Carrier Global Corporation (CARR) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

My name is Andrew Obin. I'm Bank of America's multi-industrial analyst based in New York. Welcome to the last day of the Global Industrials Conference, which has been a terrific success this year. It's bigger and better. I think it's the largest ever. So thank you so much to everybody, and thank you to my European colleagues for putting on such a fantastic event. So for me, this is the last presentation of my agenda, clearly not the last presentation of the conference, many more to come. But we're delighted here to have the management of Carrier, and we have Dave Gitlin, company's Chairman and CEO; and Patrick Goris, who is Senior VP and the CFO of the company. And I think Dave is going to give some opening remarks. He has a couple of slides, and then we're going to go into fireside chat. Gentlemen, thanks so much, and thank you for coming.

Well, thank you, Andrew. Thanks to the Bank of America team. Patrick and I just came directly from Frankfurt from the ISH Show, and the energy was tremendous. We had over 100,000 visitors to our booth. And I can say with all humbleness, that Carrier and Viessmann clearly stood out. Our vision and our purpose are both galvanizing and uniting. Our vision: To be the global leader in intelligent climate energy solutions. Each word matters. Global leader. We're #1 or 2 in every one of our markets. Intelligence, everything we do is connected to an intelligent climate. The world is clearly going to more sustainable solutions. And energy for us is the new frontier, with integrated energy solutions and solutions double-digit aftermarket forever. Our purpose, which we recently announced, is enhancing the lives we live and the world we share. What our industry does matters. It matters to people's lives. It matters to the planet. And we believe we're uniquely positioned within our industry. Our industry frankly is at an inflection point. And when you come to our Investor Day in New York City on May 19, we hope you'll leave with 2 takeaways: that our industry is poised for continued growth because of key secular trends; and the second is that Carrier is uniquely positioned to outperform within that industry. There's key 3 secular trends that we'll be talking about. Number one is there's more demand for cooling. The last 10 years have been the hottest 10 years on record. And in fact, last year was the hottest year on record. Clearly, the planet is warming and it's driving more demand for cooling. There are 3.5 billion people in the world that live in the hottest parts of the world and only 15% of those people have air conditioning today. We see the demand for cooling increasing 3x between now and 2050. And it's not only for residential, you will see it also for commercial with trends around AI and data centers. The second key trend is the shift to electrification. Electricity makes up 20% of the global energy consumption today. That's going to 50% by 2050. EVs in China were less than 1% 10 years ago. This year, it will be about 30%. Our heat pumps in the United States, more than 40% of the split systems that we sell in the United States today, are already heat pumps. And if you look at a double-digit CAGR for heat pumps, air to water heat pumps here in Europe, in 2030, only 20% of the homes in Europe will have heat pumps. So we see this continued shift to electrification happening in many industries and certainly in ours. And what that means for the third trend is there's going to be more demand on the grid and there's going to be a need for creative solutions to help the utilities through peak hours. You're going to be hearing from us more about HEMS in the United States, an integrated complete home energy management solution, with our focus in the U.S. being on an integrated battery heat pump solution. Here in Europe, we're the only company that has complete home energy management solutions with solar PV, heat pump battery and a digital overlay with the grid. And what we're doing is working with utilities in the United States. We're working with our installer partners here in Europe to drive more unique solutions for our customers that alleviate the demand on the grid, especially during peak hours. So we're very excited about the trends for our industry, and we're very excited about what that means for Carrier. Carrier is a bit new to some of the folks in the room, so let me just make 4 points on this page. Number one is that we're very, very pleased with our portfolio because we believe it has the perfect combination of being both focused and balanced. It's focused because we're now a pure-play HVACR company, 85% HVAC, 15% refrigeration. But we are also not overly reliant on any one vertical or any one geography. Number two is aftermarket. You see on the right that it constitutes over 25% of our sales. But we believe that we'll continue to grow double digits for as far as the eye can see because we have unique solutions for our customers to drive more parts, more sales and frankly more integrated solutions for our customers. The third point is that we have a performance culture. We drove EPS growth of 16% last year at the midpoint of our guide. This year, it's 18%. We drove 180 basis points of margin expansion. We continue to perform without surprises. And the fourth is that we're market leaders. We are #1 or 2 in every market in which we compete. If you look at the next slide, I think of our last 5 years since our spin really in 3 phases. The first was that the opportunity presented by the spin from United Technology gave us the chance to really create a new Carrier, a new culture, which we call the Carrier Way; a new energy, a performance culture, we launched Carrier Excellence; we created a new team. We created a foundation for performance, and we also decided that we were going to invest a lot in growth and become a growth player. So we created that foundation in the first phase. What we announced in the middle of 2023 was our new vision of being the global leader in intelligent climate and energy solutions. We announced the combination with Viessmann Climate Solutions and the divestiture of 1.5 of our 3 segments. We sold our entire Fire & Security segment for over $10 billion of gross proceeds and we sold our Stationary Refrigeration business. And that's unleashed to whole new Carrier. A focused Carrier, a Carrier that has now the world-leading residential light commercial player in Europe with Viessmann Climate Solutions, which is the integration has gone tremendously well, and has really positioned us for what this next phase is, it's our growth phase. And what you're going to hear from us on May 19, our whole focus will be on growth. We've committed to our investors that our long-term growth algorithm is 6% to 8% continuous growth. And the question that you've rightly asked us is, what are the key secular trends and what is Carrier doing to continuously drive to that 6% to 8%. And we feel between the trends that our industry has, plus how we're investing in unique offerings, we're poised for that 6% to 8% on a continuous basis. And one of the reasons is what you see on this slide. We started, I would say, prior to our spin, we were very focused as a product company. We sold residential air conditioners. We sold chillers. We sold reefer units for transport refrigeration. What we said in 2019, leading to our spin in 2020, is that we want to focus on not only selling products, but selling aftermarket solutions. We said we would drive aftermarket growth double digit forever. We've done it every year since we spun. We're going to do it again this year. And we had that combination of both product sales and aftermarket sales. The new frontier, which we'll talk about more at our Investor Day on the right, is complete fully integrated system solutions. Really for 2 reasons. One is differentiation. We can differentiate in the United States with our unique offering, with an integrated battery, with a heat pump. But the second is because it provides more unique solutions for our customers. Our customers are looking for solutions. They're looking for more energy efficiency. Our customers care about their energy bills and we have a big impact on that. Our customers care about the planet. So we provide very unique solutions through our integrated offerings. And here's the themes you're going to be hearing from us at our Investor Day. How do we provide best-in-class growth? Number one is driving best-in-class platforms and growth platforms, best-in-class products and growth platforms. We used to invest about $400 million in R&D. Last year, it was about $700 million. We've clearly invested in organic growth and differentiation. The second is digitally enabled life cycle solutions. The formula behind driving aftermarket -- double-digit aftermarket growth forever. And then this new frontier for us, these fully integrated systems. Margin expansion productivity, we've committed to 50 basis points a year of margin expansion. This year will be 100 basis points. And as I said, last year was 180 basis points. And disciplined capital allocation is what you see on our last slide. We invest in organic growth. I mentioned the $700 million of R&D. We will return $3.8 billion to our shareholders this year. We increased our dividend this year, 18%. Between the second half of last year and this year, we're doing a $5 billion buyback. Our leverage ratio ended last year at about 2x. We paid down $1.2 billion of debt in February and our next debt doesn't come due until 2027. So we're poised to play offense and we're poised to outgrow a growing market. So with that, Andrew, happy to get into the Q&A.

Yes. Maybe a good place to start. We're sort of towards the end of the quarter, lots of economic uncertainty. Maybe just give us an update. What are you seeing in the market? I think lots of concern at this event versus general state of the U.S. economy, any macro read across? And just maybe give us latest as you're seeing in your key end markets, maybe U.S. resi, U.S. commercial, maybe Europe, just let's start there, we'll go.

Yes. I think the short answer is no new news. We're on track to do exactly what we thought we were going to do in the first quarter. In any short cycle business, there's always going to be some puts and takes. Resi is probably going to come in a little bit better than we thought. Movement was quite strong in January. So we feel poised to have -- we had already said double-digit growth in resi in the first quarter, and that's looking like -- the number will come in a bit higher than we thought. Light commercial will probably be a little bit lower than we thought. We already knew light commercial was going to be down around 10% or probably come in a little bit lower than that. But some puts and takes here and there, but everything is on track for what we thought.

That's a good answer. And just general, do you get a sense, can you tell sort of volatility in the underlying economy? Can you tell from your conversations with the customers?

I'll tell you, we feel overall good about the long term of the economy. Resi demand has been strong when we look at that vertical. Commercial demand, it really depends on the vertical. But data centers has been very, very strong. We've talked not only in the United States but globally about our data center sales going from $500 million last year to about $1 billion this year, and that will continue to certainly grow as we get into next year. Our backlog continues to grow very strong. Certain verticals like health care, K-12 in the United States, higher education, a lot of manufacturing is coming back to the United States. So we are winning some new factories around chips manufacturing. Other key industrial manufacturing, we've had some key wins there. So that's all strong. Commercial real estate has been weak for a while now, and it continues. You probably saw ABI came out yesterday around 45%. So that's -- that continues to be a challenged vertical, but that's becoming less and less a percentage of our overall Commercial HVAC business. As I said, light commercial is a bit of a watch item in 1Q, but that tends to be short cycle. We think that will smooth itself out as we get into 2Q and beyond.

Great. And sort of your mid-single-digit organic growth, you have this medium-term organic guide of 6% to 8%. I know you guys are going to have an Analyst Day in May, clearly. But is it reasonable sort of to see that the company continues to accelerate over the next several years. And obviously, to sort of to hit 6% to 8%, eventually, you have to go above that. So what would drive going above that potentially in the outer years? What trends would drive you going above that rate?

Well, the way I think about it is that we've had a very good percentage of our portfolio that's been consistently growing double digits. Our Commercial HVAC business has grown double digits 4 years in a row, and we expect it to grow double digits again this year. Our aftermarket, some of which is in that first number, we said double digit forever. So we've had areas of strength,that we have -- we believe will continue to be strong. Then we have areas that have just been continuously solid in the 5% to 10% range. Resi has been strong. Light commercial has generally been strong. And then we've had 2 -- last year, we had 2 acute areas of weakness. Residential here in Europe and Residential in China were both down around 20%. This year, kind of both of those in the flattish range. And because those are both about flattish, that got the overall company to about mid-single digits this year. Once resi in Europe, resi in China recover a bit, even once you get into that 5% to 10% range, that takes the whole up to 8%.

And what percent of the company -- clearly, I mean, we were discussing last night, all of a sudden, there's a lot more excitement about Europe, change in the sentiment. Maybe what are the key end markets for you for resi Europe? And how big is resi Europe for the company?

Well, Resi Europe and China combined is probably in the $4 billion, $5 billion range. And clearly, Europe would be by far the biggest part of that. And within Europe, key countries, clearly, Germany, Italy, France, to some extent, the U.K. as well.

And resi [indiscernible]? Is this with Viessmann or -- so it is Viessmann.

Yes. The vast majority of our resi business in Europe is Viessmann.

Okay. I get that. That makes sense. So -- and we'll talk about Viessmann. The HVAC industry has a large manufacturing presence in Mexico, Carrier included. So how big of an impact would tariff on Mexico have on you? Is the impact primarily to the resi HVAC business?

I'll take that one, I guess. If I look at tariffs, and I'm going to zoom out a little bit, all the tariffs that have been announced, I think, by and large, we think that they are manageable, including the one on China, the first 10%, the additional 10%. If we look at what has happened on steel, some of the other metals, we've been mostly blocked for the year now. And so generally, that is not an issue for us this year. Mexico would be different. The good thing is there is -- with the USMC exemption, we think that substantially all were covered through the exemption, meaning our imports from Mexico into the U.S. So that exemption is important for us. And so we feel good the way it is today. If that exemption is no longer there, that would be a challenge for us, but we've been very clear about our playbook. Our playbook is, one, there will be additional price increases if that is the case. Two, we have already been -- and some of these price increases have already been announced, meaning our partners know that price increases will come if tariffs go into effect April 2. Two, we have started negotiations with vendors. And so some of our vendors in Mexico, they are aware that we will expect some decreases, especially if some of their costs are based in local currency. And then third, to the extent that there would still be a gap after the first 2 levers, we will have to find cost elsewhere in the system to offset that.

Right. I do not know if you feel comfortable about dealing with that?

Well, there's a lot that we don't know yet, but that is our playbook. I will tell you, though, that you asked, is it mostly resi? But within the U.S., we actually have manufacturing facilities in Charlotte for Commercial HVAC. We have 2 important facilities for resi HVAC in Tennessee and the other one in [ MD ], but important footprint in Mexico.

Right. But generally, your guidance -- just to make sure, your guidance does not include tariffs on Mexico. You have playbook sort of ready when that happens. And the expectation right now that you'll be able to absorb...

We'll see what gets announced when. And if there are retaliatory tariffs, it's a fluid situation, as I think we all know.

Yes. No, I totally get it. And you mentioned that you're hedged on steel. Can you just sort of tell us copper, steel, aluminum, where are you? I think you've disclosed previously how hedged you are.

We -- at the time of the earnings call, steel was about 80% covered for the year that has now increased substantially. Aluminum and copper were about 50 or so percent covered, and we have covered most of that for the year now.

Okay.So at this point, across the board, you're covered?

Mostly.

Okay. And it's interesting, I did ask this resi HVAC question in Europe. Obviously, a tremendous amount of movement in the portfolio and the company does look quite different from when you were part of UTX -- UTC. As the portfolio transformation complete, how are you thinking about potential resegmentation or the financials for the business to give us a better idea what it is you do?

Yes, that is something we're working on, and we referred to that in the 10-K we filed back in February. But we will be moving towards a 4-segment reporting structure. And the way you can think about this is actually in the last earnings call, we provided a little bit of a projection of that is we will have the current HVAC segment will be reported in 3 segments, it will be by region. One will be the Americas. The other one will be Europe. The third one will be Asia Pacific including the Middle East. And then the fourth segment will be our current Refrigeration business. And so that is how Dave and we look at the business. And that is what we're working on now in terms of time line, you can expect historical financials in the middle of April, maybe a little bit after that. And Q1 financials will be reported in the new structure.

And on an annual basis, how will you be providing sort of further breakdowns by region in your...

Yes. So we will -- the historical financials will include sales margins for those 4 segments.

But I meant within Europe, would you sort of break out -- will you break out...

We will provide some additional color, that is still to be determined. But we'll provide clearly some additional color within each segment.

No, that is fantastic. And maybe just on working capital. I think for the company, days inventory still, I think, elevated versus pre-COVID. Just as a CFO, what are the expectations for sort of working capital levels '25 going forward? And how should we think about free cash flow conversion for the company? What's the right run rate?

I would say that generally speaking, if you look at our working capital performance, we've had over the years significant improvement in total working capital, including our payables, including our receivables. On working capital, it is higher -- the inventories now are a little higher than they were -- or the turns are higher than they were before COVID. Remember, though, that at the end of last year, on purpose, we built more inventory on the 410A, the prior refrigerant for Resi in the U.S. We have plans, and we do expect inventory turns to improve, and to improve over time to be better than what they were before COVID. And so we would expect working capital to continue to improve, including the inventory days. In terms of free cash flow performance, we expect conversion to be about 100% of adjusted income.

Excellent. So maybe just going to resi HVAC in North America. Lots of sort of consternation about 410A transition, what's happening? But we have heard from distributors that -- on the resi side that, after a few years of primarily sort of repair parts growth that they actually think that '25 could be a year of equipment growth. So how does that square with what you see in the market? And just generally, I think this repair versus replacement dynamic, I think the industry really cares about it. Maybe just talk about what it is you're seeing there.

Well, we said resi would be up high single digits this year. We -- the good news is that's front-end loaded. So it's not -- that doesn't rely on any kind of back-end growth. If we look at 7% or so of that is just coming from mix because we're pricing 454B about 10% higher than the 410A. We'll get -- we expect a little bit of volume growth. And then when we look overall, we really do not see this shift that we always get asked about. If there is some pressure on the lower end consumer, are you going to see some shift from replacement to replacing just with a spare part. We have not seen any trends around that. So we feel good about resi for 1Q certainly. And then the trends we're seeing. The team has done a great job. Margins continue to expand. We've gained quite a bit of share that is sticky. And we've been working very closely with our distribution and our dealer partners to drive more solutions. So resi right now is quite good.

And the demand that you're talking about. So clearly, this is -- well, I don't know if it's clear, but it sounds like it's actually 454B product.

Yes. We're almost done with 410A. We should be done shipping 410A by the end of this quarter.

But you sort of said Resi is better. What's driving Resi being better? Because we've actually -- to be completely frank, we've been hearing about Resi potentially being better since the end of last year. And the message is just the underlying demand in the channel is just not as bad as people have figured.

Yes. I mean, I think we spent about 3 months talking about prebuy. And so finally, people said there actually is no real material prebuy and it's what we said, we've been saying it for 3 months. So look, we had to make a decision in August of last year, how much 410A to build, how much we were going to ship last year, how much we were going to ship in 1Q. We looked at -- as we were deciding how much of the 410A to ship to our distributors, we looked at movement, we looked at inventory levels. And we were very judicious to not ship too much last year, try to save some for the first quarter of this year. We've pretty much gone through that. Now we're transitioning to 454B. What I fully expect is the first quarter is basically playing out exactly how we thought, maybe a little bit better overall. But we said January movement was going to be strong, which it was. We would expect movement to slow as we get into February into March, because I think some of our peers are in a phase where they're shipping a little bit more 410A than we were. We purposely wanted to shift to 454B as soon as we can. It's priced 10% higher. So movement might slow a little bit February into March. It did slow in February. We expect it to slow into March because some of our peers that ship to their own -- to themselves are shipping a bit more 410A. But as soon as that transition happens, then we'll pick up again with 454B. So it's really -- and the word we're getting from our distribution partners is we want more demand now to start setting ourselves up for 2Q.

But basically, are you sort of going to be exiting the quarter already shipping a fair amount of 454B?

Yes, for sure.

Excellent. And maybe with the funds from the IRAs here and homes rebate programs starting to be distributed by states, how much of an impact do you expect this to have on your Resi business?

It hasn't had a material impact to date. It just takes a while in the United States from something to go from legislation into the IRA, into a state, into a kitchen table discussion with our dealer and a homeowner. So there's 25C that provides $2,000 per heat pump, $600 for a high-efficiency furnace. The reality is we've not seen a material benefit, it's about half the states have actually just recently adopted it. So we're just on the cusp of getting our dealers to really educate the homeowners on the opportunities behind that. Hasn't had a material impact, but we're hopeful that those provisions in the IRA stick because we think it could have a meaningful impact on the consumer, and frankly, the planet.

Excellent. And this is an interesting discussion. For the new refrigerant units, right, there's a discussion of the lack of 454B refrigerant. Is that something impacting you at the manufacturing level or any of your distributors?

No.

Great answer. And given the increased pricing of residential units, well, I guess, given the Trump administration's rollback of efficiency standards on several products, including central air conditioning, could you see a scenario where the market starts remaking lower SEER units?

We don't see that. We're working closely with the EPA and the administration. There has been some, I guess, either rumors or discussions to that effect. But the entire industry has already transitioned to the new refrigerant. So the idea of switching back to something like 410A and HFC, which will create a whole bunch of more costs in the system, because our manufacturing lines have switched over. We would need to recertify the older product. And that cost would need to go somewhere. So not only would it be a step back for the environment, it would be a step back for the homeowners. So we are confident that as we and our peers in the industry have the discussions, that there would not be a rollback.

And I guess last question on Resi for me for North America. As heat pump adoption rises in the U.S., how do you see competition evolving from new lower-priced entrants? And specifically, when we were at the AHR Show, every year, you just see bigger and better booths with players from China. What a lot of distributors tell us, they got quite good sort of doing white label for a lot of major U.S. manufacturers. So they actually know what the requirements are. It's the same product, and they are now starting to build out their own channels. With some of your large distributors, frankly, right, some of booths are staffed. You go into the booths and their staff is like North American distributors. So from that perspective, clearly, you're uniquely positioned with Toshiba and I don't know, Giwee, you actually have made proactive moves. So maybe just, a, how do you see this competition dynamic evolving with more product out of China coming into North America? And clearly, you have thought about it, right? You have the high-end product from Japan, you have the low-end product from China. Just maybe sort of -- because I think you're uniquely positioned. And clearly, you also have Viessmann. So like nobody has done what you have.

Well, we appreciate the question, Andrew. And I think the combination of technology and channel gives us a lot of confidence. I think your -- the question is primarily focused on the ductless space in North America. We do have relationships with third-party entities in Asia which are -- that go back many years and have been strong and continue to be strong. We do have the channel in the United States. Our Resi business has gotten almost close to 1/3 of the market in the United States. And that's through a lot of great work with all of our distribution partners and about 100,000 dealers. And then what's really unique about Carrier is the technology that exists in the portfolio. I think it's probably honestly underappreciated by investors because it's really hard to know the power of the 5,000 engineers and the technology that exists under this combined entity. Toshiba has highly differentiated rotary compressors and inverter technology. They eventually started the technology around those trends. We now have, to your point, the Chinese acquisition that we did a few years back, Giwee, they have great technology, great low-cost manufacturing, but probably a little bit on the lower end, which enables us to attract consumers at a different part of the market. And then Viessmann has world-class technology around energy efficiency and noise acoustics. And in the United States, we know the market. We have phenomenal engineers throughout the United States. So you put that together, we do have the capability to provide variable speed, low-cost, very uniquely differentiated technology for both the ducted and the ductless side in the United States. We can make, we can buy, and we have a lot of opportunity to make a lot of the underlying components and end products because of the portfolio.

And just fundamentally, this was another sort of tip from the AHR, do you think the market is changing because of the major manufacturers, what we've heard, you are the only ones who make sort of real investment in the channel. You continue sort of to let your dealers thrive. And we've heard that a lot of other -- well, some of your competitors, went through direct model, which sort of works well, but you sort of lose maybe contact with the channel. And you have more Asian players. And it just seems it's going to be a different market 5 to 10 years from now versus where it may have been 5 years ago. Could you just talk about that? And you really -- the comment we get that Carrier is one company that has thought about it.

Well, we do think about it a lot. We try to be very, very purposeful about every aspect of our channel. And because this is a global comment. If you look at the channels that we have for resi, light commercial, commercial, we are very purposeful on exactly our route to market everywhere around the world. In some cases, we want to go direct on the commercial side because it enables us more in the sale and the aftermarket. In some cases, like the United States, the distribution channel is very, very different than the wholesale channel here in Europe. In the United States, our distributors are exclusive. So the key is the relationship that we have being on the same side of the table with our distribution partners. They stock inventory. They are the sales force for our dealers. And because we have such great relationships with Watsco and with our other independent distributors, that relationship, we can use it to play offense. And it's been very, very powerful. And then we also have relationships with, like I said, 100,000 dealers. We had a conference in Vegas with well over 20,000 dealers, and it was very galvanizing around creating the energy around Carrier. Here in Europe, it's a different channel, because the wholesalers here in Europe on the residential side are agnostic. They are not exclusive to an OEM, so they will often carry 10 brands or so. So here, one of the many differentiating things about Viessmann Climate Solutions is it's the only company that has a scale direct-to-installer channel. So we have relationships with about 80,000 installers. Many were in the booth over these last couple of nights. Patrick and I and Thomas and the team had dinner with our installers. Number one, it was actually encouraging to see some level of optimism about where the market was going. And there was great dynamics not only around some potential for turning the corner in places like Germany, but there was a real pull for this system solution. I mentioned it upfront. We'll talk more about it at our Investor Day. But what our installers were telling us is that there's demand from the homeowner for more energy-efficient solutions, more PV, more heat pumps, more battery, more not only the shift to heat pumps, but more integrated solutions. And that channel will be very differentiating for us.

Maybe just we should talk about Viessmann. Clearly, last year was the year of adjustment. Can you just talk about, a, how have you recalibrated maybe your view on European market, just the size of the European market, right? Because the numbers I have, I think, we were thinking 4 million, 6 million units by '27, 6 million to 10 million units by 2030. What do these numbers look now? And maybe just talk about how do you see the European market evolve because we're sort of hear that the inventory has been flushed out. And clearly, you have a different business model. But yes, just maybe talk about heat pump market in Europe.

Yes. Andrew, there's a couple of numbers that get thrown around because some use total heat pumps. When we announced the combination, we were talking air-to-water heat pumps. So what we said is there's 200 million homes in Europe, that if you have a double-digit CAGR for adoption of air-to-water heat pumps, you would get to 40 million homes by 2030, having heat pumps, which would be about 20%. So we feel that the continued adoption of heat pumps has been strong. If you look at last year, it was clearly not the year that we drew up. And I think we underestimated the amount of backlog that was out there. This is the last quarter that you're going to hear us talking about elevated backlog levels. We said this quarter, for us, with Viessmann Climate Solutions, would be down 10% to 15%. We said the full year would be flat, but we said down 10% to 15%. It's probably in that 15% range, just 14%, 15% range. And we think it is the last -- the reason it's down is we were still shipping out of backlog in the first quarter of last year. That's now done. So as we get into 2Q, 3Q, 4Q, we no longer have that compare issue that we'll be talking about. If we're not growing as we get into 2Q, we will not be pointing to compares, we will not be pointing to backlog issues. So now we're back to the base algorithm that Patrick has discussed about the base business. We've talked about how we get about 3 to 4 points of mix benefit, and that mix benefit assumes double-digit growth in heat pumps and a slight, say, 5% decline in boilers. You get a point or so of price, which we feel good about. We're raising prices 3% April 1. We expect 1 point or 2 to stick. Then we get a point or two from the drop-through of double-digit aftermarket growth. And then we're driving 4 to 5 points of growth initiatives. $200 million of revenue synergies by the end of next year. We do see more adoption of system-level selling. So there's a lot of underlying initiatives that contribute to growth as well.

But effectively, Viessmann could turn flat by second quarter and that should grow in the second half. Is that?

Actually, we -- our assumption is that Viessmann is flat to positive in the second quarter.

Okay. Yes, that's what. Okay, fine. Maybe in the remaining time, let's hit data center. Just you have talked about sort of AI solutions for a while. Do you need new cooling solutions to service the AI data center market? And you sort of have highlighted your business should double next year. But maybe just talk about what technologies can you add to your product stack to be a better player, right, because you have a couple of your peers? You're definitely in the game, but clearly, you have higher aspirations. Maybe talk about the road map.

Well, we did say last year data centers, $0.5 billion going to $1 billion this year. And we look at our backlog, and that will continue to grow as we get into next year. Earlier this week, I was in -- outside of Lyon in our Montluel Commercial HVAC business, and the orders continue to be strong for data centers here in Europe, especially with the colos. Data center demand in the United States and China and throughout Asia is very strong. So the overall vertical continues to be very strong. What we're pushing, like I mentioned on the Resi side, is unique system solutions. We've always been strong in traditional cooling, chillers, air handlers. We've always been strong with building management systems with our automated logic controls business. The new thing we've added is liquid cooling, this direct-to-chip. So we've launched our own organic CDU, our cooling distribution unit, and this is providing liquid cooling directly to the chip. What we recently announced was QuantumLeap, which is one holistic integrated offering, which combines traditional cooling with liquid cooling with our BMS. So we could tell our data center customers, you worry about running the data center, let us worry about cooling it. And then you can have one control system, both for the traditional cooling and the liquid cooling with modeling that provides more optimized cooling just to the point of use.

And who is your typical customer? Is it like -- it sounds like it's maybe 50 megawatt colo? Is that would be sort of a typical...

We actually span the gamut. We have very strong relationships with the hyperscalers. I think for this offering with QuantumLeap, there's probably going to be more pull right up front on the colos. We just had an RFP that we responded to that had the holistic solution. And frankly, the customer was requiring the holistic solution.

And just maybe in the remaining minute, light commercial, you sort of said maybe down. Could you just walk us through what are the key verticals for you? And within light commercial, why has it been so strong? Pumps clearly an issue. But maybe which verticals are down and which verticals are still strong?

Yes. I mean clearly, 1Q, we have a tough comp. I think last year was up 21% in the first quarter. So that's part of it. I think the verticals that have been strong, K-12 is still strong. Warehouse has, overall, I think, been flattish for the market, but we've actually grown a fair amount there, so we've been there. The ones that we kind of watch right now are a little bit on the commercial office building and retail, where I think what's happened a bit in the U.S. is some of our customers are just waiting to see how tariffs play out in early April. So we expected movement to be a little bit soft in the first quarter, it will be. So look, we look at it. It will come in a little bit lower than we thought. It's about $1.5 billion business out of $22.5 billion, so just over 5% of our sales. One quarter, after coming off about 14 quarters of great growth and great market share is not going to keep us up at night too much. I think what we just need to do is grow in 2Q, and then get back to the kind of the growth rate that we've seen. So we said this year, I think, up low to mid-single digits, and we wouldn't change that for the full year.

That's terrific. Well, thanks so much.

Thank you.

Thanks, Andrew. Thanks for having us.