Zebra Technologies Corporation (ZBRA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Appreciate everyone joining us. Welcome to Citi's 2026 Global Industrial Tech and Mobility Conference. I am Piyush Avasthy, analyst at Citi. We are starting right in early with Zebra Technologies. We've got Nathan Winters, who is the CFO. Welcome, Nathan.

Yes. It's great to be here. Thanks for having us.

Nathan, Zebra sits at the intersection of automation, digitization, on-demand economy and AI. As you see your end markets today and as you're having your customer conversations, I would appreciate your thoughts on where you think we are in the cycle and the durability of the cycle. What are your large customers telling you? Do you still sense some uncertainty as you talk to your smaller or medium-sized customers?

Yes. So if you take a step back and look at the depth and breadth of the portfolio across our 2 segments, the Connected Frontline, Asset Visibility & Automation, our customers, I think, of all sizes are telling us a similar thing, which is they want to continue to invest in technology that drives efficiency, productivity across their operations, increases visibility to their assets and inventory as they track it across their supply chains and provide a better experience for their customers. And that's what our portfolio does. And we say we're the foundation for intelligent operations, meaning how do we make their operations more intelligent, provide the insights they need and drive the productivity they're expecting for their frontline associates. And if you look at -- I think we have a lot of momentum coming out of 2025 here into '26 at the high end of our guidance for the fourth quarter, grew 6% organically last year with 17% EPS growth, strong free cash flow and looking forward to have that momentum continue here in the year. And I think that's what our customers are telling us here early on. We just recently at the National Retail Federation Trade Show, some of our sales kickoff meetings with our partners. Again, I think people have their heads down, focused on what they need to do for their business and continuing to invest.

Got it. And you reported last week, introduced your 2026 guidance. Can we touch on some of the drivers there? Your implied '26 organic growth guidance of roughly 4% is below your long-term average of 5% to 7%. You just said you did 6% in 2025. So as we think about 2026, can we walk through some of the puts and takes? How much is pricing helping versus the volume uptick? I thought you generally sounded good on your earnings call across most of your portfolio in terms of pipeline of opportunities. So where are the areas of caution, and I understand it's still early in the year.

Yes. Look, we feel good about the business. Like I said, there was some nice momentum coming out of year-end. We have a strong pipeline of opportunities both for this year and starting to see a pipeline build for '27 as well. We had our European business returned to growth in the fourth quarter, which was a positive sign. Manufacturing, which we'll talk about a little bit later, grew high single digits. So it was great to see kind of our manufacturing vertical get back to solid growth. And then we're seeing continued momentum in areas like RFID and machine vision. So I think all that, along with what I just mentioned around our customer conversations, makes us feel good about how we're entering the year. We think the guide is balanced with those opportunities, along with, I'd say, some of just the lingering uncertainty, whether that's inflation, interest rates, the impact of the consumer. But again, we feel like we're in a good space entering the year. And we did take some pricing actions last year. That's given us about 0.5 point of growth as it carried over to this year. So what we realized last and carrying over into this year. And we've just announced another price increase just over a couple of weeks ago, and we didn't embed that incremental revenue into the guidance just because we just announced it a few days before earnings. So again, I think that's incremental opportunity as we look out to the back half of the year. But we wanted to see how that plays out in the market from a demand perspective before including it in the top line guide.

Got you. And you mentioned some of the end markets, but let's talk -- let's get a little bit more into those and how they are contributing to your growth this year. You said like you mentioned, like the relative strength in health care, manufacturing and retail and e-commerce. Like how are you thinking about these end markets in 2026? Manufacturing has been pressured for some time, but you had a good 4Q, as you mentioned. Would you say you are seeing a more pronounced recovery in the underlying demand in manufacturing? And then how do you think about transportation and logistics?

Yes. If you look at manufacturing, I think we said it was lagging growth, which I think may get misconstrued as it was declining. It just wasn't growing as fast as some of the other verticals through last year. That kind of flipped in the fourth quarter. I think some of that is the underlying market. You're seeing that with some of the PMI data. So that's great. And then we've spent quite a bit of time investing in our capabilities around manufacturing. A couple of examples on the go-to-market side, investing in inside sales capabilities, investing in our e-commerce platform where a lot of small and midsized business manufacturers go to purchase as well as going into this year, changing our rebate structure with our resellers to have more focus on small, midsized customers. And again, these are customers that typically buy -- it's more transactional-based, less projects. So again, you got to be there in contact at that moment where the prints are at the end of the line, they need to be replaced or they're doing a lean workout and they need to upgrade the line. So you got to be there at that moment and have the right solution for them. So we spent a lot from a go-to-market and seeing that starting to pay off. And I think the other opportunity, I mean, manufacturing is really core to our print and scanning business, which is kind of the core legacy part of the company, but those are great businesses, high margins. And now if you look at what we have in machine vision, which we'll talk about, but that's obviously benefiting from market recovery. Things like RFID are now being embedded more and more into the manufacturing processes, which is an opportunity. And then we look at areas like tablets, so having supervisors and frontline managers with a mobile device to monitor what's going on in the production line, somewhat replacing kind of the fixed screens you see mounted at the end of the production line. And then the other with Elo coming on, they have a real opportunity around interactive displays in the production line. So again, I think the portfolio breadth is much broader than it was 5 years ago, which gives us incremental opportunities to go and have a different type of conversation with our customers.

Got you. Any comment on like anything different that's happening in transportation and logistics?

Not so much. T&L had a good year last year, a slight decline in the fourth quarter. It's more project-based. So you do see a bit of lumpiness just around project timing. But we are seeing -- T&L was one of the big beneficiaries back during COVID in '21 and '22 as last mile delivery did a lot to refresh their portfolio of mobile computers. And we're seeing that pipeline build, particularly as you look at multiyear deployments beginning in '27. And one of the areas that I think is differentiating us versus the past is the AI capabilities we're building. So a lot of excitement around what we can do to automate proof of delivery, which seems pretty quick. But if they drop the package off at your door, there's a couple of steps they need to follow in terms of clicking buttons. And if you can automate that with AI, that saves seconds. You multiply that times thousands of transactions and package deliveries, it's millions of dollars that they can benefit from. So those are some of the different capabilities we're bringing beyond just your normal technology refresh. There's a lot of enhanced capabilities we can deliver for those T&L providers as they're looking to refresh their portfolio.

Helpful. And let's dig into the role of AI and what it means for Zebra. You're obviously at the forefront of introducing AI-enabled applications and integrating AI with your current offerings. Can you talk about some early wins and how meaningful AI and software broadly will be for Zebra in the next few years? And how far or close is competition with their AI offerings? Do you think AI is a differentiating factor as customers make their investment decisions today?

Yes. We believe we're uniquely positioned to be the AI provider for frontline workers. And we do that across our entire portfolio. If you go to the foundation of asset visibility, which is giving a digital voice to customers' assets, inventory, their people, all that data is being fed by -- you need printers, scanners, machine vision, RFID to know where and what those assets are doing or where they're at across the supply chain, feeding the data models that allow then the AI to provide a better insight and output. And then on the Connected Frontline, it's all around unifying workers with the consumer, with our software applications. So again, you're doing the right task at the right time or providing better collaboration tools across those -- the frontline store associates. So how do you take that -- the insights from AI that are able to generate and then get that in the hands of frontline workers so they can be more productive. We've also introduced a suite -- an AI suite of products still in the pilot phase, but we think these are really differentiators in the market and set us apart. And the way we think about it is 3 things. One, we call it enablers, which is think of tools and APIs no different than we do for most of our other mobile computing solutions that allow developers, our customers to develop applications, AI applications for the device, for their frontline workers and making that an easy process for them to execute. And so that I think is a real differentiator. If you do that, you need a higher-end mobile computer, which is -- which will drive the need for a refresh and upgrade of your existing devices. Then we have blueprint. So think of multiple enablers as a blueprint, so it's easy to build applications and agents. And that's some of the work we're doing around proof of delivery within T&L. Those are a blueprint. So those could be managed by Zebra. They could be managed by the customers. There could be professional services in terms of how we help set those up. And then the final one is we call our companion suite. So where we have AI agents built for things like sales enablement, operating procedures, product knowledge. So again, we had a wine retailer at National Retail Federation of Trade showed this, which is if you go in and ask and it's -- you just hope you find the right store associate that may be able to help you with whether you're looking for the right wine or where to find something in a home improvement store. Now at the touch, they can go in an intuitive way, ask what wine should be paired with X. You say, well, any AI application can do that? Well, what the store needs and what those -- that retailer wants is it to be customized to what they have in inventory, what they're running a special on, right? So it's built around not only that broader knowledge that you get from AI, but also custom built around their product, their procedures to provide that better consumer experience.

Got it. And let's talk about the flip side. There are growing concerns that AI can potentially disrupt existing software offerings. If we can start with how you expect Zebra to defend its market positioning if we begin to see new entrants with AI [indiscernible] offerings. And then there is a push towards fully autonomous and automated warehouses and retail stores. Can you talk about what role will Zebra play when retail stores or warehouses operate without sales associates?

Yes. On the first one around AI disruption, I think we are in a unique position given our installed base, the market share we have in the markets we serve and then the relationships we have with the top retail e-commerce T&L providers to understand where their pain points, how are they thinking about using AI in a variety of ways to support their frontline stores -- their frontline associates and us working with them to enable that, right? So I think we can help be the really disruptive force for their processes and procedures. And because of that position, we're -- I think as long as we stay close to our customers, continue to adapt to their needs and not let someone else come in and have that position, we're in a great position to, again, help our customers disrupt versus someone else coming in and doing that for them. And I think 2 things I'd like to say on the -- both the warehouse side and the retail. I look at it a little bit differently versus there's the fear of fully automation. But there's been a couple of surveys that are out. And if you look worldwide, only 25% of worldwide warehouses have any form of automation. So if you think about the -- where we're talking about fully autonomous or dark warehouses and things like that, there is a vast number of warehouses out there that need our solutions, even the most basic barcode scanning, much less having to utilize RFID or machine vision and other tools that can really drive enhanced productivity. So I think there's still an enormous opportunity out there to continue to automate and digitize. The other one is there's been very recent announcements over the last 6 months of large customers backing away from fully autonomous warehouses. They tend to be pretty rigid and unable to adapt to changing customer behaviors, buying propensity. The ROI has been longer than I think expected. And I'm not saying there's -- that role is going to go away. But I think what customers -- what they're saying is they need flexibility, modular quick ROI. And again, we think RFID, machine vision or even just our scanning capabilities really help provide that and allow them to adapt to their changing customer behaviors. So I think there's a huge role there. And then on the retail side, the one thing we look at is 50% of frontline workers still aren't digitally connected, even with the most basic communication kind of forms of connectivity. And we think that's, again, a huge opportunity, especially if you think of the role of AI is it's only as good as having all your store associates connected and be able to utilize that. And so we've done a lot of work over the last several years bringing out the portfolio to have your highly rugged mobile computer that maybe is used for the back of store inventory management to a wearable that someone at a checkout or someone a greeter at a store can have a wearable device that allows them to be connected, they can collaborate, utilize those AI capabilities that are coming to market and everywhere in between. So again, the value is then even though there may be different form factors in terms of the device, they're all supported by the same software layer, same applications, the same user experience. So if you switch between -- you go from using a wearable to a fully ruggedized because you change roles, you're going to have the same experience just in a different form factor. So again, I think those are 2 huge opportunities that still exist. And look, the role of automation is clearly important. If you're growing 5%, 10% and you're a large e-commerce provider, you have to have automation to keep up with demand because, quite frankly, you just can't hire that many people, right? So there's a -- I don't think this is anything new from the need to drive productivity and robotic automation is one form of that just to keep up with demand and especially when your resources are scarce and trying to find talent to keep up with that demand from the market.

Got you. Helpful. And let's talk about margins now. You have like 50 bps of annualized margin expansion target over a cycle. A lot of it is driven by operating leverage, but you have been talking a bit more about productivity initiatives. There is some restructuring in there. I know you are not -- you have not quantified anything, but do you think there are incremental opportunities to take out costs from your operating structure? R&D is a big bucket for you guys. Does AI -- like internal use of AI help you maybe drive more efficiencies within your R&D workflow?

Yes. So we have -- I think going back a track record of driving operating leverage. We have a variable cost structure just with our outsourced manufacturing, our use of resellers and distribution channel gives us a lot of leverage on both sides to flex up as growth or in a downturn to be able to take out costs quickly. So I think that's a real advantage for the company. We spent a lot of time around talking about things like kind of a common ERP, one distribution network to support the breadth of the company, which gives us, again, a lot of leverage on that fixed cost structure. And -- but again, we have -- always have rooms to improve and drive incremental productivity. I think the new tools like AI is obviously an opportunity that we're pushing hard on. And the restructuring we took in Q4, and we expect a little bit more here in Q1, I'd say it's targeted on a few areas. One was the exit of the Robotics business which will be a $20 million benefit on an annual basis directly to reduction in R&D expense. So we do expect that R&D as a percent of revenue to come down below 10%. There was nothing magic around 10%. It just happened to be kind of where it always -- wasn't like some golden rule that the budget started with 10%. So as we exit the year, I do expect that to come down to 9%, 9.5%, primarily with that exit of the Robotics business. And then we took some other actions around our engineering in terms of software development, like everyone, using the tools that are out there from an AI to be more productive in our software. We're seeing the benefit of that, and the teams are still working through how to continue to drive more productivity there from our software development capabilities. And then we also took some actions in our go-to-market team, primarily looking at our sales and management structure with really the goal to reinvest in more frontline resources, expand our inside sales capabilities, really commercialize our AI offerings like we talked about. So adding the resources in the field who have the expertise and the know-how to help our customers deploy those new AI tools and then just help offset some general inflation. So like I think it's something we look at every day. And at times, there's a larger restructuring action when need be or to help make sure we're reallocating capital to invest in the highest growth opportunities we have.

Got you. And I think on your earnings call, you talked about accelerating your investment in RFID, machine vision and AI, and I think that's what you were kind of referring to. So can you elaborate a bit more on what you're doing there? And is this still within the 10% or like now 9%, 9.5% R&D spending threshold? And when can we expect these investments to translate to higher earnings potential?

Yes. All 3 are a little different. So it's definitely within the envelope of that R&D we talked about. If you look at RFID, the real -- again, RFID technology has been around for a long time. But it's at the tipping point over the last couple of years is the cost of the chip, made it economically viable and then now just everyone understanding where are the different use cases and workflows that they can automate with the technology. But there's a lot of work with, I'd say, the broader ecosystem to help ensure that adoption continues, ensure that the ROI that the customers are expecting, and we all have to work together from the chip provider to the inlay provider, we'll provide readers and printers, labels, but then you also have ISVs and solutions who are pulling that all together and developing the app, the software layer on top that could be very customized to whatever individual customer is looking at and workflow they're looking at. So there's a lot of work, I think, across the industry just to -- again, it's all in our best interest for the adoption to continue to accelerate. And we're not going to be able to -- any one of us can't do that on our own, right? We require all of everyone working together for the best interest of our customers and driving that ROI. So I think that's really the focus, less so on pure incremental dollars, but it's really around that building out of the ecosystem. Machine vision, we've invested a lot over the last couple of years, and I know we'll talk a little bit later, but I don't think it's really net incremental investment here in the short term. It's focus, it's executing and delivering on the growth opportunities we see ahead and getting that business back to the growth profile that we expect. And I'd say earning the right to continue to invest more, but really making sure we get a return on what we've already invested. And then AI, just particularly on the offering side, our external offering, that's probably where the most investment is going this year. Again, it's just building out that portfolio, building out the offering, hardening the offering, taking it from pilot to deployment to full scale and making sure we have the resources in the field to support it. So that's probably where you see the most pure dollar investment going. The other 2 are more on focus. And I think that's part of the exit of Robotics was -- obviously, it was returning that -- those losses back to shareholders in terms of improved profitability, but also just the focus around the overall company and management team on where we see the greatest opportunities for growth in those 3 areas.

Got it. And there were a lot of questions on memory pricing. I'll just ask one. I think you talked about 2 points of gross margin headwinds from that, but you also expect to fully mitigate it by year-end. I think you have highlighted some supply chain actions and then you are instituting pricing actions. It seems you have a relatively good handle on it, at least on things that you can control. But is there anything that concerns you, be it in terms of availability or supply or higher pricing potentially leading to some project deferment by your customers? Anything that you would say is still uncertain?

Yes. Look, there's always uncertainty. It's obviously a quickly evolving dynamic environment. But I think our -- I feel like every year, I'm saying our supply chain team is doing a great job, whether it was first round of tariffs or semiconductor tariffs again and now back on memory. And working -- they're working closely with our multiple memory suppliers on capacity and making sure we get our fair share of allocation, which we feel good about, looking ahead at where we see prices not only today, but going over the next 6 months, and that's what we've embedded into our guidance. And then a lot of work with our commercial teams looking out at the pipeline over the next -- for the remainder of the year. And it's one thing historically, if you say, I'm going to -- I believe this customer is going to buy this product, in our case, a mobile computer, that may be okay. But when you're in a world where there's allocation, it matters if they want 6, 8, 12 gig memory and making sure that we understand what are those specifications they're really interested in so that as we work backwards through the supply chain and we get our allocation that we're getting the right allocation to where those customers want. And so a lot of activity right now going back into the pipeline and double-clicking on we got to go one layer deeper with our customers, not to order it early, but just to understand what they're thinking and what's the SKU they're probably going to go with, so that way, we can make sure we get the right allocation. So we feel good around the overall allocation. Now it's the nuance of it matters if you get 6 versus 12 and the customer wants the opposite, right, in terms of how we've worked back through the supply chain. So a lot of great work there. As I mentioned, it's 2-point headwind -- as we mentioned, 2-point headwind for the year, really beginning in Q2. Q1, not much of an impact, just given what we had already in inventory and built out. And the way I think about it is twofold. One, the pricing increase we announced over a week ago along with some moves we're expecting later in the year around rediverting to different memory types, we expect to fully mitigate on an annual basis. So as we, kind of in the later in the year into next year, fully mitigate with the pricing -- the direct pricing actions as well as some other direct moves around memory. And that's what we've done if you go back, whether it was tariffs, semiconductor or some of the freight escalations we saw back a couple of years ago. But that takes some time for our pricing to flow through the distribution channel, flow through the P&L. So there's usually an air pocket to catch up with the cost and our price increase. I think this year, we're benefiting that we can offset it within the year because of unrelated tailwinds, which unfortunately should have been upside to margin rate. But the exit of the Robotics business, FX favorability, tariff favorability because of some of the lower rates out of China as well as the actions our team has taken kind of all that is being absorbed with helping offset the impact this year, while the goal is to fully mitigate with the pricing actions as we exit the year.

Helpful. And how sticky would you say pricing is for you guys?

If you look back, we've had relative success when you go to the price increases we did back around the increases in freight and memory or in semiconductor costs or last year with the tariff. And we executed the price actions we needed to fully mitigate the impact of tariffs as we exited the year. So -- but we need to see how it plays out with demand. We're seeing it -- we're not the only one. So it's somewhat different than tariffs where it somewhat mattered where you produced who may or may not have a competitive advantage. Here, everyone is facing the same headwinds. So we're seeing similar actions by our competitors. And to date, we haven't really seen any noticeable change in pipeline or someone saying, "Hey, we're going to wait. But that's the reason we said back in the guidance that we thought it was just prudent and the right thing to do to not bake in that incremental $50 million, $60 million of pricing to our guidance, and we'll see how that plays out and be able to give an update here in a couple of months once it starts to be absorbed by the market.

Helpful. I'll pause and see if there are any questions in the audience.

So maybe going back a little bit to RFID, right, and the momentum that you guys are seeing built there. Are you guys doing anything different there competitively? Or is it really all around that adoption is finally beginning to happen and broaden?

Yes. I think it's both. I mean, one, we do continue to see the adoption, whether that's -- you see different announcements on applying the technology on fresh food and produce to track the age. I mean it's, I think, quite a bit of waste, as you would expect within a grocery environment around produce. So being really able to understand is that loaf of bread? How old is it really? And the only way to know that is with RFID because you have a unique identifier with that product. And you would think in some cases, it's not -- what are the economics around paying for that extra for an RFID chip. Well, that's still better than throwing it away, right, because it's expired and not utilized. So by having that information, there's a lot they can do around shaping demand, make sure they're buying the right amount of whatever the item is, promotions, all the things grocery stores can do -- grocers and retailers can do to move product when it's near expiration. So those type of applications, I think, are continuing to grow. And I think the beauty is once -- if you're a supplier and you're -- you've seen these large announcements from some large retailers requiring everyone to be -- all their goods to be tagged. Well, if they -- now if you're the garment provider tagging everything, going to multiple different stores, you may look around your environment, a store who doesn't have RFID readers and go, you know what, 40%, 50% of the articles I have in my store are already tagged. Now all I need is a reader to take advantage of the productivity I can get. So I think some of this proliferation of things being tagged, a lot of other retailers are looking at it going, "Oh, I can now take advantage of that. So obviously, we're continuing to innovate around the portfolio, different types of fixed readers, moving to new chipsets. But again, back to what I said earlier, a lot of this is around working together at the ecosystem to make sure we're providing the solution for the customer and whatever that -- the one challenge is in is every customer is a bit unique. the application they want, the software that's required. So some of that's the scope can very pinpointed to a workflow within a customer. And that's the role of an ISV, right, software provider or the independent software providers can provide. But then we all need to work with them to make sure our solutions work together. So I think that's the -- there's still some of that underlying demand, but also a lot of work just making sure we can bring that ecosystem together to provide the right solution.

All right. Any other questions? I'll continue. Can we talk about machine vision? I think you mentioned a return to growth in 2026. Bill mentioned a strong pipeline of opportunities, but this is a vertical where you expect longer-term double-digit growth potential. Based on your customer conversations and the project activity that you see, do you have enough visibility to get to that double-digit growth framework this year? And you have made some acquisitions in your machine vision portfolio. Would you say your portfolio is "Ready?"

Yes. We've -- we still remain excited about the long-term prospects for machine vision. Obviously, we made significant investments over the last several years from an M&A perspective and organic investment. And unfortunately, I think there's been a lot of market headwinds and in particular, the markets where particularly our Matrox acquisition had some real strength, semiconductor -- also where we placed some of our bets around electrification and automotive was a huge opportunity that quickly evaporated. And so now we're starting to see, I think, both the underlying market improve. You're seeing that from others in the market and the work we've done over the last 2 years to -- it's a long sales cycle. You got to create the relationship, win a proof of concept, be designed in and then you get the real tailwinds for years to come. And that takes time. And now we're starting to see finally that pay off, right? The work around, you're seeing some traction in automotive again. The semiconductor customers are starting to recover and seeing some progress and some momentum in T&L. So again, where we've focused over the last couple of years have now started -- you're starting to see that traction both in the underlying recovery as well as those actions. And I think we look at the portfolio today, we feel good about where it's at in terms of being able to compete. We have to pick our spots. But the nice thing about the machine vision market, it's fairly -- it's fragmented from a competitive standpoint. There's also multiple different layers from 3D to fixed scanning to smart cameras. So it's not just as one ubiquitous market. There's a lot of different submarkets where you can go and have success. And there's a lot of white space, right? It just as the overall market grows. So I think the one area we look at is scale is absolutely critical. So there's multiple ways to drive scale. So I think that's where we're focused at is executing, delivering and then understanding where and how we can continue to scale our business to compete as most effectively as possible.

Helpful. And one on Elo. You have had Elo for some time in your portfolio. How do you feel about the cost and sales synergies that you initially telegraphed? On your earnings call, you mentioned some wins for Elo. I think you have mentioned potential benefits of running it under the Zebra umbrella and integrating with your own offerings to sell your customers a more comprehensive solutions. Maybe if you can update us on how that is progressing.

No, we're still excited about the acquisition. I mean, in 5 months. I mean, the focus for the last 5 months, quite frankly, was finish the year strong, execute and deliver what we needed to at year-end and get through the holidays. But the teams, I'd say, super impressed with the management team, continue to be great cultural fit. You're seeing teams work together naturally around back to memory, sharing their supply chain, our supply chain, what are we doing? Where can we help with our scale with some of the memory providers, but they also have some different things they're doing that we can leverage across our portfolio. So you're seeing those things just naturally happen. We have a combined incentive plan for our sales team to make sure that both sides are incentivized to drive opportunities and leads for the other portfolio. And we've already confirmed $10 million -- we committed to $25 million of synergies by year 3, and we already confirmed $10 million, meaning we know where it is, how we're going to drive it. And the teams are executing that. So I think we feel great about the progress here out of the gate. And we got to show us, I'll call it, a sneak peek of how we think about the portfolio in the future at NRF, where you have interactive displays, self-service kiosk, working with mobility. And obviously, there's a lot of work kind of putting that together and the opportunity to have the pane of glass across the storefront, whether that's mobility in the hands of workers, touchscreens, kiosks and all operating on the same operating platform where the applications, the security, the maintenance can all be run. Today, those are on 2 different applications, 2 different instances. And the work to be able to combine those, that's what our customers are asking for and have asked for a long time. That's the reason we launched our own kiosk last year. So again, I think that's down the pipeline in terms of from an R&D integration. We're really excited about the differentiation that can bring to market that no one else has the ability to offer.

Helpful. And can we spend some time on your portfolio strategy? We talked about Elo, you're exiting Robotics business. Maybe talk about like why that no longer fits the portfolio. You have done some M&A in machine vision space. You're obviously very close to your customers. So what other opportunities are there to help your customers from a portfolio additional product standpoint? And as you think of M&A pipeline, what are the top 1 or 2 areas of interest?

I think on Robotics, it was pretty straightforward. The market never really evolved as we anticipated when we did the acquisition back in '21, which was obviously just a lot of momentum at that time around what autonomous robots could do. But the unit economics on a deployment and the profitability around that were pretty challenging. And as we took a step back and said, look at the losses we were incurring each year and being able to shut it down, sell some of the assets, give that money back to shareholders in terms of improved profitability and then really focus our efforts around, like I said, where we think there's big automation plays that we have a right to play, and we see a lot of momentum, and we've talked about those RFID, machine vision and AI. So it's just -- again, and we still supply a lot of robotics companies. Photoneo is the eyes for a lot of robotics automation. So for arms that are going and doing the picking, they need to be able to have 3D sensing to see what they're picking, and that's what our Photoneo camera does. We still have a position in several robotics companies within our venture portfolio. So we'll still keep an eye on it, see how the market plays out. But just I think for the portfolio today, it just made sense to be with someone else and for us to focus our energy and effort.

Got you. And then tying that to capital deployment priorities, you are generating good free cash flow and your leverage is not too high. You just announced $1 billion of share repurchase authorization. In the near term, should we expect you to balance share repurchases and debt profile? Or can you be more aggressive on M&A?

Yes. Maybe just before that, on the M&A strategy, I think it's -- just to touch on that, it's one where we're going to continue to look for assets that are closely adjacent, synergistic with the portfolio we have, where we can really scale within the existing businesses of our Connected Frontline, Asset Visibility & Automation in higher growth markets that have -- we can drive an attractive return on investment. We think both Elo and Photoneo were good examples of that. But that being said, we laid out in our last earnings guide that we plan to give -- buy back 50% of our free cash flow in terms of share buybacks, primarily here in the first half of the year. So I think just given where the stock -- our stock price is at, given our debt leverage is at 2x, we're very comfortable there that we'll get back almost 100% of our free cash flow here in the first half as share buybacks. And that still puts us in a good position as we enter the second half of the year with another $450 million of free cash flow to generate plenty of capacity for M&A opportunities that may arise in the second half, maybe a little bit of debt paydown, just debt obligations, but again, no -- we don't feel any compelling need to pay down a significant amount of debt here in the near term.

Got you. I'll pause for another second. Any questions from the audience? All right. So this is a question we are asking like every company. What are the top 2 or 3 innovations and structural changes affecting your company over the next 5 years? And are these -- are there any emerging industry trends that are perhaps being overlooked in your current discourse?

Yes. That's -- it's an interesting question. The way I thought about it was I don't think it's any different. If I look out over the next 5 years, I'd say different than what the past 5 years from an industry and innovative perspective, meaning our customers -- I mean, every company is out looking at how you drive productivity, how do you digitize, automate workflows, provide a better customer experience, and that's what we do for our customers across multiple vertical -- the vertical markets we serve. And I think the technology evolves and adapts. I mean we talked about RFID. I mean that's evolved significantly over the last 15 years to where it's at today. And we're going to continue to innovate around the portfolio based on those needs of our customers. So that's obviously not changing, right? I think just from that need to continue to do it, but that's not different than what our company is built around, which is how do you adapt to those changes in our customers and what they're looking for and making sure that we're their supplier of choice and a strategic partner as they're thinking about those challenges.

All right. I think you're kind of almost on time. So we appreciate you spending time with us. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone.