we continue to be extremely strong. So that capacity has a lot of clear destinations, not only in the US but internationally, too. And generally, the margins will be strong. We're not only fulfilling these new OEMs and international OEMs, which tend to have higher margins. But it will also give us the capacity to really get after the repower channel and the commercial channels, which are generally extremely strong margins. So the additional benefit of every unit capacity we get out is not only the value of the unit is the incremental margin associated with marginal units. However, I could not -- I cannot wait to get that capacity online. It will be a very exciting time for us.

Kevin Heenan

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Great. And if I could just quickly follow up on the P&A side. You said that July had improved. Do you see that business up on an organic basis in the third quarter? And any change to that? I think the full year outlook had embedded a mid- to high single-digit organic growth figure. How do you see that today? Thanks.

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Yes. Kevin, I'll take this one. Yes, I mean, we would anticipate growth in the back half organically. Listen, this is really a tale of a different quarter. The first quarter -- the first part of the quarter really was slow because of weather. And it certainly accelerated in June, and we're seeing that in July. But when you say P&A, when we say P&A, there's really distinct buckets that you've got to look at. Engine P&A, which is the most profitable section of our P&A., and the US was actually up quarter-over-quarter, slightly but up even despite the poor weather. Internationally, that business suffered a little bit more from freight delays and some supply chain issues. But in the US, that business remains strong. The distribution business, which has gotten probably a little bit more attention than necessary this morning, remember, that's just a third-party distribution business. So we on sell the product from companies that use our network because we have such a global network. And frankly, there were several core customers that were struggling to get products out to us in the quarter. And obviously, that means we can't forward them along. That business, although for a distribution business that almost 10% operating margins, is a fantastic business. But when you look across the landscape of P&A, it's still relatively modest from an earnings standpoint. The last thing I would say, the ASG, Advanced Systems Group, business is the core businesses, the legacy businesses, so it's basically everything Navigo, also had a really strong quarter for the OEM side particularly. And then Navigo obviously did continue to do well as well. So, we are not concerned at all. The usage patterns still remain very strong. And I think you'll see in the back half of the year some really nice results.

Dave Foulkes

Management

That was a great commentary. One other thing was kind of big-box retailer and online retailers have normalized their stocking patterns, but they were And we have worked our way through that now. So orders are flowing again from the big-box retailers and online retailers, and we're seeing that coming into -- that essentially actually resolved itself at the end of the last quarter.

Kevin Heenan

Analyst · JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much guys.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And our next question comes from Anna Glaessgen with Jefferies. Please state your question.

Anna Glaessgen

Analyst · Jefferies. Please state your question.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Earlier in the script, you talked about how any moderation in the back half of the year from inflation would be factored into pricing strategies. Can you maybe expand on what you're saying here, maybe pricing increases would moderate if inflation moderates, just any help here.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Yes, certainly. So, yes, I mean, we essentially have been pricing to cover inflation for some time now. Obviously, we're a long-term player in the industry. We don't want to see prices increase and drive people out of boating or any other sector in which we participate. So, our plan is to continue to cover inflation, but with hopefully some moderation that will allow us to moderate pricing as well. We still plan to cover inflation now, and that is baked into our forecast.

Anna Glaessgen

Analyst · Jefferies. Please state your question.

Great. Thanks. And turning to Freedom, nice to see that membership growth was even higher than in the same quarter on a same-store basis. Can you talk about what you think the key drivers here is that there's greater expanded fleet? So units are able to better fulfill demand in their regions, or what do you think the key driver there is?

Dave Foulkes

Management

So I think awareness is definitely a driver. The larger Freedom gap, I don't know, I can't remember the last week that I didn't see a new story on a Freedom location or Freedom as an entity. So, broad awareness has been growing significantly. And I think the benefits of the Freedom model to get people on the water, particularly those people who are time constrained, but maybe about the commitments that don't allow them to do some of the other parts of boating, it's just become more obvious to people the benefits of the model. Certainly, we are refining the model and making sure that as we grow, we're keeping our service levels intact, enhancing the brand, enhancing the boats, getting more diversity of boats into the various fleets. So I think we're doing everything we can to make the experience more attractive. And then awareness is growing really quickly. And as I mentioned recently, searches for Boat Club were even higher this year than last year. And if you look across a whole range of metrics, that's not -- that's a pretty nice situation to be in.

Anna Glaessgen

Analyst · Jefferies. Please state your question.

Great. Thanks, David.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Fred Wightman with Wolfe Research. Please state your question.

Fred Wightman

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please state your question.

Hey, guys. Good morning. Could we just go back to the P&A segment? It looks like there's a pretty big margin improvement embedded in the full year outlook even though that full year number came down. Can you just explain sort of what's driving that and what gives you that confidence as we look into the back half?

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Yes. Fred, I'll take that again. So we've taken on a lot of inflation in the first half. I think that's -- we've talked about that on most calls. And we believe some of that is going to moderate here as we come to the back half of the year. There's also some mix components in there. As we look at the back half, volumes in the second half are generally a little bit lower just by nature, that's kind of year in and year out. But that's a factor as well.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Some of our pricing was mid-May pricing. So we did not get the full impact of pricing in the quarter. We'll get the full impact as we go into Q3 and Q4.

Ryan Gwillim

Management

The last thing I'd probably mention is Navico. Some of the cost synergies that we've been looking to put in will give a little bit more benefit in the back half and certainly into 2023 as well.

Fred Wightman

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please state your question.

Okay. That's helpful. That makes sense. If we just look at the repurchases, I think there was a comment in one of the releases or materials talking about similar levels in 3Q versus 2Q. And that would seem to imply that you'll be pretty close to that $400 million number. I mean is -- should we view that as sort of a floor type number? And sort of how do you think about repurchases in the current environment going forward?

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Yes. Fred, we've given ourselves plenty of flexibility as we continue to see the dislocation, not only in our own stock price, but in the sector itself. I would tell you that $400 million is certainly likely to happen. And we have the flexibility to go higher than that, should we do more in the third quarter, should valuations be appropriate for that.

Fred Wightman

Analyst · Wolfe Research. Please state your question.

Perfect. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Scott Stember with MKM Partners. Please go ahead.

Scott Stember

Analyst · MKM Partners. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thanks for taking my questions.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Good morning.

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Good morning.

Scott Stember

Analyst · MKM Partners. Please go ahead.

David, in your comments, you talked about not seeing any wholesale cancellations on the boat side. And apparently, the consumer is holding up a lot better than expected, at least in your world. But can you talk about trends that you're seeing? Are people -- with rates going up, interest rates, are they just switching more towards cash? And if so, what's the percentage of cash purchases this quarter?

Dave Foulkes

Management

Yeah. I don't actually know what the percentage of cash purchases this quarter. I do know because I looked at the first couple of weeks of July that financing applications in July this year essentially identical numbers, that we see anyway, to last year. I would say that credit spreads have certainly increased, and the duration of loans probably gone up. I was at a dealership looking at 20-year plus loans on various products. So people, I think, are accommodating their monthly payment tolerance by looking at various means, including extended loan periods. And yeah, I mean it clearly is differentiated. Most of our applicants that we see are prime applicants. So the -- I was looking at the kind of prime to non-prime credit quality this year, it's pretty similar to last year, too. There may be some people using cash. I think that's probably more likely in the -- ironically, in the more premium segments where people are doing that. So yeah, we haven't seen a lot of change. And even though credit spreads have increased, people seem to be relatively tolerant to that. If we do see something, it's more likely to be in the value segments. But so far, its holding up pretty well. And certainly, premium is holding up extremely well.

Scott Stember

Analyst · MKM Partners. Please go ahead.

Great. And just a follow-up question. Ryan, you talked about 10,000 units, I guess, being shipped in the quarter. But for the full year, are we still on track for -- I think the number was 40, 000?

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Yeah, I think we'll be -- we'll likely be just shy of that. We'll probably be closer to 39,000. But we did 94 in the first quarter or so. We did just over 10. The back half, as a reminder to everyone, has a bit of calendarization. We have some factory shutdowns that obviously the holidays in the fourth quarter, so you do have fewer production days. But I think 38,000, 39,000 is still a really good number.

Scott Stember

Analyst · MKM Partners. Please go ahead.

Great. That’s all I have. Thank you.

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Mike Swartz with Truist Securities. Please state your question.

Mike Swartz

Analyst · Truist Securities. Please state your question.

Hey guys, good morning. Just wanted to dig into the P&A business. I'm just a little confused with some of the commentary on the guidance, which you lowered. So I'm just wondering, I mean, the seasonal part of the business, the boating season started a little slower. I would assume most of that comes back later in the year. So, is the guidance reduction more on the distribution business, or I guess how should I think about that?

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Yes. Mike, it is a lot -- it is heavier weighted towards the distribution side of things. It's also a little bit on the Navico side, as Dave said earlier, about the restocking patterns at retailers. But unfortunately, to your first comment, you do lose a turn of P&A due to a later season. You often just lose it for the season. If you don't get boats in the water until mid-May or end of May versus same time in April, it's unlikely to get that back. The good news, though, is P&A backlogs continue to be very strong. Supply chain still hits there as well. And so, we're dealing with some of that. But all in all, it's kind of nits and nats in the various places. But certainly, it's not a function of usage kind of from the start of the better weather forward through the year.

Mike Swartz

Analyst · Truist Securities. Please state your question.

Got you. And I think, Dave, you made the commentary around some of your aluminum fishing businesses, how you've allocated more of the production towards premium models. Is that -- I guess is that being driven by what you're seeing in consumer demand? A lot of us are hearing out there, obviously, the value end of many of the power sports truck creational markets are softening to a greater degree than maybe premium. So, is that just a reaction to that or something else strategically that you're doing internally?

Dave Foulkes

Management

Yes. I think a couple of thoughts, really. It's -- I would say, it's mostly strategic. I would say, obviously, we're on a multiyear process of expanding boat margins and so we want generally to produce higher-margin models. In a supply-constrained environment, which we've been generally operating in, if you have one of something, whatever it is, it's better to put it on a high-margin model than a low-margin model. And that could be an engine in windshield control. So, protecting high-margin models has been a priority for us. I would also say that for the last three years, I've been saying that we are not going to fight for every last unit of aluminum value product. We are on a multiyear course of elevating our boat margins. That area of the business is more populated by a lot of smaller players, some of whom have come back online after being off-line due to supply constraints last year they were less robust. So, we're just being cautious about making sure that we continue that margin journey and don't spend a lot of constrained supply chain parts on that portion of the business.

Ryan Gwillim

Management

And Mike, maybe one more to circle back. And while we were trying to avoid talking to FX too much from this call, but if I look at the back half of P&A sales, I mean, half of the impact of FX for the year is related to P&A. It's about half Propulsion and half P&A. That's $140 million sales impact. So right there is several points. So, still a number of factors, but we still showing good results regardless.

Mike Swartz

Analyst · Truist Securities. Please state your question.

Great. Thanks for that color. Appreciate it guys.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from David MacGregor with Longbow Research. Please state your question.

Joe Nolan

Analyst · Longbow Research. Please state your question.

Good morning. This is Joe Nolan on for David MacGregor.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Hi, Joe.

Joe Nolan

Analyst · Longbow Research. Please state your question.

Hi. I just had a sort of a follow-up to the prior question. With your focusing production on more of a premium product, can you just talk about the pace of orders and how this split between lower price boats versus premium products?

Dave Foulkes

Management

Yes. I think, orders -- wholesale orders are very strong across all of our boat brands at the moment. There isn't a dealer who doesn't want more boat brands. It doesn't really matter what the boat type is. So we continue to do everything we can to try and satisfy that demand. I think that, although, the supply constraints are being felt somewhat more acutely in the premium end of the business, as I mentioned earlier, even have Aluminum Fish end of the business, our dealers are well below their normal stocking levels at this time of the year. So, yes, our orders are holding up very nicely.

Joe Nolan

Analyst · Longbow Research. Please state your question.

Got it. Okay. Thanks for that. And then, just a quick follow-up. Mercury seems to just keep gaining share. Can you talk about some of the areas where you're having the greatest success, whether that's buying horsepower, type of boat or by geography? Thanks.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Everywhere is the answer at the moment. But I would say, we focus particularly on higher horsepower, not to the extent that we don't do a lot of work in every segment. It just -- as we noted, we just introduced a brand new 25 and 30-horsepower engine, which takes some of the technologies that we introduced in the higher horsepower segments and migrate it downwards. So we're making sure our product line is robust from top to bottom. But I would say that, we're still the only manufacturer that has any product even above 425 horsepower. We have our 450. We have a 600. We have a 500. So there isn't even any competition to us at the top end of the horsepower range. A demand for our high horsepower and mid-range is still extremely strong. I think, we've shown to be a very reliable supplier, and that is benefiting us pretty much everywhere. As we get more capacity, it is all allocated either to new OEMs, expanded market share or share of transfers in existing OEMs, repower, international markets. So there is no reason why our share gains would not accelerate as we get that capacity on.

Joe Nolan

Analyst · Longbow Research. Please state your question.

Great. Thanks for answering my questions.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Our next question comes from Joe Altobello with Raymond James. Please state your question.

Joe Altobello

Analyst · Raymond James. Please state your question.

Hi. Good morning. I guess, staying on engines for a second. You mentioned the capacity expansion coming online this year -- later this year. It's about 50% on your 175-horsepower and above. I guess two questions there. One, what percent of your engine sales does that represent in terms of dollars? And when would you expect to get to optimal utilization levels with this new capacity?

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Hi. Good morning, Joe. I'll take this one. 150-horsepower and above is about 60% of dollars. And below 150-horsepower is about 40%. So the swing factors are the always 150 which is obviously a big value. So you can imagine that this represents half or maybe a little bit less of the overall revenue of Mercury's propulsion business. And then in terms of full run rate, I mean, this is obviously not a light switch. You will see benefits in the fourth quarter. Certainly, I think as you look at the guidance, one of the reasons we took propulsion sales guidance up is the capacity coming online in the fourth quarter and it will continue really into next year. So, whether it is Q1 or Q2 of next year, that's probably when you'll see the full run rate. A bit of it does depend on supply chain and suppliers. And to this point, they've been great partners as they always are to Mercury. But that's when I think about the full run rate kind of mid next year.

Joe Altobello

Analyst · Raymond James. Please state your question.

Okay. It's very helpful. And maybe for Dave, just to clarify your comments earlier on the call on pricing. Are you saying we could see a moderation of price increases as cost inflation eases, or could we even see some rollback of recent price increases if input costs actually do come down?

Dave Foulkes

Management

No, I was saying, the former that we will see, hopefully, the opportunity to selectively moderate pricing. Obviously, inflation – price inflation has been higher than normal for some time now and we're very cognizant of that. I do not expect any price rollbacks. If we need to stimulate demand, we don't at the moment, but if we did, it would be more likely through promotional activity, not a rollback.

Joe Altobello

Analyst · Raymond James. Please state your question.

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Craig Kennison with Baird. Please state your question.

Craig Kennison

Analyst · Baird. Please state your question.

Hey, thanks for squeezing me in here. Ryan, you made a point on FX, and that point is well taken in terms of effect on the income statement. I'm just curious, has there been an impact on the competitive dynamic in the Propulsion category?

Ryan Gwillim

Management

We don't believe so, Craig. But obviously, over time, in any of our non-US competitors, their pricing is – it's their, obviously, their responsibility and we just can't comment on anything they do on pricing. But to date, not – we've not seen any material changes.

Craig Kennison

Analyst · Baird. Please state your question.

Great. Thanks for the call.

Ryan Gwillim

Management

Thank you.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. And we have run out of time for questions today. At this time, we would like to turn the call back to Dave for some concluding remarks. Thank you.

Dave Foulkes

Management

Thank you very much. Thank you all for joining us today. I think this quarter once again demonstrates the evolution of our business and our ability to continue to perform strongly and advance our strategic initiatives even in the face of many headwinds. The improving retail data at the end of Q2 also demonstrates the resilience of the boating consumer. And I think in early July, we're seeing P&A rebound very nicely in a way that suggests that boating consumers is very, very active. We innovate on behalf of that consumer to offer the best boats, engines, experiences, alternative ways to participate. And we are very much looking forward to sharing more detail on that with the investment community in November this year when you will see, I expect, the most exciting array of new products that you have ever seen. So we will look forward to sharing that with you later in the year. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

And that concludes today's conference. All parties may disconnect. Have a great day.