Second half core sales growth expected to accelerate to 5-6%
Veralto reported a strong Q2 with accelerating core sales growth and raised its full-year adjusted EPS guidance. Management expressed high confidence in continued acceleration in the second half, driven by strong demand in water quality and a recovery in the PQI segment. Total sales grew 7.6% YoY (4.2% core), with Water Quality at 5.7% and PQI at 2%.
Buzzberg readSecond half core sales growth expected to accelerate to 5-6%Veralto reported a strong Q2 with accelerating core sales growth and raised its full-year adjusted EPS guidance. Management expressed high confidence in continued acceleration in the second half, driven by strong demand in water quality and a recovery in the PQI segment. Total sales grew 7.6% YoY (4.2% core), with Water Quality at 5.7% and PQI at 2%.Read full analysisCollapse analysis
Veralto reported a strong Q2 with accelerating core sales growth and raised its full-year adjusted EPS guidance. Management expressed high confidence in continued acceleration in the second half, driven by strong demand in water quality and a recovery in the PQI segment. Total sales grew 7.6% YoY (4.2% core), with Water Quality at 5.7% and PQI at 2%.
Full-year adjusted EPS guidance raised to $4.35-$4.43 (12-14% growth).
Back-half core sales growth expected to accelerate to ~5-6%, led by volume.
The recent acquisition of Alpha UV expands UV treatment footprint in India.
Revenue$1.474B
+4% QoQ
EPS$1.11
+4% QoQ
Gross margin61.19%
reported
Op margin21.37%
reported
What changed this quarter
01
Guidance
Second half core sales growth expected to accelerate to 5-6%
Guidance · revenue to 5.5%
02
Costs
Cost optimization program on track, small 2026 benefit
Total sales grew 7.6% YoY (4.2% core), with Water Quality at 5.7% and PQI at 2%.
03
M&A
M&A funnel strong on both sides of the house
Full-year adjusted EPS guidance raised to $4.35-$4.43 (12-14% growth).
04
Demand
PQI second half growth driven by digital workflows and easier comps
Management expressed confidence in continued growth acceleration, raised guidance, and highlighted strong momentum across segments and strategic initiatives.
AI, capex & demand read
AI
Platform & monetization
Management discussed AI in the context of product development and customer workflows, particularly in PQI with digital workflow solutions and inspection technologies. They mentioned offering AI applications layered on top of solutions to customers and using AI to enable mistake-proofing, faster time to market, and regulatory compliance.
Demand
Bookings & conversion
PQI second half growth driven by digital workflows and easier comps. Management expressed confidence in continued growth acceleration, raised guidance, and highlighted strong momentum across segments and strategic initiatives.
Tone · Confident
Management expressed confidence in continued growth acceleration, raised guidance, and highlighted strong momentum across segments and strategic initiatives.
Supply-chain alpha
A1
The company's industrial water growth is driven significantly by the data center ecosystem, but remains a small part of overall revenue. The company has a partnership with Dow to serve liquid cooling applications.
“we continue to engage in partnerships across the enterprise. We're excited about our partnership with Dow to help serve liquid cooling applications and data centers.”
Tariff refunds provided a 110 basis point margin tailwind in Q2 (15M in PQI, 6M in Water Quality). No further refunds are in the guide, but an additional 2 cents/share is possible.
“Overall impact of the tariff refunds on the margin expansion on the adjusted OP was 110 basis points.”
The PQI segment is seeing a meaningful recovery in the second half driven by new digital workflow solutions, an easier Q4 comp, and better equipment funnels, suggesting the bottom is behind them.
“We also see steady demand in marketing and coding. It's bolstered by an easier comp in Q4. And we do see recovery in our packaging and color equipment.”
The consolidated guidance implies ~25-50bps of margin expansion, with Q4 being the strongest quarter led by PQI, as the impact of production line moves and duplicate costs from last year fade.
“So think about margin expansions to roughly 25 bps in Q3 and for the full year 25 to 50 basis points of Q4 will be, you know, not for 50 as you can think.”
The company's industrial water growth is driven significantly by the data center ecosystem, but remains a small part of overall revenue. The company has a partnership with Dow to serve liquid cooling applications. — Highlights the growing importance of data center demand in the water treatment sector and a concrete partnership to tap into this market.
“We're excited about our partnership with Dow to help serve liquid cooling applications and data centers.”
Got it. Okay, fair enough. And then maybe just to dig a little bit deeper into the data center opportunities and how you're targeting that. I know we saw earlier, I guess, in the second quarter, there was a new partnership with Dow and some of their chemical solutions for the data center opportunities. I guess Should we be expecting further types of partnerships and how are you looking to grow out that business? What are the avenues that you can take? And also, I guess, can you speak to potential M&A opportunities that you might see that help further target that market for you? Thanks.
Yeah, great question, John. Yeah, we continue to engage in partnerships across the enterprise. We're excited about our partnership with Dow to help serve liquid cooling applications and data centers. But this is normal course of business for us as we look to extend our value into these high growth areas. you know relative to other applications and so on you know look we can't talk about anything specifically that's in the funnel but we like how we're positioned here and as far as you know M&A and partnerships are concerned you know we're gonna we're gonna look to our power alley of serving the operating environment of the customers workflow where you know there's a good sticky razor razor blade kind of relationship. And, you know, we are the right custodian to deliver the kind of value that those customers want. So I think we're well positioned here. We're looking at lots of things. And, you know, you'll know when we know as far as any assets that come into the portfolio as a function of that.
🍪 Cookies
We use cookies to operate this site and for analytics. Declining won't affect your access to content.