Earnings Call Transcript - OI Q1 2026

Operator, Conference Operator

Thank you for standing by. My name is Kate, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the O-I Glass First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. Operator instructions were provided. I would now like to turn the call over to Chris Manuel. Please go ahead.

Christopher Manuel, Investor Relations

Thank you, Kate, and welcome, everyone, to the O-I Glass First Quarter 2026 Earnings Conference Call. With me today are Gordon Hardie, our CEO; and John Haudrich, our CFO. After prepared remarks, we will open the line for Q&A. Our presentation materials are available on the company's website. Please review the safe harbor statements and the disclosures regarding our use of non-GAAP financial measures included in those materials. With that, I'll turn the call over to Gordon, who will begin on Slide 3.

Gordon Hardie, CEO

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. Today, we will review our first quarter results, what we are seeing across the business and our outlook for the year. Before I begin, I want to thank all our O-I colleagues across the world for their focus, execution and commitment to supporting our customers in a tough environment. The year got off to a challenging start. While the top line held steady, demand was sluggish early in the quarter before improving through March. We also experienced elevated commercial pressures in Europe and several one-time external events that increased our costs. As a result, first quarter adjusted earnings of $0.05 per share came in below our original expectations. Fit to Win continues to deliver and the disciplines are now embedded across the organization. We are seeing the benefits of a stronger cost position reflected in new business wins across key categories that should support higher volumes starting in the second half of the year. Operationally, it was a story of two hemispheres. In the Americas, earnings were stable despite several external disruptions. In Europe, results fell short of expectations amid elevated competitive pressure. Europe is also earlier in the Fit to Win journey than the Americas, and we expect performance to improve in the coming quarters as we execute the restructuring actions we have announced. Looking to the full year, we expect strong year-over-year improvement in the Americas. Yet we have updated our 2026 guidance to reflect a more challenging European market, compounded by elevated energy inflation and broader macro dynamics. John will walk you through the updated outlook in more detail in a few moments. Even with the near-term uncertainty, our strategy and priorities are unchanged. With continued Fit to Win execution and new business wins, we are confident we can strengthen results as the year progresses and expect to build momentum into '27 and beyond. We remain laser-focused on our Investor Day objectives, and we believe many of today's headwinds are temporary. Let's now turn to Slide 4 to discuss our top line performance and volume trends. As you can see, net sales have remained steady over the past several quarters, even amid ongoing volatility and uncertainty. That said, we got off to a slow start this year with first quarter shipments down about 8% versus the prior year. This comparison was also tougher as last year likely benefited from customer prebuys ahead of a new U.S. tariff regime. By category, alcoholic end users were the softest, while NAB and food performed better. In fact, food is now emerging as our second largest category behind beer. Regionally, shipments declined in North America and Mexico amid ongoing customer inventory adjustments in spirits, while South America delivered mid- to high single-digit growth. In Europe, demand was softest in wine, particularly in the South and there was an extended negotiation period, while other markets were more balanced. Importantly, volume trends improved sequentially through the quarter, with March volumes down only 2%. Given that trend, we continue to expect full year sales volumes to be about flat with the prior year. After a slow first quarter, we anticipate shipments to be stable in the second quarter and to deliver low to mid-single-digit growth in the second half, supported by easier comparisons and new business wins. As we implement our new go-to-market approach, we are encouraged by the early progress. We've landed new business across about 15 accounts spanning all categories that should contribute 1.5% of new sales volume starting in the second half of the year. Together, these wins should help set us up for profitable, sustainable growth in the 1% to 2% range beginning in 2027. While the quarter was challenging, the trend improved as we exited Q1. The team executed well in difficult circumstances. With steadier demand and new business wins, we believe the fundamentals position us well for a stronger second half. Turning now to Slide 5. Fit to Win remains a core value driver for O-I. The program continues to take cost out and optimize our footprint and value chain. Strengthening our cost position improves competitiveness and enables long-term profitable growth as demonstrated by new business wins. We are now at the halfway point towards delivering $750 million of cumulative benefits through 2027, and we remain ahead of schedule. In the first quarter, the team delivered gross Fit to Win benefits of about $50 million, in line with our expectations. Net benefits were $35 million after headwinds from external disruptions in the Americas and temporary transition costs as we complete the closure of three plants in Europe. Let me highlight our progress across the phases of the initiatives. Phase A, focused on SG&A streamlining and initial network optimization, generated $32 million of net benefits in the quarter despite transition costs in Europe. We expect the organizational actions and planned capacity closures to be largely completed by mid-2026. Phase B, focused on end-to-end value chain transformation, was slightly up after absorbing costs associated with disruption in the Americas. Core work streams continue as planned. We launched the third wave of total organization effectiveness, and we are accelerating procurement and energy initiatives to drive incremental savings. We are also pursuing incremental opportunities to offset cost headwinds we observed in the first quarter. Fit to Win is working. We continue to target at least $275 million of benefits in 2026. With that, I'll turn it over to John to walk you through the financials, starting on Slide 6.

John Haudrich, CFO

Thanks, Gordon, and good morning, everyone. First quarter net sales were $1.54 billion, essentially flat with the prior year. Favorable FX largely offset slightly lower average selling prices and a high single-digit decline in volumes, while shipments improved meaningfully as the quarter progressed. Adjusted earnings were $0.05 per share, down from $0.40 per share in the prior year, primarily due to commercial headwinds, including unfavorable net price and lower volumes. Operating costs were comparable to the prior year as Fit to Win compensated for unanticipated disruptions. Earnings also reflected an unusually high effective tax rate on low pretax earnings. As earnings improve, we expect a full year tax rate of approximately 35% to 40% with the potential to move lower in 2027 and beyond. Looking ahead, the full O-I team is focused on strengthening performance as the year progresses. Let's turn to Slide 7 to discuss operating results. Segment operating profit was $142 million, down from $209 million last year, primarily due to the commercial pressures we discussed. As noted, the Americas was stable, while Europe was down considerably. In the Americas, we performed well despite several external disruptions. The segment's top line was stable as favorable FX and mix largely offset slightly lower selling prices and a 9% decline in shipments. Demand trends also improved as the quarter progressed with March shipments down only modestly versus the prior year. Americas segment operating profit was $142 million, essentially flat year-over-year, benefiting from higher net price, while lower sales volume and higher operating costs were headwinds. Costs included $10 million of disruption-related expense driven by extreme weather, civil unrest in Mexico and a natural gas pipeline failure in Peru, partially offset by Fit to Win. In Europe, the results were well below our expectations, and they are the primary driver of the year-over-year decline in segment earnings. Europe segment operating profit shortfall was driven by a combination of softer demand and an increasingly competitive market backdrop, which pressured price amid low capacity utilization, most notably in wine in Southern Europe. As a result, net sales declined slightly with favorable FX partially offsetting lower price and volumes. Shipments were down 7% year-over-year, although trends improved as we moved through the quarter and March shipments were up slightly versus the prior year. As you'd expect in that environment, profitability compressed meaningfully. Europe segment operating profit was breakeven in the first quarter, down roughly $68 million from a year ago. The biggest factor was a $76 million reduction in net price, reflecting both elevated price competition and the reset of favorable energy contracts that expired last year. Lower shipments were an additional headwind. These pressures were partially offset by Fit to Win benefits even after absorbing $5 million of higher-than-expected temporary plant closure expenses. Looking ahead, we anticipate performance to increasingly converge across the regions as Europe builds the same resiliency and execution capability demonstrated in the Americas while continuing our transformation journey. Turning to Slide 8. I'll close with an update on our outlook for the remainder of 2026. As discussed, it has been a challenging start to the year, and we have updated our full year guidance to adjusted earnings of $1 to $1.50 per share. The chart also reflects our revised EBITDA and free cash flow expectations. To frame the outlook, it's important to separate what we are seeing in our core glass markets and what we are absorbing from the broader macro environment, especially energy. Starting with the core glass business, demand trends are stabilizing as the year progresses and Fit to Win is continuing to deliver meaningful results. In the Americas, our outlook remains positive, and we expect results to be up year-over-year. In Europe, we have risk-adjusted our outlook by up to $25 million given elevated competitive pressures, net of additional cost actions and restructuring should support improved performance in the second half. The biggest swing factor in our updated guidance is macro-driven energy inflation stemming from conflicts in the Middle East, which could total $75 million to $100 million. Higher energy prices flow through natural gas, electricity, logistics and certain raw materials. Importantly, our proactive energy management practice significantly limits further exposure, particularly in Europe, where approximately 75% to 80% of gas requirements are protected at prices favorable to current market levels and higher protection in the colder winter months. We will continue to monitor macro developments, including customer demand and whether broader inflation could further influence commercial dynamics. As we have essentially risk-adjusted our outlook for energy inflation, the appendix includes additional earnings sensitivities to changes in European natural gas market prices. While our 2026 outlook is conservatively set given macro uncertainty, our strategy and priorities remain unchanged, and we continue to drive towards the 2027 objectives we outlined at last year's Investor Day. We expect Fit to Win to deliver significant value next year, and we believe many of the pressures we are seeing in 2026 are temporary. More than half of our business operates under contractual price adjustment formulas that reflect changes in inflation on a lagging basis, providing an important structural mechanism as cost conditions evolve over time. Likewise, as capacity utilization increases, particularly in Europe, we believe our competitive position should continue to strengthen. Overall, we remain focused on the levers within our control, anchored by Fit to Win, and we are determined to deliver the best possible performance this year while building momentum into 2027. With that, I'll turn it back to Gordon for closing remarks on Slide 9.

Gordon Hardie, CEO

Thanks, John. Let me close with a few key takeaways. We are not satisfied with our first quarter results, and we are moving quickly to improve performance. At the same time, our strategy is unchanged, and our long-term value creation plan remains firmly on track. While near-term noise may continue to drive volatility, we see several clear indicators that O-I's underlying fundamentals are moving decisively in the right direction. Here are six reasons we believe O-I is a compelling long-term investment. Fit to Win is delivering and continues to enable future profitable growth by improving operational discipline and cost competitiveness across the business. Core glass demand is stabilizing and recent trends are increasingly encouraging. March volumes point to a clear turning point in demand, providing early evidence that our actions are beginning to translate into profitable growth in the second half and beyond. Improving competitiveness across the footprint is already converting commercial opportunities. We have 15 confirmed incremental volume wins in hand, yielding approximately 1.5% annualized growth. These ramp up over '26 and into '27, giving us a clear line of sight to profitable, sustainable growth. The Americas, where we are furthest along in executing our transformation, are performing very well. Our capacity and demand are tightly aligned and across much of the region, we are effectively sold out. As such, we are actively evaluating opportunities to bring dormant capacity back online. Further, cost parity between aluminum and glass is spurring increased customer interest. In Europe, Fit to Win execution is accelerating. While the region trails the Americas by roughly 6 to 9 months, our capacity rationalization and restructuring actions are underway. Our competitive position continues to strengthen, especially as capacity utilization improves. While we conservatively risk-adjusted our 2026 outlook to reflect Europe's operating environment and the energy backdrop, we remain committed to our 2027 Investor Day targets. We believe these headwinds are temporary and manageable. Taken together, O-I today is a more disciplined, better balanced and better positioned for durable growth than at any point in recent years. Thank you for your time today and your continued support. With that, we'd be happy to take your questions.

Operator, Conference Operator

Operator instructions were provided. Your first question comes from the line of George Staphos with Bank of America Securities.

George Staphos, Analyst (Bank of America Securities)

Gordon and John, what has your line management relayed to you about 2Q volumes and Fit to Win performance so far? And what have you relayed in turn to the Board? And why are you and the Board both confident that the turn is happening in 2Q, both in terms of volumes and accelerating in Fit to Win? Relatedly, the Phase B on Fit to Win seems to be really not having much contribution so far this year versus target. The second question, I know you gave us some sensitivity, but if you could help us out, if energy rises from here and the consideration of your hedges, is there a way you could give us some back-of-the-envelope EBITDA effects? And do we need to start worrying about any of your secured debt covenants at this juncture or not? And where would we need to be?

John Haudrich, CFO

George, this is John. I'll take the second part of that point first. So as far as the sensitivity to the earnings situation, we assumed in these numbers given that we're 75% to 80% covered this year, we're assuming a range of EUR 45 to EUR 55 per megawatt hour being the relevant range. And so to the degree that energy is below that, for every EUR 5 drop on average, we get back about $0.05 per share. So that's about $12 million or so of EBITDA. To the degree that it goes above EUR 55, we're protected, that's more like $0.02 to $0.03, so maybe $5 million or so of risk. We use a combination of different tools and factors and things to manage our energy positions. So we're pretty confident that that number that we have between $40 million and $60 million of pure energy exposure to the elevated environment and the conflict is about right. And ideally, we can perform better on the downside. And then on the secured question, we're very, very low on our secured ratio right now, very favorable net position. We're not anywhere near at risk. And I'll tell you, we've got significant liquidity, $1.5 billion of liquidity. We manage our cash very conservatively in the organization. So from a balance sheet standpoint and managing the liquidity, we're in great shape.

Gordon Hardie, CEO

George, with regard to Fit to Win, I think we're very well placed to deliver the $275 million and maybe beyond this year. The way we set up the timing of it, we're in line. Quarter 1 delivered to expectation. We did have a number of external events through the tough winter, particularly in North America and some extra costs in Europe on the closure and reconfiguration of the network that were one-off in nature. And so you will see the Fit to Win momentum build. Behind those numbers is very detailed plans, very detailed accountability, weekly tracking. So we feel we're in good shape on Fit to Win. And as ever, we're always looking at new opportunities that are identified and ways to strip waste and inefficiencies out. So we'll be obviously pushing for a higher number, but we're confident in that $275 million number.

George Staphos, Analyst (Bank of America Securities)

And what are you seeing so far in 2Q on volume? What have you committed to the Board?

Gordon Hardie, CEO

Q1 volumes of about 8% in the Americas, and let me break that down and about 7% in Europe. It's clear—let me start with the Americas because it is a kind of a story of two hemispheres. Let me start in Brazil, where the business is performing very strongly for us with beer volumes up mid-single digits, NAB up mid-single digits and food and spirits up low teens. So we're outperforming the market in all categories in Brazil. And the team there has done an excellent job in executing Fit to Win to become much more competitive and has already entered what I would consider the profitable growth horizon of our strategy. An interesting fact: Brazil is now more profitable in 2026 than when it had two fewer major competitors a number of years ago. And we expect Brazil to have another very strong volume and financial year. If I move northwest to Andean, again, performing very strongly for us, outperforming the market in all categories, delivering mid-single-digit growth. And we're expecting a very strong second half and full year in that business. We're also executing our Fit to Win program in Andean, and I would consider that market well advanced in the profitable growth horizon. In Americas North, our teams are executing well and addressing very effectively long-run structural issues in that business and getting good results. And so while volumes were down 8%, let me break that down. About 3% of that 8% was wine volume we deemed not viable and was a barrier to us getting a much leaner network in place. And along the lines of our EBIT, we've taken that out of the business. There was about 3% of spirits customers destocking in the face of high distributor volumes. We know that is a temporary piece. And there was about 2% in what I would call missed beer volume due to those external disruptions and we had a furnace repair. We expect another very strong financial year in North America. Indeed, the first quarter EBIT in North America was the strongest in over eight years. If I look at America Central, we're on track for another strong year despite the macro challenges of tariff impact on beer and spirits exports. We're executing very effectively there, and we're driving cost and waste out and becoming much more competitive on the domestic market in beer, in food and in spirits to offset in part volumes lost in exports. But we expect a strong run home. So in essence, the Americas are performing strongly. We see the volumes coming through. We see the wins coming through with customers. And I'd reinforce that the Americas is about 6 to 9 months ahead of Europe in terms of executing on Fit to Win. In Europe, overall demand was sluggish in the first quarter, particularly across spirits, wine and beer. However, food and NAB held up really well. That said, there are pockets of growth for us. So we had a strong volume rebound in spirits in the U.K., up mid-single digits and wine up about 11% delivering a strong overall year-on-year volume growth in the first quarter in the U.K. North Central Europe, which encompasses the Nordics, Germany and Poland for us, performed strongly with very good growth in food, up above mid-single digits and NAB the same. And we've picked up significant new pieces of business in North Central Europe, where I would say our Fit to Win program is most advanced in Europe, and we can see that competitiveness turning into profitable volume growth opportunities. So those are the two best-performing regions for us, where the issues in volume were in Southwest Europe and Southeast Europe. That is largely driven by wine, where demand continues to be soft, down in the region overall about 5%, where there's significant overcapacity and quite significant price pressure in the first quarter. The bright spot for us in Southeast Europe is food, up about 10% and spirits up about 2% and RTD is actually growing quite nicely for us. But the main issue in Southwest Europe and Southeast Europe is wine and some spirits in France as cognac continues to be impacted by lower export volumes. So Europe, we believe the tide is turning. And when we look at our forecast for quarter 2, we expect to be up low single digits and then low to mid-single digits for the back half of the year. Overall, in Europe, I think we're having the highest rate of new business wins since pre-COVID. That's very encouraging. One other marker that we keep an eye on is how many of our customers are returning. We're having customers come back to us that we haven't done business with in a number of years. When you put that all together and we look now at our new go-to-market approach and how effectively that's being implemented, we're confident we'll finish the year close to flat with sequential volume growth in each quarter.

Operator, Conference Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Roxland with Truist Securities.

Michael Roxland, Analyst (Truist Securities)

Gordon, I just wanted to follow up with you on the new business wins across 15 accounts, and you said spanning all categories. Is that mostly Europe? Because you just said a lot of the commentary in terms of your response to George's question, it sounded like there's a lot of new business wins in Europe. So can you just comment about those new accounts, the breakdown between, let's say, Europe versus the Americas and what end markets you're really seeing that growth come from?

Gordon Hardie, CEO

Yes. So overall, that growth, if you were to annualize it, would make up about 1.5% overall. Right now, that's split about 70% to 75% Americas, 25% to 30% Europe, with Europe kind of building momentum. We're seeing that in beer. We're seeing it in spirits. We're seeing it particularly in food and NAB. In North America, for the first time, we're starting to make inroads into RTDs. Due to a regulation change last year, it's given us the opportunity to enter the RTD market, which in Anglo-Saxon markets is growing in double digits. The way we've set up our business is a category and sales combo. We see opportunities in each of the categories, and we're executing those effectively. We expect that momentum of new business wins to continue as we translate cost reduction into competitiveness. At Investor Day, the overall strategy is for us to get our cost base way down, and we're doing that. We still have quite a way to go to be the lowest cost producer, but we're making tremendous progress and then sharing some of that productivity with key strategic customers in exchange for profitable growth. You're seeing that come through in Brazil, a business that was really in a tough place two years ago and is now outperforming in all categories with a tremendous uplift in profitability over the last two years. We're seeing the same in the Andean region and increasingly in North America right now, where we can sell all the beer we can produce. Particularly pleasing to us is North America, which for years had been a tough market for O-I. We're finally addressing some structural issues in that business and turning that into profitable growth with a number of strong wins. What happened in Europe in the first quarter is we're mid- to end of the network restructure. I think the overcapacity in the Southwest and Southeast was an issue. Energy cost was a hit, but it's not a knockout for us. We see a clear path to getting back to the kind of margins that business can deliver.

Michael Roxland, Analyst (Truist Securities)

That's great color, Gordon. And then just one quick follow-up. You mentioned remaining focused on 2027 targets, including EBITDA of $1.5 billion plus. Your 2026 guide is down about $100 million at the midpoint. So obviously, that's a setback. Can you help us bridge how roughly you intend to get to the 2027 guide right now? And what levers do you have at your disposal to make up the shortfall? I know maybe not specifically going to provide guidance on 2027, but just maybe walk us through some of the larger buckets that will help you get there given the fact that 2026 is down $100 million.

Gordon Hardie, CEO

Yes. We are absolutely laser-focused on our 2027 Investor Day targets, of which one is $1.45 billion. There's no question that this is a setback this year, but we have a viable path to that $1.45 billion. First, we've already laid out that we have $150 million of Fit to Win to come in 2027. A significant part of our business has PAFs—price adjustment formulas—that are lagged formulas that will allow us to catch up on some of the inflation this year in next year. We're also starting to move more markets into the profitable growth phase of our strategy, which should help bridge that gap. We've tended to outperform on Fit to Win, so there's the opportunity to exceed that $150 million. We're ruthlessly focused on stripping waste and inefficiency out of the business and the chain. When we put all that together, it is a steeper climb, but absolutely achievable. In every difficulty, there's an opportunity. This situation gives us more focus to move faster to where we need to go.

Operator, Conference Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Anthony Pettinari with Citi Investment Research.

Anthony Pettinari, Analyst (Citi Investment Research)

Gordon, John, it seems like you have these periods in the past where you have oversupply in Southern Europe with maybe smaller producers in Italy and France. I'm just wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the competitive dynamics that you're seeing today and maybe how those situations have sort of resolved themselves in the past. Are people— I guess the basis of the question is you were breakeven in Europe in 1Q. I assume smaller producers are doing much worse. I'm curious how sustainable that's been historically? And then related question: is it fair to say you're giving up a little bit of share in Southern Europe and maintaining or maybe even growing in Northern Europe?

John Haudrich, CFO

I'll touch on that, Anthony, to talk about the competitive situation and compare and contrast. If you go over to the Americas, where much of the restructuring has occurred, we've taken out significant capacity. We went from the low 90s to the upper 90s as far as capacity utilization in that set of markets. Now you can see that on the bottom line: the performance of the Americas through Fit to Win and a good capacity balance in the marketplace. Our results over the last 1.5 to 2 years are up about 60% there. When you get that balance, it drives performance. If you compare that to Europe, going into the year, the market was probably more in the low 90s. But there is a significant amount of announced capacity closures underway. We're going to complete the work that we're doing by midyear. From what we can see, even net of new capacity additions, you're getting into a very similar spot to what you see in the Americas—a much more supply-demand balance. As a result, it gives us confidence that what we saw in the Americas we could replicate over in Europe. Yes, it's a more fragmented base in Europe than in the Americas. But if you look at the whole, the capacity utilization roadmap seems to be improving.

Gordon Hardie, CEO

In addition to John's comments, as we laid out at Investor Day, our cost base was too high. We've made significant progress, further along in the Americas. We also see tremendous further opportunity to get our cost base way down, and that is a key focus so we can compete and deliver our commitments in any environment. It's not for us to comment on how anyone else is doing, but we're crystal clear on what we need to do. We're crystal clear on the point on the cost curve where we need to be at to grow profitably, and we are absolutely determined to get there and have a clear line of sight on how to do it.

Operator, Conference Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Joshua Spector with UBS.

Gaurav Sharma, Analyst (UBS, sitting in for Joshua Spector)

This is Gaurav Sharma sitting in for Josh today. I'm just wondering what the optimal utilization target for the European network is in a normal demand environment? And then if there's any additional facilities where you're considering idling versus permanent closures if the market generally remains soft this year?

John Haudrich, CFO

Clearly, from an overall market utilization standpoint, as I mentioned before, the Americas are in the upper 90s utilization across the whole marketplace. When we talk about our own plants, running them in the low 90s is a great place to be for a glass plant. If you're running maybe in the mid-80s, being able to get utilization up into the 90s is a really good performance trend. That's part of what we do with total organizational effectiveness: drive productivity and utilization within our network. That gives you scale and allows you to continue to network optimize within your system. When it comes to managing a softer environment, you have to assess what you need long term, and that drives capacity rationalization decisions. You also need some spare capability to meet market growth. If we go back 1.5 years ago, we had about 13% to 14% excess capacity in our overall network, and that's why we announced larger long-term restructuring activities. In the first quarter, that was down to low single digits. We will continue to complete the announced actions in Europe over the next few months. The idea is we want to have a couple of percent of spare capacity to take advantage of growth opportunities. One example: in the Americas, we are bringing back a previously shutdown furnace to meet needs, so you have the ability to flex a little bit on both sides.

Gaurav Sharma, Analyst (UBS, sitting in for Joshua Spector)

Got it. That was very helpful. And then just a quick follow-up to that. You mentioned an extended price negotiation window in the release. I think you spoke about that at the conference already. I was just wondering if this is done now or if there are negotiations still ongoing on that end.

Gordon Hardie, CEO

For us, the season kicks off late October, early November and a big chunk is usually completed before year-end. Some of it runs on into the end of January. The dynamic this year in Europe was that deals or agreements brought near conclusion opened up again in January and February because, particularly in Southern Europe, some players felt they needed to keep capacity full. There was a bit of toing and froing and it extended into mid-February, an unusually long window. But that is done now. There is always volume that is not contracted in the open market, but we're largely done in our business.

John Haudrich, CFO

One thing I would add: volumes in Europe were down 7% in the first quarter. When these negotiation windows extend like that, people tend to sit on the sideline on their orders because they're waiting for the final deal. That's one reason we had a softer first quarter. That's starting to normalize after that window was completed at the end of February.

Gordon Hardie, CEO

Also, Easter was later this year, which had an impact in Europe.

Operator, Conference Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Arun Viswanathan with RBC Capital Markets.

Arun Viswanathan, Analyst (RBC Capital Markets)

I want to go back to the volume side. When we started this journey, the comments were that many targets were nonmarket dependent and volumes could still achieve guidance with weak volumes. But it seems volumes have been a bigger headwind than initially thought. When you think about the 1% to 2% that you could add through new business wins, do you expect that to offset continued volume declines? Should we assume maybe low single-digit volume declines from here for the market? Is there a path to reporting absolute 1% to 2% volume growth on a consistent basis? Or can you comment on some of those ideas?

Gordon Hardie, CEO

Over the last 15 months, volumes have probably been below what we expected. We were expecting them to come to flat a bit sooner. Factors in the way include the level of inventory in the total system in spirits, markets like the U.S. and China continuing to be soft, and the continued decline in wine across both the Americas and Europe. That decline has probably continued longer than we initially thought. We feel we've bottomed out. When we talk about being close to flat year-end and then kicking into 1% to 1.5% next year, that is net. These new business wins are not small fragmented customers; they're sizable customers with sizable volumes.

John Haudrich, CFO

Two points: one, we intentionally walked away from some low-profit business, so you must consider that. If you go back to our original strategy, we intended to focus on cost and maintain a stable top line while focusing on cost. Now we're pivoting toward growth because the cost positions we're establishing allow it. We're at that inflection point where it wasn't necessarily the primary focus over the last 18 months, but increasingly going forward it will be because of the cost positions we have established.

Gordon Hardie, CEO

We have markets like Brazil where Fit to Win translated into being much more competitive; volumes are up mid-single digits in beer, NAB and food and spirits and we're outperforming the market. The Andean region and North America show similar dynamics. We're seeing cost parity between cans and glass narrowing, which has increased customer interest in glass. That was part of our thesis—closing that gap would curtail the shift to cans and reverse it—and we're seeing that happening. Portfolio momentum is a way to maximize the value of capacity: shedding unprofitable volume and bringing in more profitable, premium volume to sweat capacity harder. We're getting better at that mix shift and making those calls as part of our strategy.

John Haudrich, CFO

We did increase our Fit to Win target in the face of additional commercial pressures, and we believe that protects our position to our targets. That included scaling up some restructuring to be nimble. As we stand here, we believe Fit to Win actions are sufficient to address our next year's target, understanding the extra $100 million we're dealing with this year is more of a temporary phenomenon with ability for recovery through PAFs and other mechanisms.

Gordon Hardie, CEO

One additional point: portfolio momentum also helps maximize value. As opportunities arise to shed unprofitable volume, like we did in wine in North America in Q1, and bring in higher-margin, more premium volume, that's a way of sweating capacity much harder. We're focused on executing that strategy with rigor.

Operator, Conference Operator

I'll now turn the call back over to Chris Manuel for closing remarks.

Christopher Manuel, Investor Relations

Thanks, Kate. That concludes our earnings call. Please note, our second quarter call is currently scheduled for Wednesday, July 29. And remember, make it a memorable moment by choosing safe, sustainable glass. Thank you.

Operator, Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.