Harley-Davidson, Inc. (NYSE:HOG) Q2 2023 Earnings Conference Call July 27, 2023 9:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Shawn Collins - Director, Investor Relations

Jochen Zeitz - Chief Executive Officer

Jonathan Root - Chief Financial Officer

Karim Donnez - LiveWire Chief Executive Officer

Edel O’Sullivan - Chief Commercial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Craig Kennison - Baird

Jaime Katz - Morningstar

Brandon Rollé - D.A. Davidson

Robby Ohmes - Bank of America

Tristan Thomas Martin - BMO Capital Markets

Noah Zatzkin - KeyBanc Capital Markets

David MacGregor - Longbow Research

Operator

Thank you for standing by and welcome to the Harley-Davidson 2023 Second Quarter Investor and Analyst Conference Call. Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to Shawn Collins. Thank you. Please go ahead.

Shawn Collins

Thank you. Good morning. This is Shawn Collins, the Director of Investor Relations at Harley-Davidson. You can access the slides supporting today’s call on the Internet at the Harley-Davidson Investor Relations website.

As you might expect, our comments will include forward-looking statements that are subject to business risks that could cause actual results to be materially different. Those risks include, among others, matters we have noted in our latest filings with the SEC.

With that, joining me this morning for the first part of the call are Harley-Davidson Chief Executive Officer, Jochen Zeitz; also Chief Financial Officer, Jonathan Root; and we also have LiveWire CEO, Karim Donnez. In addition, for the Q&A portion of today’s call, Harley-Davidson Chief Commercial Officer, Edel O’Sullivan will be joining us as she usually does.

With that, let me turn it over to our CEO, Jochen Zeitz. Jochen?

Jochen Zeitz

Thank you, Shawn. Good morning everyone and thank you for joining us today. Our Q2 results showed progress on the delivery of our Hardwire strategy despite a difficult macro environment and the unexpected production suspension impacting the business.

Revenues were down 2% in the second quarter, driven by a revenue decline of 4% at HDMC, which was partially offset by revenue growth of 19% at HDFS. Despite the challenges, we saw global new motorcycle retail growth of 3%, with North America up 1% versus prior year and solid international growth, especially in APAC, where we delivered a 24% increase in retail sales versus prior year.

Before we turn to our delivery against our Hardwire pillars, there are three points I'd like to make about our performance for the quarter. Firstly, we remain focused on growing our most profitable categories versus just growing total units. In addition to the impact of the unplanned production suspension, Q2 total units have been impacted by portfolio choices in line with our strategy, including the shift of our second CVO launch to later in the year and most notably with the sunset of the Sportster in North America.