Zebra Technologies Corp Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call

Good morning, and welcome to Zebra's third quarter earnings conference call. This presentation is being simulcast on our website at investors.zebra.com and will be archived there for at least 1 year. Our forward-looking statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results could differ materially, and we refer you to the factors discussed in our SEC filings. During this call, we will reference non-GAAP financial measures as we describe our business performance. You can find reconciliations at the end of the slide presentation and in today's earnings press release. Throughout this presentation, unless otherwise indicated, our references to sales performance are year-on-year on a constant currency basis and exclude results from recently acquired businesses for 12 months. This presentation will include prepared remarks from Bill Burns, our Chief Executive Officer; and Nathan Winters, our Chief Financial Officer. Bill will begin with a discussion of our third quarter results, Nathan will then provide additional detail and discuss our outlook. Bill will conclude with progress on advancing our strategic priorities. Following the prepared remarks, Bill and Nathan will take your questions. Now let's turn to Slide 4 as I hand it over to Bill.

Thank you, Mike. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. Our team executed well in the third quarter, delivering results above our outlook driven by solid demand, lower-than-expected tariffs and strong operating expense leverage. For the quarter, we realized sales of $1.3 billion, a 5% increase from the prior year, and adjusted EBITDA margin of 21.6%, a 20 basis point improvement, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share of $3.88, which was 11% higher than the prior year. We realized solid growth in our Asia Pacific, Latin America, and North America regions and had relative outperformance in printing, mobile computing, and RFID. Our retail and e-commerce end market was a bright spot. Healthcare cycled a strong compare, and manufacturing remained relatively soft. We achieved double-digit earnings growth by driving operational efficiencies as we continue to invest in our leading portfolio of solutions. While we see growth across most of our business, our customers continue to navigate an uncertain macro environment, resulting in uneven demand across some geographies and vertical markets. As we look at our broader business prospects, we are excited about our profitable growth opportunities, including our recent acquisition of Elo Touch Solutions, which enables us to accelerate our vision for the connected frontline. Our strong balance sheet and free cash flow profile also enables us to commit $500 million to share repurchases over the next 12 months as we drive long-term value for our shareholders. I will now turn the call over to Nathan to review our Q3 financial results and Q4 outlook.

Thank you, Bill. Let's start with the P&L on Slide 6. In Q3, total company sales increased approximately 5%, with growth across most product categories, and services and software recurring revenue business grew modestly in the quarter. Our Enterprise Visibility & Mobility segment grew 2%, led by mobile computing, and our Asset Intelligence & Tracking segment grew 11%, led by RFID and printing. As we disclosed in our earnings press release this morning, please note that effective in the fourth quarter, we are reporting under 2 new segments: Connected Frontline and Asset Visibility & Automation. Bill will cover how this view aligns to our strategy and how we manage the business. Historical results have been recast in the appendix. We realized strong sales growth across most of our regions. In North America, sales grew 6% with double-digit growth in mobile computing and RFID, offsetting weakness in Canada. Asia Pacific sales increased 23%, led by Australia, New Zealand, and India. Sales increased 8% in Latin America with broad-based growth across the region. In EMEA, sales declined 3%. Regional performance was mixed, with softness in Germany, balanced with relative strength in Northern Europe. Adjusted gross margin declined 90 basis points to 48.2%, primarily due to higher U.S. import tariffs. Adjusted operating expenses as a percent of sales improved by 110 basis points. This resulted in second quarter adjusted EBITDA margin of 21.6%, a 20 basis point year-on-year improvement. Non-GAAP diluted earnings per share were $3.88, an 11% year-over-year increase and above the high end of our outlook. Turning now to the balance sheet and cash flow on Slide 7. Year-to-date, we generated $504 million of free cash flow. As of the end of Q3, we held more than $1 billion of cash with a modest debt leverage ratio of 1 and $1.5 billion credit capacity. We have been deploying capital consistent with our allocation priorities. Through October year-to-date, we have repurchased more than $300 million of stock and acquired 3D machine vision company Photoneo and Elo Touch Solutions with cash on hand and our existing credit facility. We continue to maintain excellent financial flexibility for investment in the business and return of capital to shareholders. And as Bill highlighted, we are planning $500 million of share repurchases through the third quarter of 2026. On Slide 8, we provide an update on the anticipated impact from tariffs on our products imported to the United States and our progress on mitigation. For the full year 2025, we're now assuming approximately $24 million for gross profit impact after mitigation, with a $6 million net impact expected in Q4, which is an improvement from our prior guidance. Our forecast assumes the current effective rates and exemptions remain in place. We have a track record of successfully navigating supply chain challenges, including tariffs and expect to substantially mitigate the current U.S. import tariffs entering 2026 as a result of actions taken by our team, including previously announced pricing adjustments, yielding about 1 point of sales growth, reducing U.S. imports from China to less than 20%, rationalizing our product portfolio, and strong progress on driving overall supply chain efficiency and resilience. Let's now turn to our outlook. We anticipate between 8% and 11% sales growth in the fourth quarter, including approximately 850 basis points of contribution from our Elo and Photoneo acquisitions and favorable FX. Our second-half demand assumptions have not changed from our prior business update. Our fourth-quarter adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be approximately 22%, which assumes a $6 million net impact from U.S. import tariffs, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share is expected to be in the range of $4.20 to $4.40. Our fourth-quarter outlook translates to full-year sales growth of approximately 8%. Our full-year adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be approximately 21.5%, and non-GAAP diluted earnings per share is expected to be approximately $15.80 based on our Q4 guide, a 17% year-on-year increase. Please reference additional modeling assumptions shown on Slide 9. With that, I will turn the call back to Bill.

Thank you, Nathan. As we turn to Slide 11, Zebra remains well positioned to benefit from secular trends to digitize and automate workflows and with our portfolio of innovative solutions, including purpose-built hardware, software, and services. Our solutions intelligently connect people, assets, and data to assist our customers with business-critical decisions. I would like to spend a minute on our new reporting segments. Zebra operates in a greater than $35 billion served addressable market, encompassing the connected frontline and asset visibility and automation. Each segment has a 5% to 7% organic growth profile over a cycle, supported by megatrends, including artificial intelligence, mobile and cloud computing, and the on-demand economy. The connected frontline is about equipping the front line of business with tools and digital touchpoints necessary to drive efficiency, optimize collaboration, and improve the consumer experience. Our solutions portfolio includes enterprise mobile computing, rugged tablets, frontline software, and AI agents. Our acquisition of Elo adds key capabilities in self-service and point of sale, increasing our addressable market in this segment to greater than $20 billion. Asset visibility and automation is primarily focused on digitizing environments and automating operations across the supply chain through advanced data capture, printing, machine vision, RFID, and other solutions. These are complementary and synergistic segments that digitize and automate operations and solve our customers' biggest challenges. Turning to Slide 12. Zebra solutions enable our customers across a broad range of end markets to drive productivity and efficiency and improve service to their customers, shoppers, and patients. I would like to highlight RFID, which has been a consistent bright spot in our portfolio, growing double digits over the past several years. As a market leader, we are encouraged by the continued momentum we are realizing. Our largest customers in retail and e-commerce as well as transportation logistics and manufacturing have been expanding their adoption of Zebra's RFID solutions to additional workflows and categories due to the improved business outcomes they are achieving. Supply chain visibility, inventory accuracy, increased productivity, improved profitability, and reduced waste are key outcomes that are driving increased adoption of the technology deeper into all end markets. RFID continues to be an important area of growth for us, enhancing our broader set of solutions offerings and demonstrating how our evolving portfolio enables us to solve increasingly complex challenges. Turning to Slide 13. Our industry leadership puts us in a unique position to be the supplier of choice for AI solutions for the frontline. We can deliver an entirely new experience for frontline workers through mobile computing, coupled with wearable solutions and the cognitive capabilities of AI. Imagine handheld and wearable solutions that can see, hear, and understand the environment while interacting with the frontline worker in a conversational way. This is the direction AI for the front line is headed, and we are starting this journey with our Zebra companion offerings. We are excited by the opportunity to transform the way work gets done as we collaborate with our strategic partners across the AI ecosystem. Last month, more than 100 senior leaders of companies representing a variety of industries attended our inaugural frontline AI Summit. During the event, we presented our AI vision and the benefits Zebra can bring to our customers to accelerate AI adoption and impact across their frontline operations. We have active pilots with our customers, validating the benefits of our new AI solution. A specialty retailer is actively utilizing an advanced pilot of our AI companion agents to provide assistance with product recommendations, resulting in better sales conversions and upsells, faster employee onboarding, and an elevated shopping experience. We believe that our AI agents will be attractive to any customer who strives to improve the productivity and effectiveness of their frontline associates. A large transportation logistics company is digitizing and accelerating proof of delivery with immediate feedback and enhanced compliance powered by our on-device AI suite. A digitized environment leveraging AI is fundamental to transforming workflows across a multitude of industries. These are early examples of the significant benefits our AI solutions can deliver to our customers, and elevate Zebra as a leading AI solutions provider for the front line of business. We are looking forward to demonstrating our solutions at the National Retail Federation trade show in January. Turning to Slide 14. We are excited about the opportunity to enhance the connected frontline experience with our recent acquisition of Elo Touch Solutions. Our combined capabilities enable us to offer more ways to digitize operations across more touchpoints and drive increased business with our enterprise customers. Elo is a pioneer in touchscreen technology and a leading provider of point-of-sale solutions, self-serve kiosks, interactive displays, and industry-tailored offerings. Elo's modular solutions deliver cross-generational compatibility, and their enterprise-ready platform and software tools seamlessly integrate into customers' existing ecosystems. Together, we can deliver better customer experiences through the intersection of frontline mobility and self-serve technology. This acquisition further elevates our strategic positioning across retail, hospitality, quick-serve restaurants, healthcare, and manufacturing through the breadth and depth of our complementary portfolio of solutions. Over time, Zebra will offer a common platform across mobile and fixed digital touchpoints that improve frontline efficiency. Together with Elo, we are better positioned to deliver a complete solution and leverage AI to empower associates and elevate consumer experience. In closing, our confidence in sustainable long-term growth is underpinned by several themes that drive demand for our solutions, including labor and resource constraints, track and trace requirements, increased consumer expectations, advancements in artificial intelligence, and the need for intelligent operations. We are well positioned to address these critical requirements in our customers' operations with our leading portfolio of solutions. As we move forward, we remain focused on advancing our industry leadership with our innovative solutions that digitize and automate our customers' workflows and drive profitable growth. I'll now hand it back to Mike.

Thanks, Bill. We'll now open the call to Q&A. We'll have to take one question and one follow-up to give everyone the chance to participate.

Demand trends appear to be strong and relatively robust in the third quarter. However, I've noticed that your guidance for the fourth quarter suggests that organic growth may slow down. I understand that you're up against a difficult comparison, but I would appreciate it if you could provide some insights into demand and share additional commentary by end market.

Yes. I would say that if we look at Q3, the team executed well, driving sales near the high end of our outlook. And that was backed up by kind of solid demand across the business. I would say the second half is really playing out as we expected, with some customers that bought products early to deliver their peak season a bit earlier than we had originally expected. I would say that if you look across the regions, we saw solid growth across North America, AsiaPac, and Latin America. If we think of the vertical markets, really the quarter was led by retail and e-commerce from an end market perspective. And as we called out in Q2, weakness in EMEA continued through Q3. I would say from a product perspective, relative strength in mobile computing and printing, and RFID a bright spot. But I would say overall, second half is playing out as we expected, just the timing of those orders coming a little early into Q3.

I see, helpful. And can you comment on EVM? The growth was rather modest in the quarter. What are you seeing specifically in that segment? And can we still expect that to grow exiting the year?

I would say EVM from a mobile computing perspective, we saw strong growth in Q3 with large deals in North America, Asia Pacific, and Latin America continue to be positioned for long-term growth and opportunities across mobile computing, including device in the hands of more associates overall. Next-generation product deliverables around wearables and RFID technology. We continue, as we talked about in the prepared remarks, an opportunity mid- to longer term inside AI as we see opportunities there to leverage AI in the front line. I would say that from a data capture perspective, which is also the other element of that is we saw decline based on a difficult compare, I would say, across the scanning portfolio. So I think that really was the story of EVM, a combination of strong mobile computing, but difficult compare from a scanning perspective, which then impacted overall EVM in Q3.

With the understanding that you're not providing 2026 guidance, but it would be helpful if you could provide some puts and takes on the construct itself, like how different or similar to 2026 be from your long-term financial targets? I know that visibility is somewhat limited, and there is still some macro uncertainty, but based on your conversations with your clients, how would you characterize the demand outlook heading into '26 across your different verticals?

I'd say today, while our customers remain cautious in the near term, and we're experiencing some uneven demand across different environments, I think EMEA and then overall places like Canada. So we're seeing uneven demand in manufacturing from a vertical market perspective across our different vertical markets. Our solutions basically remain fundamental to our customers, and they remain essential for digitizing and automating environments. So longer term, AI represents an opportunity to continue to advance our solutions. And we're well positioned to drive sustainable profitable growth into next year, is what I'd say.

Got it. You mentioned digital AI features, and while I understand it's still early, how soon could these features drive growth for the company? You've talked about a refresh cycle before. Do you sense that there's demand from your customers to invest in software, meaning that when the next refresh cycle occurs, it could lead to not just hardware upgrades but also strong software advancements? Any thoughts on that?

From an AI perspective, we see two opportunities. One is in the hardware environment with next-generation handheld devices, along with our leadership in wearable technology within the enterprise. This will play a significant role in how AI is delivered to the front line, starting with mobile devices and likely coupled with wearable technology. We are currently piloting our Zebra companion and AI suite in various applications with customers in retail and transportation and logistics. This creates a software opportunity for us with our AI agents, and early customer pilots are showing significant value. We anticipate the first revenues in 2026, with growth ramping in 2027 and beyond, as we complete the pilots, demonstrate value to our customers, and begin driving revenue at scale. The opportunity lies in two areas: upgrading existing hardware and introducing new wearable technology, along with software development.

Could you provide some insights into the large project pipeline? What trends are you observing and what discussions are taking place? It seems that there won't be much large project activity in the fourth quarter, but are there any signs of increased customer engagement? Is there a possibility for some projects to be awarded in the fourth quarter, or should we expect a longer wait?

I would say the demand trajectory has remained consistent with our outlook from the previous quarter. Customers have generally kept their capital spending stable, and projects are continuing to progress. Some customers have spread their projects and purchases over multiple quarters due to caution as they navigate global macro uncertainties and the potential impacts of current trade policies. This has led to uneven demand across various verticals and regions. However, we feel optimistic about the overall business and our ability to maintain our competitive edge. The demand environment hasn't changed significantly, although we did see some orders come in earlier this year than expected. We are closely monitoring our customers for year-end opportunities and the situation in EMEA, along with tariff issues and potential government shutdowns. There are many factors at play in Q4, but we feel confident that our guidance is balanced for the quarter and overall.

That makes sense. Bill, regarding your point about some of the pull-forward demand, do you have any specific reasons for thinking that some orders came in earlier in the second half? Is it related to tariffs or price optimization by your customers? I'm just curious about that.

Yes. No, I would say, again, the timing isn't always exact, right? And we anticipated Q3, we called the guide for that. We overachieved that guide really is some customers just need a product earlier to meet their peak demand. I think that's a good thing, right? We're seeing e-commerce demand, retail continue to be strong in Q3, and I think that drove some earlier orders. I wouldn't call it pull in as much as just timing of the need for the product when they would have normally ordered a bit later. They said, Hey, I'd like to have this product earlier to meet the Q3 demand for peak. And I think that's the balance between Q3 and Q4, it's just played out in a timing perspective. I think the demand is as we expected. I mean I think we feel good about the year overall. We're going to deliver almost 6% organic revenue growth, 17% EPS growth. So the year is kind of playing out as we expected as well. So I think we feel good. It's just timing, not really pulling as much.

For the fourth quarter, I want to unpack the assumption around budget flush. So maybe we could take it in 2 parts. Can you quantify what you're assuming for Elo from a top line perspective in Q4? And then if we back that out, what does the sequential quarter-over-quarter look like there? I think typically, you see some year-end flush, but I just want to hear you talk about what you're assuming for this year.

Yes, Tommy, I'll address that. As Bill mentioned, the first point is that we're maintaining our full-year organic growth rate as we guided back in August, which we believe reflects a balanced view of the current environment that Bill discussed, especially with some orders being realized earlier than expected in the quarter. If we look at our Q4 guidance, we anticipate a 9.5% growth, with approximately 8.5 points attributed to Elo, Photoneo, and foreign exchange. We're projecting Elo will contribute $100 million, consistent with our previous discussions regarding their overall revenue. We're also factoring in about 1 point of pricing, which indicates that organic demand is flat on a year-on-year basis. The outlook for year-end spending appears similar to last year; we experienced a strong ending to 2024 and are observing comparable spending and pipeline levels as we approach the year-end. We're closely monitoring this situation, as well as developments in Europe, including government shutdowns and global events. Excluding foreign exchange, pricing, and mergers and acquisitions, we expect flat demand largely due to year-end project spending being on par with last year.

Thank you, Nathan. I wanted to ask about RFID. You framed some of the recent success there. There's been a pretty high-profile announcement recently in the fresh category from one of the omnichannel leaders. I'm curious, are you able to comment if your business should benefit from that recent update? Or maybe if you're not, anything you can do to comment on forward visibility on RFID? Are there things in your pipeline that are continuing to suggest some of those elevated growth rates?

Yes, we've clearly experienced strong double-digit growth in RFID over the past few years, and we still see numerous opportunities throughout the supply chain, including in retail and transportation and logistics, where projects involving RFID are being deployed in manufacturing and government sectors. In retail, we're observing fresh opportunities in grocery and beyond general merchandise, including quick-serve restaurants and health care. The broader track and trace capabilities across various supply chains and sectors are creating growth opportunities for us. We offer the widest range of RFID solutions available today, including fixed and handheld readers, newly released mobile computing devices with integrated RFID, and associated printing portfolios. This positions us well for continued excitement in RFID moving forward. Areas like fresh and grocery are driving increased demand for our offerings. Customers who have implemented our solutions so far are seeing value and are expanding their use cases within their environments. RFID remains a key growth driver for us as we look ahead.

Bill, I just want to unpack a little bit more of your commentary regarding AI and the opportunity there, understanding that it's the long game here. It sounds like the opportunity from a hardware perspective is adding more wearable devices, but also perhaps an acceleration of the refresh cycle. I guess, one, is that true? And then second, will these devices under the AI world, will they need a more higher-end device compared to what perhaps they're using today?

Yes, I believe you are correct. The key opportunity lies in higher premium and higher-end devices, which we aim to drive up average selling prices. Over time, this could contribute to a refresh cycle as new technologies emerge, such as faster processors and increased memory in mobile devices. We currently lead in wearable technology for enterprise and see potential in combining body cameras with mobile devices that can sense and perceive their environment. We'll utilize mobile devices in specific applications, along with new, almost watch-like wearable technologies we've recently introduced. Various form factors in wearables are evident across our customer base. Our focus lies on hardware, including mobile computing and wearables, as well as software solutions. To summarize, Zebra solutions aimed at digitizing and automating the environment are crucial for AI to collect data on the frontline, enabling a sense-analyze-act approach. This means sensing productivity at the point of action, analyzing it with AI, and determining the best next steps for the business. Our solutions fundamentally fuel AI models, as we provide the necessary data. AI is integrated across various solutions today, covering multiple software applications, robotics, and 3D quality inspections. The revenue you mentioned from mobile devices, wearables, and associated software reflects this. Envision our Zebra companions and the AI suite layered over software offerings on mobile devices, which manage those models for our clients. Consider both the management of models on the device and applications that Zebra offers, like AI agents, as significant opportunities for us. I anticipate potential initial revenues in 2026, with growth from that point onward.

Great. I appreciate that detail. And just as a follow-up, retail and e-commerce probably run a fifth or sixth quarter at least of contributing to the growth of the company. Is there a visibility to how long that's sustainable? And you looking at historical information, is that you see over a 2-year period that these things go through a refresh cycle, then kind of another vertical is going to be expected to kind of take over and drive growth from there?

Yes, I would say we’ve seen strong performance in retail and e-commerce, but it’s important to note that e-commerce is still growing. Some of the products we discussed being used for peak demand have indeed been driven by e-commerce players as they continue to invest in devices to handle that demand. The refresh cycle varies across different sectors; each retailer and e-commerce platform operates on its own timeline. While we would love to see all sectors and regions thriving simultaneously, that’s not usually the case. Currently, we observe strength in retail and e-commerce, while transportation logistics has returned to more normal levels, and we are seeing growth there. Manufacturing remains relatively flat, and healthcare presents tough comparisons. Ideally, we want to see growth across all sectors, and there’s no reason it couldn’t happen, but manufacturing does face challenging conditions in the near term.

I guess my first question, just the margin divergence between the 2 segments, Asset Intelligence and Tracking, the margins seem to be doing better this year, whereas last year, the 2 segments were flat. So just if you could sort of unpack that as tariffs hitting one of the segments more than the other? And then I know you talked about being able to cover tariffs for the most part in 2026. Any nuances on how would it impact the segments? And I guess we can talk about it within the new segmentation, but any color on that for '26 as well?

Yes, Jamie, there's nothing specific causing the gross margin difference between the two verticals; it's more about the mix within the portfolio. We’re seeing strong growth in AIT, leading to good volume leverage across our printing portfolio, and that's where the RFID growth is contributing to a higher margin profile. Some of this is just a matter of the timing of the mix between the portfolios. As Bill pointed out, data capture decreased in Q3 within the EVM segment, which usually has a solid gross margin profile. So, overall, it's really more about the mix within the portfolio from quarter to quarter rather than a fundamental change between the two segments. Additionally, we anticipate fully mitigating tariffs as we approach next year. We might see a slight impact in Q1, but by the second quarter, we expect to have fully addressed it through additional actions the team is working on. This will mostly benefit the AIT segment, especially since we currently have a mobile computing exemption in EVM. Therefore, the primary benefits will be evident in AIT as we move into next year alongside our planned initiatives for the end of this year and the start of the next.

Okay, I understand. For my second question, regarding Elo, I believe you mentioned that it will generate $100 million in revenues for the fourth quarter, which aligns with the $400 million in annual sales you discussed when you announced the acquisition last quarter. Do you have any insights on Elo as you look ahead to 2026?

We remain enthusiastic about the acquisition, which enhances our position as a strategic partner to our customers across various verticals. The combination of their extensive portfolio with ours creates more opportunities for strategic partnerships overall. Similar to Zebra, Elo has a comparable growth profile and value proposition, offering purpose-built hardware and an enterprise-ready platform akin to our mobility DNA, along with software tools that integrate smoothly into enterprise environments. These factors drive our customers to choose our mobile computing solutions, and they are the same reasons customers opt for Elo products. We finalized the acquisition in early Q4, and everything is currently performing as anticipated, with no expected changes. We're optimistic about opportunities for next year, particularly regarding the expansion of point-of-sale solutions at a major retailer. We're also seeing new opportunities and successes in self-service kiosks and significant quick-service restaurants globally. Our teams are collaborating closely to enhance operational synergies on both the revenue and cost fronts. Although it's still early days, progress is aligning with our expectations. Overall, we're confident about Elo's business and growth trajectory as we navigate Q4 and look ahead to 2026.

This is Mary on for Meta. I have 2 questions for you. The first is on the pricing actions related to tariffs. So given the pricing actions that were taken to offset the tariff costs, what kind of impact are you seeing from these pricing actions on customer demand? And then my second question is on the OBBBA tax impact. Can you walk us through how the OBBBA is expected to impact your effective tax rate and cash taxes going forward?

Yes. On the pricing impact, we are observing positive results from the pricing actions implemented earlier this year. We have raised our expected annual benefit to approximately $60 million, translating to a 1-point growth compared to our previous guidance of $40 million. We are seeing good momentum in overall price realization as we progress through the third quarter. There hasn’t been a significant impact on demand; as Bill noted, the year has unfolded as we anticipated for both halves. We have not experienced a major shift or decline in demand. Feedback from our channel partners indicates that our pricing actions are aligned with many competitors in the industry, especially given the effects of tariffs. We are optimistic about this momentum and are working to fully mitigate the impact of the current tariffs as we move into next year. Regarding the new tax legislation, we anticipate a reduction in cash taxes of about $50 million to $60 million this year due to the ability to amortize current R&D expenses. Over the next two years, we expect over $200 million in additional cash benefits from this tax change. However, we have adjusted our expected tax rate to 18%, which reflects both the impact of the new tax legislation and a shift in income. While the overall tax rate sees a modest increase, we expect a larger benefit from reduced cash taxes over the next two years.

So when you talked last year into the fourth quarter, I felt like you had guided in a way that took the market risk largely out, right? You were guiding to things that were in hand in backlog, and kind of volumes came in better than you expected and it was upside to your guide. Now this quarter, you're talking about flows similar to last year, but is that element of like we're not baking in much in terms of what we're not seeing directly in the market? Is that still a fair way to categorize the nature of how you're guiding? And just curious what the EPS accretion you have from Elo in there is? And then I have a follow-up.

Maybe I'll start and pass it over to Nate. Overall, customers are generally proceeding with their planned projects, but they are hesitant to speed up future initiatives due to macroeconomic uncertainty and trade policy impacts on their business. For example, there’s been a slowdown in parcel transportation logistics because of these policies. While customers are moving forward, we have not observed an increase in the pace of projects due to this uncertainty. However, discussions with our partners and customers remain fundamentally unchanged. That’s why we feel that the demand trajectory is similar to what we reported last quarter, and the requirement for our solutions hasn’t diminished, as we saw some early buying during the peak to accommodate customer needs. We remain essential, and much of this is about timing. We saw close to the high end of our guidance for Q3 and expect Q4 to unfold as we anticipated for the year. As mentioned earlier, we are targeting nearly 6% organic revenue growth and 17% EPS growth for the year. Nonetheless, the overall macro environment and uncertainty regarding trade policy are causing customers to be a bit cautious about advancing future projects.

Joe, to provide a bit more detail, I would describe last year's guidance as conservative, assuming little year-end spending beyond what we could clearly see. As we ended last year, spending was better than we had anticipated. This year, we expect a similar level of year-end spending as last year. While we have some commitments secured, the team needs to convert the sales pipeline in the next 6 to 8 weeks to finish the year strong. This is the main difference between our guidance for this year compared to last year regarding year-end expectations. Regarding the Elo EPS impact, it's approximately $0.10. For the full year, we have raised our guidance by about $0.30, with some of that benefit coming from improved tariffs, which are divided into thirds between lower tariff impacts, favorable interest rates, and share count changes.

And then the follow-up, and we kind of talked about this a little bit, but as you think into next year, I'm not trying to pin you down, but like as we're coming off, you had the big COVID deployments, and you had kind of a multiyear decline as we're kind of bouncing modestly off that. Like what reasons, if any, would you kind of like talk us off of thinking that next year, at least from where we're sitting now, like shouldn't be at least in the range that you would see in a cycle?

Yes. I mean, again, we're not guiding to '26, as you acknowledged. I think that today, we're clearly seeing customers remain a bit cautious in the near term. And because of that, we're seeing some uneven demand environments overall. EMEA is an example, manufacturing across different vertical segments. Some cases, it's just tough compares in case of DCS. But I'd say we feel good about driving sustainable profitable growth into next year across the business. And I think we've got to play out Q4 here, and we'll provide more guidance come first quarter.

Bill, I just wanted to touch on thinking about demand as you go into next year or finish up fourth quarter. A couple of your geographies, you've already talked about EMEA being softer. We saw some of that in the second quarter, and it continued on here. I'm just curious maybe what the month-to-month or quarterly trend look like in that region as you entered the fourth quarter? And then also if you could address maybe conversely, just Asia Pac, that's been double digit now for, I guess, 5 quarters. Is that broadening out your customer base there? Is it kind of project specific? I'm just kind of curious what's driving the strength and how you see Asia Pac as you look forward as well.

Yes, let's cover all the geographies. In North America, we see strength in mobile computing and printing, though DCS presents a tough comparison, as we've discussed. Peak demand was already addressed in retail and e-commerce in Q3, with some pull there. RFID continues to perform well, especially among large and mid-tier customers, and orders increased in North America. However, regarding trade policy, demand softened in Canada during Q3. In EMEA, performance was similar to what we observed in Q2. It was mixed; Northern Europe is doing well in retail and transportation logistics, while regions like Germany in manufacturing and retail in France remain challenging. Overall, EMEA was mixed but down in Q3. In the Asia Pacific, we saw strong growth. We've identified opportunities globally and are leveraging our go-to-market strategy, including our investment in Japan. Japan exhibited strength as we focused there, particularly with new applications in the postal service, where we've secured early device wins for postal carriers and are now deploying devices in post offices. This showcases our go-to-market organization's strength as we shift resources into areas with lower market share to drive growth. India also continues to grow as many have noted, benefiting from stronger GDP. Australia and New Zealand remain strong within Asia as well. While we don't often highlight it, we had a record quarter in Latin America with broad-based strength in that region, so we are optimistic about Latin America, despite not frequently discussing it.

Yes. So again, we think right now, we're just committed to the $500 million. We'll see that. I think the best way to think about that is spread out over the next 4 quarters, and we'll be dynamic taking advantage of opportunities that we see in the volatility in the stock. But again, making sure we show more of that consistent return over the next several quarters and really wanted to commit to that, given we've been kind of silent on the commitment as we move into future periods. But we felt like it was the right time to make that commitment given the overall profile we have and our debt leverage ratio here as we exit the year. And I think we just think that doing it through the open market right now provides more of a benefit, lets us more manage the return and the timing of that versus uploading upfronting that through an ASR.

So as it relates to the $500 million buyback that you expect to execute over the next 4 quarters, how dynamic is that number? Should we think of that as more of a minimum threshold? And then how do you think about cadence of deployment and why not execute this as an ASR?

No, I think the only thing typically, in Q4, we see a little bit higher mix of large deals. So you see a little bit of mix dynamic as we go from Q3 to Q4, but nothing unusual, I'd say, from a timing or margin profile within either one of the quarters to call out.

Can you talk a little bit more about the machine vision business? And I know you talked about softness in manufacturing. How has that business been doing? And then kind of the bigger picture is, are there any of these other like RFID and other growth engine type businesses that you'd call out that are in that double-digit growth range or high single-digit range that are being the growth drivers that we want them to be?

From a machine vision perspective, we experienced growth in machine vision software as we leveraged our differentiation in that area. However, overall, machine vision declined this quarter due to pressures in our competitive landscape. There has been stabilization in semiconductor manufacturing, where we are embedded in solutions, which is a positive sign moving forward, although it was certainly a negative for this quarter. We've also shifted our go-to-market focus towards diversifying away from semiconductor manufacturing into new markets. One of those areas was EV auto manufacturing, which has seen a slowdown in spending. This has contributed to a weak quarter as well. Our focus is on go-to-market initiatives to expand into specific growing markets and utilize our advanced technology, including 3D vision, to win new opportunities and customers, allowing us to establish a presence and grow from there. We are optimistic about this market long-term, as increasing our involvement in manufacturing is crucial for us, and we believe it presents ongoing opportunities. RFID continues to be a strong area for us across various verticals. Additionally, the tablet opportunity within our mobile computing segment is another potential area for growth. We are focusing on the next generation of task management software, where we are a leader, and we see opportunities to evolve it into more communication and collaboration features with our customers, aiming to drive software growth over time, especially in conjunction with our mobile devices.

I just had one question just to kind of go back to the margins for Q4. Is there anything that we should think about for the segments that's different from this quarter? Or is it fair to assume that those margins are pretty steady?

Yes, they are relatively stable between the segments from Q3 to Q4. We do not anticipate any significant changes in the gross margin profile between the segments from one quarter to the next.

Yes, I'd like to thank our employees and our partners as they delivered a strong Q3 results. And ultimately, I would like to extend a warm welcome to the Elo team as we kick off our exciting journey together moving forward. Thank you.

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