Calling the North American snowmobile industry the best in over 15 years, Polaris management recently discussed their 4th Quarter results. Here are some excerpts....
Scott W. Wine, Chairman, Chief Executive Officer of Polaris stated, “Overall, sales for the quarter were $1.08 billion, up 20% from the prior year period, and marking our second consecutive quarter with over $1 billion in sales. Net income for the fourth quarter was up 23% to $108.7 million, yielding record earnings per share of $1.56, up 26%.
Full year 2013 sales increased 18% to just under $3.8 billion as our R&D pipeline delivered a record number of new award-winning products across our Powersports portfolio. Consistent with our strategy, our international and adjacent market businesses each grew faster than our core business, up 29% and 79%, respectively.
With the full year net income from continuing operations of $381 million, we achieved our long-term goal of 10% net income margins several years earlier than expected. As a result, earnings per share grew 23% to $5.40 and we generated nearly $500 million of operating cash flow.”
Bennett J. Morgan, President and Chief Operating Officer at Polaris reported… on snowmobiles. “As expected, fourth quarter snowmobile sales declined 13% as we improved shipment timing to snow dealers and managed tight capacity in our plants. For calendar year 2013, snowmobile sales increased 7%. Polaris retail accelerated in the fourth quarter and season-to-date, we are now up about 10% and remain the clear #2 share OEM, even though we've lost a bit of share season-to-date. Our new Model Year '14 Indian Voyagers are selling well, but our RMK and mountain business has been impacted by well below average snow conditions in the mountains and some early Snow Check sales hangover from last season's service bulletins, but Model Year '14 quality has been excellent across the board.
The North American snowmobile industry is showing its best season-to-date, year-over-year growth in over 15 years, up high-teens percent driven by good snow late last season and solid snow through most of the snowbelt this season. We do face stout retail comparables in the first quarter, but overall, the snow industry is healthy. Our dealer inventory is down 4% and we are in excellent position as we head toward the home stretch of the season and prepare to launch an exciting new lineup of Model Year '15 snowmobiles to celebrate our 60th year in the snowmobile business later in Q1.”
