O`Reilly Automotive Inc (ORLY) — Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you, Matthew. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us. During today's conference call, we will discuss our fourth quarter and full year 2025 results and our outlook for 2026. After our prepared comments, we will host a question-and-answer period. Before we begin this morning, I would like to remind everyone that our comments today contain forward-looking statements, and we intend to be covered by and we claim the protection under the safe harbor provisions for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. You can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as estimate, may, could, will, believe, expect, would, consider, should, anticipate, project, plan, intend or similar words. The company's actual results could differ materially from any forward-looking statements due to several important factors described in the company's latest annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2024, and other recent SEC filings. The company assumes no obligation to update any forward-looking statements made during this call. At this time, I would like to introduce Brad Beckham.

Thanks, Jeremy. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the O'Reilly Auto Parts fourth quarter conference call. Participating on the call with me this morning are Brent Kirby, our President; and Jeremy Fletcher, our Chief Financial Officer. Greg Henslee, our Executive Chairman; and David O'Reilly, our Executive Vice Chairman, are also present on the call. I am once again pleased to begin our call today by congratulating Team O'Reilly on another strong year in 2025. We finished the year with a comparable store sales increase of 5.6% in the fourth quarter, which brought our full year comp for 2025 to 4.7%. The 4.7% was at the high end of our revised guidance range of 4% to 5% and above the expectations we set in our initial guidance coming into 2025. Our strong comparable store sales performance coupled with the continued successful execution of our new store expansion drove a total sales increase of 6.4% to $17.8 billion. To provide some perspective, our total 2025 sales reflect an increase of over 50% in total sales volume over the last 5 years, representing growth of over $6 billion since 2020. Our ability to continue to grow our business and capture market share year in and year out is a testament to our team's commitment to providing excellent customer service. I want to thank each member of Team O'Reilly for their daily commitment to our customers and our company. To touch on the rest of our results as we finish out the year, I want to briefly highlight both areas of strength and some headwinds we faced in 2025, before Brent provides more color in his remarks. For the full year, we generated operating profit of $3.5 billion, a 6.4% increase over 2024. On a sales percentage basis, our 2025 operating profit of 19.5% was flat to the prior year and right at the midpoint of the guidance range we maintained throughout 2025. We are pleased with our team's ability to drive robust gross margin results in an environment of rising costs and prices by ensuring that we are providing exceptional value to our customers to earn their business. We are also pleased that our team continues to capitalize on the investments we have made in our business, including enhancements to our distribution and hub store network, expanded inventory assortments and strategic technology investments. We believe our continued sales growth trends reflect share gains won by consistently executing our proven business model while also delivering incremental improvements to further differentiate our service from the competition. We will continue to prioritize these initiatives to lean into our business to sustain our growth momentum. However, we unfortunately also faced substantial cost pressures in 2025, including headwinds reflected in our fourth quarter results, primarily from rising costs related to our team member health care and self-insurance programs. We are certainly not pleased that these headwinds dampened an otherwise strong finish for our company in 2025, but we remain intensely focused on managing our business effectively to deliver the excellent customer service that drives long-term growth and profitability. During the fourth quarter, we generated diluted earnings per share of $0.71, which represents an increase of 13% over the prior year. For the full year, we generated EPS of $2.97, which was an increase of 10% over 2024. As we noted in yesterday's press release, our 2025 results represent our 33rd consecutive year of annual comparable store sales increases and record levels of revenue, operating income and EPS. This remarkable track record of strong, consistent earnings growth is a reflection of the effectiveness of Team O'Reilly's customer service-oriented culture and our focus on profitable, sustainable growth. Now I'd like to take a few minutes to provide some color on our fourth quarter sales results. Our comparable store sales for the fourth quarter grew 5.6%, which was at the high end of our expectations. Similar to the third quarter, growth in our professional business was the stronger driver of our sales results with an increase in comparable store sales of over 10% for the second consecutive quarter. We're also pleased to generate a positive DIY comp in the low single digits as this side of our business also performed largely in line with the trends we saw in the third quarter. Our comparable store sales increase in the fourth quarter reflected growth in both transaction volume and average ticket value, with the average ticket growth representing the stronger of the two drivers. Average ticket grew in the mid-single digits on both sides of our business, driven by a contribution from same-SKU inflation of approximately 6%, partially offset by a headwind from the composition of our product mix. As we have noted throughout 2025, the pricing environment has remained rational in response to tariff-induced product cost pressures. After a significant ramp in these cost pressures and corresponding price changes in the third quarter, the fourth quarter leveled out, and the inflation benefit was realized in a very consistent month-to-month. This dynamic aligned with our expectations given the timing of the impact we have seen in tariff and acquisition costs, and we believe also reflects a stable pricing environment in the aftermarket. We were pleased with the positive contribution to comps from ticket count growth in the fourth quarter driven by continued robust growth in our professional business, partially offset by modest pressure in DIY transaction counts. Our fourth quarter performance in our professional business matched the consistent strength we saw throughout 2025. The value proposition we are creating for our customers is clearly distinguishing O'Reilly as the preferred partner to the professional service provider. Next, I want to provide an update on the results in our DIY business in the fourth quarter. As we have discussed throughout 2025, we have remained cautious regarding the impact to consumers from broad-based inflation and macroeconomic pressures. This included our comments on the pressure trends to transaction counts we saw midway through our third quarter and into the beginning of Q4. As we moved through the fourth quarter, we saw stabilization in the demand backdrop in our DIY business, including some modest improvements in DIY transactions month-to-month, but both in absolute terms and relative to our initial plan expectations for the cadence of our business. To be clear, we still experienced some pressure that resulted in slightly negative traffic comps as we finished out our fourth quarter. This was most evident in the small subset of our DIY business that is highly discretionary in nature, including categories like appearance and accessories. On balance, we view the current sales trends in our DIY business as pretty consistent with what we have seen for the last several quarters now. However, we are pleased to not see any heightened pressure to the consumer that would indicate a more significant negative reaction to economic conditions. Turning to the cadence for the quarter for our consolidated business, our results were fairly consistent throughout the quarter, with December being slightly stronger than the first two months. This was due in part to a solid performance as we finished out the year in winter weather-related categories. These categories performed well even against tougher comparisons to last year. We view this season, both in the fourth quarter and what we have seen so far in 2026, as typical winter weather and consistent with last year. Beyond the strength in our winter weather-related categories, we also saw strong results in the fourth quarter in maintenance-related categories, in line with the trends we have seen for several quarters now. Next, I want to transition to a discussion of our guidance for 2026, starting with our sales outlook. As we disclosed in our release yesterday, we're establishing our annual comparable store sales guidance for 2026 at a range of 3% to 5%. We want to provide some additional color on how we're viewing the economic conditions in our industry to our opportunities to outperform the market. Beginning with our industry outlook, we view the fundamental backdrop for the automotive aftermarket as relatively stable. While we believe the industry has experienced some sluggishness over the last several quarters from a more cautious consumer, we believe the drivers for demand in our industry remain very solid. There continues to be a very compelling value proposition for consumers to invest in the repair and maintenance of their existing vehicles to meet their daily transportation needs. The U.S. car parc has seen an increase in total miles driven of approximately 1% over the last 2 years. We expect to continue to see steady growth in this metric supported by growth in the total size of the car parc. Due to the resiliency of our customers and the nondiscretionary nature of our business, we have confidence in a steady industry environment in 2026 even if we continue to see a cautious stance from consumers. Ultimately, our performance this year will depend on our effectiveness in executing our business model, providing exceptional customer service and, in turn, gaining market share. To that end, our 2026 comparable store sales guidance includes expected growth in both our professional and DIY businesses that we anticipate will again outpace the industry. For 2026, we expect to see continued growth in average ticket values, primarily supported by anticipated same-SKU inflation. As a reminder, our 2025 results reflected a muted impact from inflation in the first half of the year before we began to pass through tariff cost increases beginning in the third quarter. In total, 2025 saw same-SKU inflation of just under 3% on both sides of our business, and we anticipate similar levels in 2026. However, we expect to see most of this benefit in the first half of the year as the inverse of the 2025 timing as we calendar the period before the ramp in tariff costs and associated price increases. These projections reflect our typical assumption of only modest incremental changes in prices from the current levels exiting 2025 as we move throughout the year. This assumption also reflects our best read on the broader pricing environment in our industry. As such, our guidance expectations do not anticipate incremental changes in tariffs or subsequent impacts to the pricing environment within our industry. Given the uncertainty surrounding potential future changes in this landscape, we still expect the industry to behave rationally from a pricing perspective and only react as necessary to realize changes in acquisition costs. Consistent with our experience in 2025, we anticipate there will be limited incremental benefit within our average ticket growth outside of inflation. However, as we begin to calendar the comparison to the ramp in same-SKU inflation in the back half of 2025, we expect a return to the normal dynamics supporting our average ticket. So for the back half of 2026, we expect growth in average ticket to reflect muted inflation and a more substantial benefit from increasing parts complexity. We anticipate average ticket growth will be the larger contributor to our projected comparable store sales performance, but we also expect ticket count growth to positively support our comps in 2026. We believe professional ticket counts will continue to be strong and will reflect incremental market share gains on this side of our business. Given our history of performance in growing our share in the professional business, our 2026 expectations anticipate some moderation in ticket growth as we compare against the high bar we have set. However, we have been extremely pleased with our team's ability to comp the comp and stack continued professional transaction growth year after year, and anticipate 2026 will be no different. We also continue to believe that we have substantial opportunities to earn a bigger piece of the pie in our DIY business. In 2026, we expect DIY transaction counts to be pressured and slightly negative as a result of the long-term industry trend of better-engineered and manufactured parts and extended service and repair intervals, along with our continued caution regarding the confidence of the entry-level DIY consumer. Even though we have seen some pressure to transaction counts on this side of our business, we still believe we're outperforming the industry and gaining share. Before I move on from our sales guidance, I would like to highlight our expectations for the quarterly cadence of our sales growth in 2026. On a weekly volume basis, our guidance assumes our business will be fairly steady in 2026 absent unforeseen seasonal variability in weather. As a result, our quarterly comparable store sales assumptions are primarily driven by the comparisons to the results we generated in 2025. Based on the same-SKU inflation dynamics I outlined earlier, we would anticipate the first half of the year to generate a strong comp, at the high end of our guidance range, with the back half of the year reflecting the more challenging comparisons. We are pleased to be off to a solid start in 2026, in line with these expectations, supported by favorable winter weather in January. Now I'd like to move on to discuss our capital investment and expansion plans. Our capital expenditures for 2025 came in just under $1.2 billion, in line with our revised full year guidance range and up approximately $150 million from 2024. For 2026, we are setting our CapEx guidance at $1.3 billion to $1.4 billion. The primary driver of the increase in our projected investment is centered around our planned acceleration in new store growth. As we noted on last quarter's call, we have established a target of 225 to 235 net new store openings for 2026, an increase of approximately 25 stores over our growth in 2025. This new store target contemplates a step-up in U.S. store openings as well as a similar growth in Mexico to the 25 stores we added in that market last year. The increase in new store openings is motivated by our continued strong new store performance and the confidence we have in our ability to grow strong store teams and effectively execute our business model across our North American footprint. We are also pleased to have opened our first greenfield location in Canada in the fourth quarter of 2025. We anticipate a handful of our projected 2026 new store openings to be opened in Canada as we see the early fruits from the development of our organic growth machine in this expansion market. The second major component of our 2026 CapEx outlook is our continued investment in distribution capabilities. Our anticipated investment in these projects is expected to be down slightly in 2026, but still represents a key element of our business model and growth strategy. Brent will provide an update on our current distribution projects and expectations for 2026 during his supply chain update. Finally, our capital investment outlook includes an expected step-up in our ongoing investments to maintain and refresh the image and appearance of our store fleet as well as continued strategic investments in technology projects and infrastructure. As I wrap up my comments before turning the call over to Brent, I want to take a moment to thank our team for their continued dedication to our customers and our company. We once again had the privilege to come together with the entire leadership team of our company at our annual Leadership Conference in January of this year. Our conference theme was 'Built for This,' and there absolutely could not have been a more appropriate rallying cry to capture the excitement we have for our company's prospects as we enter 2026. Time and again, our professional parts people have proven they truly are the most highly-skilled and customer-focused team in our industry, and they continue to be the key to our success. We couldn't be more excited about the coming year, and I look forward to the next chapter of outstanding performance our team is going to deliver. Now I'll turn the call over to Brent.

Thanks, Brad. I would also like to begin my comments this morning by congratulating Team O'Reilly on another strong year. Once again, your commitment to excellent customer service drove our performance in 2025. Today I will further discuss our fourth quarter and full year operational results and provide some additional color on our outlook for 2026. Starting with gross margin. Our fourth quarter gross margin of 51.8% was a 49 basis point increase from the fourth quarter of 2024 and above our expectations. Our full year gross margin came in at 51.6%, representing an increase of 39 basis points over last year and in the top half of our guidance range. Our team was able to deliver this strong gross margin performance despite facing a headwind from the robust performance in our professional business for both the fourth quarter and the full year. Our gross margin performance is the result of the collective efforts of our supply chain, store and distribution operations teams. Our supply chain teams, with outstanding support from our supplier partners, were highly effective in navigating the rapidly evolving cost environment in 2025 to drive improved gross margins through incremental improvements in acquisition costs and effective management of the pricing environment. Our distribution teams were equally effective at driving efficiencies and capitalizing on our strong sales momentum. Our DC teams generated improved leverage on our distribution cost while relentlessly delivering the highest standard of service and support to our stores. Finally, our store teams executed at a high level to maximize our value proposition to our customers. Their ability to consistently provide excellent customer service and industry-leading inventory availability enabled us to generate a healthy margin in an environment of increasing acquisition cost. For 2026, we expect to continue to see further expansion of gross margin as we calendar our gains in 2025 and capitalize on incremental improvements to reduce acquisition costs as we progress through the year. We have established a guidance range for 2026 of 51.5% to 52%, which at the midpoint would represent a 16 basis point increase over 2025. Our guidance reflects our continued confidence in the ability of our teams to effectively manage costs and leverage the premium value proposition that they create for our customers to generate improvements in our gross margin rate, despite expected incremental headwinds from a faster growth rate in our professional customer sales. Our gross margin rate also reflects an anticipated benefit from the continued evolution of our business in Mexico, away from a distribution model to independent jobbers. As we continue to increase our store count in Mexico, we anticipate a continued rapid transition away from jobber sales that historically represented the majority of our sales mix in Mexico. The reduction of these lower gross margin sales creates a mix tailwind to our consolidated gross margin rate, but also modestly pressures our SG&A rate as we reduce the leverage benefit of these non-store sales. From a cadence perspective, our quarterly gross margin remained fairly consistent throughout 2025, with the quarter-to-quarter differences reflecting the pace of improvement we realized as we progressed through the year. We expect a similar quarterly cadence for 2026. As Brad mentioned during his remarks, our guidance for 2026 assumes a stable cost and price inflation environment. Our baseline assumptions include the normal puts and takes in the cost environment that we would expect in a typical year and do not include any projections for volatility related to changes in tariffs in either direction. Ultimately, we expect our industry to continue to behave rationally and have confidence in our team's ability to effectively navigate through any changes that we may encounter in the coming year. Next, I want to provide an update on some supply chain and distribution initiatives. To start on the distribution side of our business, we are very excited to report the successful opening of our newest distribution facility in Stafford, Virginia in the fourth quarter. The addition of this DC opens up a new section of the map in the heavily populated and important untapped markets for us in the Mid-Atlantic I-95 corridor. We're also making great progress on the development of our new distribution center in Fort Worth, Texas, and expect this facility to be operational in Q1 of 2028. This new facility will expand our available capacity in some of our most important mature core markets, enabling continued new store growth and support of increased per-store volumes that have grown significantly over the last several years. Finally, our capital investment outlook for 2026 includes dollars allocated to future expansion and development of our distribution infrastructure. Coming into 2025, we had a similar provision in our CapEx plan that was ultimately allocated to the Fort Worth project. So while we do not currently have specific details to announce on the next slate of projects, we are steadfast in our commitment to proactively enhance our distribution network to support the store growth opportunities that Brad outlined earlier. The success of our industry-leading distribution infrastructure is a direct reflection of the professionalism of our distribution operations teams. These leaders have proven time and again their effectiveness in planning, building and seamlessly opening new distribution centers, often successfully executing multiple DC projects at the same time. Moving on to inventory. Our inventory per store at the end of 2025 was $870,000, which was up 9% from the end of last year. The investment exceeded our initial plans on a per store basis, driven by our continued opportunistic investments to support our sales momentum. For 2026, we expect per-store inventory to increase approximately 5%, comprised of investments in hub store inventories and targeted additions in store assortments. We continue to prioritize incremental inventory enhancements to capitalize on the opportunities that we see to accelerate our growth momentum and are pleased with the productivity of these investments. Now I want to spend some time covering our SG&A and operating profit performance for 2025 and our outlook for 2026. Fourth quarter SG&A expense as a percent of sales was 33.0%, down 25 basis points from the fourth quarter of 2024. This reduction was the product of the favorable comparison to the $35 million charge that we recorded in the fourth quarter of 2024 to adjust reserves relating to our self-insurance liabilities for historic auto liability claims. The leverage benefit came in below our expectations for the quarter as a result of an elevated per-store SG&A increase of 3.3%. A portion of this higher-than-anticipated spend reflects incremental expenses in support of our strong sales momentum, which finished the quarter at the high end of our expectations, as Brad noted earlier. However, the larger impact driving our spend in the quarter was the broad-based pressures that we saw from continued heightened cost inflation in our self-insurance programs, including headwinds in team member health care cost, workers' compensation and general claims expenses, litigation costs and auto liability reserves. Average per-store SG&A expenses for the full year of 2025 were up 4%, finishing 0.5 point above our full year guide as a result of these same drivers. Outside of the headwinds that we faced from these discrete expense pressures, our remaining SG&A was in line with our expectations. Our ongoing priorities for our expense management remain focused on improving our operational strength in our stores, opportunistically pursuing enhanced technology and further equipping our teams. As we look forward to 2026, we are planning to grow average SG&A per store by 3% to 4%. Our SG&A expectations reflect ongoing management of our expense structure to support our core operations and lean into the sales growth opportunities that Brad outlined earlier. We have also factored in continued plans to prioritize enhancements to our hub network, development of incremental tools for our teams, and improvements in technology, infrastructure and capabilities. Also included within our assumptions is a cautious outlook regarding potential continued pressure in the self-insurance and legal line items that created the headwinds throughout 2025. While our recent experience for these costs have been more pressured than is typical for our business, at times in our history, we have experienced similar periods of accelerated above-trend increases. Ultimately, we believe the inflation growth rates for these expenses will stabilize over time, but we remain cognizant of the potential to see further pressures in 2026. Based on the anticipated cadence of our SG&A spend during the year and how our comparisons to 2025 lay out, we are anticipating SG&A growth on a per store basis to be higher in the first half of the year than the back half of the year, consistent with the comparable store sales cadence that Brad detailed earlier. Based on our SG&A expectations and projected gross margin range, we are setting our operating profit guidance range at 19.2% to 19.7%, which at the midpoint is in line with our full year 2025 results. Stepping back for a moment from the puts and takes that drove our operating cost dynamics over the past year and our expectations for 2026, we remain pleased with our team's ability to drive consistent top line growth at stable, strong operating margins. Our focus on enhancing our strong competitive positioning to sustain our industry-leading growth momentum is the strategic North Star that drives how we leverage our capital and operating investments to drive long-term growth and high returns. Before I turn the call over to Jeremy, I want to once again thank Team O'Reilly for their continued hard work and unwavering commitment to our customers.

Thanks, Brent. I would also like to thank all of Team O'Reilly for their continued hard work and dedication to our customers. Now we will fill in some additional details on our fourth quarter results and guidance for 2026. For the fourth quarter, sales increased $319 million, driven by a 5.6% increase in comparable store sales and a $94 million non-comp contribution from stores opened in 2024 and 2025 that have not yet entered the comp base. For 2026, we expect our total revenues to be between $18.7 billion and $19 billion. Our fourth quarter effective tax rate was 21.5% of pretax income, comprised of a base rate of 21.8%, reduced by a 0.3% benefit for share-based compensation. This compares to the fourth quarter of 2024 rate of 19.6% of pretax income, which was comprised of a base tax rate of 20.4%, reduced by a 0.7% benefit for share-based compensation. The fourth quarter of 2025 base rate, as compared to 2024, was higher as a result of the timing of recognition of certain tax credits. For the full year, our effective tax rate was 21.7% of pretax income, comprised of a base rate of 22.6%, reduced by a 0.9% benefit for share-based compensation. For the full year of 2026, we expect an effective tax rate of 22.6%, comprised of a base rate of 23.0%, reduced by a benefit of 0.4% for share-based compensation. We expect the quarterly rate to fluctuate due to variations in the tax benefit from share-based compensation and the tolling of certain tax periods in the fourth quarter. As we outlined in our press release yesterday, we have established our earnings per share guidance for 2026 at $3.10 to $3.20, which reflects an increase over 2025 EPS of 6.1% at the midpoint. This year-over-year increase in our guidance range reflects the anticipated headwind of approximately $0.04 from the increase in our expected effective tax rate. Now we will move on to free cash flow and the components that drove our results in 2025 and our expectations for 2026. Free cash flow for 2025 was $1.6 billion, versus $2 billion in 2024. The reduction in free cash flow was driven by the accelerated timing of payment in the third quarter of renewable energy tax credits that were originally planned to settle in 2026, and higher CapEx, partially offset by growth in operating income. For 2026, we expect free cash flow to be in the range of $1.8 billion to $2.1 billion. The expected increase in free cash flow is driven by the inverse impact of the timing of the 2025 tax credit purchase payment and growth in operating income, partially offset by the step-up in capital expenditures Brad outlined in his comments. I also want to touch briefly on our AP-to-inventory ratio. We finished the fourth quarter at 124%, which was down from 128% at the end of 2024 and slightly below our expectations for the end of 2025. For 2026, we expect to see continued moderation resulting from our planned incremental inventory investment, and we expect to finish the year at a ratio of approximately 122%. Moving on to debt. We finished the fourth quarter with an adjusted debt-to-EBITDAR ratio of 2.03x, as compared to our end of 2024 ratio of 1.99x, driven by a modest increase in adjusted debt. We continue to be below our leverage target of 2.5x and plan to prudently approach that number over time. We continue to be pleased with the execution of our share repurchase program. And for 2025, we repurchased 23 million shares at an average share price of $92.26, for a total investment of $2.1 billion. Since the inception of our share repurchase program in 2011, we have repurchased 1.5 billion shares at an average share price of $18.77, for a total investment of $27 billion. We remain very confident that the average repurchase price is supported by the expected discounted future cash flows of our business. And we continue to view our buyback program as an effective means of returning excess capital to our shareholders. As a reminder, our EPS guidance includes the impact of shares repurchased through this call, but does not include any additional share repurchases. Before I open up our call to your questions, I would like to thank our team for their continued commitment to the excellent customer service that drives our success. This concludes our prepared comments. At this time, I would like to ask Matthew, the operator, to return to the line, and we will be happy to answer your questions.

Based on your history, how long could we see some of these expenses, like the health care that you mentioned, continue to run above historical levels? And then related to that, if SG&A per store growth is expected to moderate in 2H, does that also imply that's kind of the exit rate and we should expect more normalized SG&A growth as we roll into 2027?

Scot, this is Jeremy. Thanks for the questions. I'll probably take the second one first here. I don't know that any of us would feel super comfortable talking maybe to where exit rate would be and how we would think about how we would view 2027, outside of maybe how we would just think in a normal environment, the kind of the structural pieces of where we've been managing spend within our business where we feel good about the efficiency of how we're attacking taking care of customer service and managing kind of all the core day-to-day expenses. And then also have been pretty pleased with the places over the course of between 2025 and really the last few years where we've seen opportunities to lean into our business and I think equip some things that really help to drive that differentiation that helps us gain share and drive our sales momentum. In terms of the first part of the question around the cadence, the timing of that, it's a little bit hard to completely troubleshoot that. I think you heard in Brent's comments that we're still kind of cautious for what we've seen there. The pressure that we've seen, candidly, I think has persisted longer than we would normally expect and has been a little bit of a story of increases on top of increases that we thought were already pretty dramatic. And so we do have a little bit of a cautious posture for that, for how we think about 2026, and in particular as we think about the first part of the year where we're not against as easy of comparisons because of the pressure that really came in over the last, I guess, half of 2025. We understand, at some point, the base of that cost exposure builds up and we expect it to moderate and kind of stabilize over the course of time. But there's still some cautiousness, I think, as we approach how we think about that in 2026. And so that’s why you kind of see a little bit of a balanced approach to how we thought about what that spend looks like as we move through the year.

Any other line items we need to be thoughtful of, just for modeling purposes?

Yes. So I mean, I think the component pieces that we talked about there, for sure, the pressured items I think that were different than what we expected as we move through the back half of 2025 were those self-insurance items. But we continue to I think see, and you can see it on our cash flow statement, a pretty heightened growth in the depreciation run rate that we've had. That's the key to the CapEx, and all the places that we're continuing to invest within our business. I think those are the areas. And then for sure, a component piece of how we think about what we're managing and moving forward with and how we're deploying, I think, some tools within our businesses, the technology spend. That continues to be, I think, an important initiative for us.

Brad, I'm trying to think through the Virginia DC opportunity a little bit more. So I was hoping if you could maybe help frame up how you guys are planning to sort of build out the hub network and thinking through sort of capacity build behind Virginia. So I don't know if you can provide any color on the mix of stores that will be serviced from Virginia in the 2026 class. But really just hoping any color on gauging just how aggressive you guys are going to get sort of exploring the Northeast and the East Coast corridor.

Yes, we are truly excited about the launch of our new distribution center in Stafford. We have an impressive leadership team in place there. This distribution center is significant for us, starting with about one-third of its capacity, transitioning from other nearby distribution centers in Greensboro, North Carolina, and Ohio. We recognize that there are many competitors in this market, but we approach it like any other expansion. Our real estate teams are actively exploring both new opportunities and potential acquisitions, such as the recent acquisition of seven stores in the Baltimore area. The distribution center will not only facilitate replenishment five nights a week to a couple of hundred miles but will also eventually handle over 150,000 SKUs, enhancing our service capability in the Greater Washington, D.C. area to nearly every hour. This competitive advantage is substantial. We are implementing a hub-and-spoke model similar to our existing operations across the country, ensuring that all routes from the distribution center and hub stores are optimized for our target market share. Moving into 2026, we expect our new stores to be well distributed across the U.S., thanks to the capacity we've built through multiple distribution centers, including those in Virginia, Greensboro, and Akron, Ohio. This strategy will allow us to effectively serve both new and existing markets.

That's super helpful. And maybe just sticking with that a little bit and bringing it back to the expense growth profile, I think some of us, maybe myself for sure, thought there could be some pressure, right? You sort of build out the field to support the initiatives behind the expansion in the Northeast and the East Coast corridor, whether it's district managers, right, or dedicated commercial calling account staff. Is that a pressure in 2026? Like is there some deleverage coming from field build-out? Or is it more methodical and you're sort of expecting the productivity to sort of be onboarded that sort of neutralizes the field build-out initiative?

Steve, this is Jeremy. That's a great question. Our model is based on the idea that organic growth usually comes at some cost due to leverage pressures. We have this component every year, some related to the types of infrastructure you've mentioned. However, some of it stems from the fact that new stores typically have lower productivity when they are opened. We've noticed a bit of acceleration, which is part of our understanding of the overall cost structure. Regarding our infrastructure building, the growth we're seeing in Virginia is not significantly different from what we observe in other areas of our business. One point I'd highlight is that we currently have a growth engine operating in three different countries. The initial stages of expanding in Mexico and Canada have brought some inefficiencies in terms of growth, particularly as we build new infrastructure and establish methods for finding sites and constructing facilities. This has some impact on our guidance, but overall, it's mainly how our growth cycle has been established.

Your initial guidance for this year at 3% to 5% is 100 basis points higher than your original forecast for the beginning of 2025. Is the main difference this year compared to last year the insight you have into inflation and comparable pricing? If so, what are the chances that, if tariffs are reduced, there could be widespread deflation in the industry throughout the year?

Yes, Michael. I think it's a good observation. And as we sit here, I guess at the beginning of 2026 relative to where we would have been last year, we do, I think, fundamentally have a different pricing assumption built in. You're aware of what our historical price is there, that we don't spend a lot of time and energy trying to predict those types of changes moving forward when we kind of set our initial guide. And even this year, I think what we've put in front of all of you is I think consistent with that idea that we're not trying to forecast a lot of different changes in the overall price levels, but we know that we'll calendar this benefit that we've seen. The second part of your question, I can start there, and Brad or Brent might want to jump in behind me on this. But historically, I think our industry has been pretty disciplined and pretty rational in hanging onto prices once we pass them through. When we think about the large amount of the business that's done on the professional side, where you're in your customers' businesses on a weekly, on a daily basis, and you're having to talk through those conversations, those are pretty hard-won pricing increases. And over the course of time, you know that even if there is some, I think, relief from a cost pressure perspective, it's typically temporary, you'll see it kind of fill back in as you roll forward. And you don't want to have a lot of volatility in how you approach that from a customer perspective. Ultimately, we'll see. We'll be priced competitively for the market. We think it'll behave rationally. We think we can earn a premium, gross margin premium, for how we take care of our customers and execute our business and the value that we create. And so we think that that holds out well. But ultimately, we'll just have to see where the market goes on it as well.

And Michael, this is Brent. I want to address the topic of tariff rollbacks. We understand that it’s a concern, but we still see a situation with the administration that is focused on tariffs. While we’re not sure if the initial approach was effective, we believe there are other options available. As Jeremy mentioned, when we consider the outlook for 2026, we are basing it on what we currently know, and we will see how it evolves.

Okay. My follow-up question is you're starting out the year with an assumption around 3% to 4% SG&A per store growth. Over the last few years, you've under-calculated or the growth rate had been a little hotter than what you had initially expected. What's the risk that the same scenario plays out this year? And we are seeing a similar amount of elevated growth in SG&A from another player within the industry. So to what degree is this just a function of the competitive environment, cost of doing business going up and we should not be expecting this to moderate over time?

Yes, that's a good question, Michael. It's essential for us to reflect on how this has evolved over recent years. The narrative for the last six months of 2025 has been somewhat distinct from our initial expectations, particularly due to increased inflation in key business areas that are more challenging to manage. Over the past two to four years, much of our cost structure management has relied on identifying opportunities to strengthen our business by prioritizing certain strategic actions. However, this approach has slightly moderated as we have progressed year-to-year. We are confident in our daily interactions with the market and the value proposition we present. While we anticipate further opportunities throughout this year, we have consistently focused on our hub store investments and distribution capabilities, which have been supported by our sales momentum. These strategic moves have been opportunistic and have effectively helped us maintain sales growth over recent years. I don't believe that the current situation is fundamentally different in terms of industry standards. We feel that these strategies have had a positive impact on our progress. Additionally, we're aware that there could be pressures from other factors, which we discussed in our earlier comments and first question. We hope to see stabilization and less concern around these issues, although we will need to monitor how they develop.

I wanted to follow up on some of the softness and cautiousness that you've talked about from the consumer. I think you mentioned in the last call that you saw some potential DIY deferral. How do you see that trend? It sounded like maybe a little better as we got into the winter. And then historically, linked to that, how do tax refunds, when they're elevated, historically impact both the DIY and do-it-for-me sides of the business?

Greg, it's Brad. That's a great question. I'll start off and then let the others add their thoughts. As you may know, in the past couple of quarters, especially last quarter, we discussed experiencing some pressure on larger ticket jobs for the first time, particularly in the failure and maintenance categories. We've seen this kind of pressure for a longer time with discretionary spending. However, in Q4, we noticed trends similar to the previous quarter concerning larger ticket jobs, although we saw positive signs in December as winter weather began. Overall, Greg, we perceive the consumer landscape to be cautious. Consumers are monitoring their spending due to heightened inflation affecting homes and other expenses. That said, we remain cautiously optimistic about the resilience of our business, given its nondiscretionary nature. Regarding tax season, each year presents its own circumstances, and we need to see how it unfolds. There's been a lot of positivity around potential tax refunds, but we still want to observe how that impacts different income groups. Our customer base includes a mix of low to middle-income DIY consumers and middle to higher-income do-it-for-me consumers. Additionally, the weather has generally been favorable for business, so we will see how the tax season develops.

Yes. And just to jump in, in case it cut out for anybody else, I think just to summarize where Brad was at on the initial part of your question. Saw that, some of what you talked about in third quarter as we moved into fourth quarter, continue I think to see similar dynamics. They didn't accelerate from there. And I think as we kind of moved through the quarter, we saw a little bit more of a leveling out, to the point that we feel a little bit more like what we're seeing in the DIY business is more consistent with what we've seen over much of 2025 in 2026.

In addition to what has already been mentioned, they have outlined our perspective well. However, we still believe we achieved significant share gains on both sides of the business, even during the quarter. Therefore, we feel confident in our positioning in both challenging and less challenging environments.

Got it. And then just a clarification, the 600 bps of same-SKU inflation, if average ticket would have been up, say, 4% to 5% because you had fewer items in the basket and mix, is that a fair way to summarize Q4?

Yes, that's correct. The change is more related to the mix of products than to pressure on specific items, although there is some of that as well. Additionally, the performance of different components within the basket can vary. We saw strong performance in categories related to maintenance, which typically involve lower ticket or smaller basket size transactions. This is a normal dynamic that affects how mix can change from one quarter to the next.

Just want to clarify on the comp guide, maybe asking in a slightly different way, is we do have a couple of feet of snow on the ground, we've got mid-single-digit inflation and largely expect a bigger than typical tax refund season. So I just want to understand, like to what extent you are or are not incorporating these factors in your 3% to 5% guide?

Yes, Zack. We always emphasize that we are much better at selling auto parts and focusing on what we can control than predicting the future. We have put a lot of effort into our planning and are confident in our strategy, balancing opportunities with some caution regarding consumer behavior. While we had some favorable winter weather at the beginning of the year, which is beneficial for our industry, weather patterns can be unpredictable in the short term. Some weather events impacting our southern markets do not have the same long-term benefits as heavy snow does for our northern markets. We will need to see how these factors play out over the next few months. Generally, we are confident in our guidance and what we can control this year, but we remain cautious given the pressures on consumers.

Got it. And then as you think about the margin good guys and maybe bad guys in 2026, at the gross margin line, maybe we could talk about magnitude of supply chain and distribution tailwinds on the do-it-for-me mix drag offset by Mexico potential benefit. And then when you think through just the impact of health insurance and all these other factors, how long or to what extent are you incorporating those elevated levels as you think through 2026?

Yes. No, great questions. I'll try to make sure we kind of hit on all the points that you asked about there. We think about the gross margin, I guess, dynamics as we move through the year within kind of the context of how we think about the range of our gross margin. The magnitude of, I think, any of the individual drivers that are puts and takes either way are not as large as even that range. So we're talking about items that are typically 10 to 20 basis points, maybe a little bit higher than that in each of the pieces. But for sure, a decent-sized, I think, headwind from the professional business growing as fast as it did, and particularly if you look at the third and fourth quarters where that was heightened. But on the positive end, I would tell you, both, I think, positive drivers. I think the acquisition cost improvement is a little bit a larger piece of that than what we saw on the distribution side, but I think also meaningful efficiencies from a distribution perspective. Now when we look at just how that lays out for next year, I think knowing the gains that we've had this year and the opportunity to calendar those, we feel good about what our gross margin outlook is last year, I think more cautious of what we're going to be able to gain there than what we saw in 2025, which is I think a great gross margin year for us really on both of those, I think, positives that you look at. And then just kind of the changing evolution of the Mexico business is a help. It's probably 4 to 5 basis points than it is a big change. But it's a delta that moves us. In terms of the question around how we're thinking about the cautiousness of pressure, that is, I think, on the SG&A side, for some of the types of costs that I think have bit us here in the last couple of quarters, we do think that that's more heightened in the front half of the year. Brent mentioned that in his prepared comments, I think, as much as anything because the comparisons get a lot easier as you move into the balance of the year. But we do expect that as we think about how the year plays out for our SG&A guide, that we would see more pressure from a dollar perspective on per store growth than in the front part of the year, particularly first quarter, and we would see kind of imbalance for the full year. Now that does match up with how we think about the sales cadence as well that we talked about I know quite a bit on the call already this morning. And so we probably land in a place that's, from a leverage perspective, it's a little bit more consistent quarter-to-quarter for our expectations of operating profit leverage, SG&A leverage. But for sure, kind of the thought process of how the dollars play out is going to be more pressured in the front part of the year.

This is Brian Nagel. I want to go back, I know we discussed it a lot, but just the SG&A and SG&A per store guidance for '26. The question I want to ask is, we've been talking about these elevated expenses for a while, as you look beyond '26, given how persistent these expenses have been, I mean, are you starting to identify more aggressively levers that could be pulled, so to the extent these pressures continue, that internally O'Reilly can start to manage these costs better?

Yes, that's a great question, Brian. Interestingly, these aren't new questions. Over the past year, we've encountered various pressures related to self-insurance costs, managing our vehicle fleet, and team member expenses linked to health care and workers' compensation. These factors have always been a significant focus for us and an integral part of our business operations. We've effectively controlled our cost structure for a long time, but we've recently faced challenges as inflation has increased. We're finding limited quick solutions to reduce what has consistently been a key management issue for us. Nevertheless, these items remain priorities, and we're looking at technology to enhance how we ensure safety and deliver value in terms of team member benefits. These are crucial areas for us to manage, and they'll continue to receive significant attention. While it’s important to maintain focus on these matters, we are also optimistic that as the market stabilizes and inflation levels off, we will diligently work to mitigate these pressures.

I want to follow up on the same-SKU inflation. So can you just help us understand the cadence of the year in a little bit more detail? Will the first quarter be similar to the level of same-SKU inflation that you had in the fourth quarter? And then someone asked earlier about this hypothetical if tariffs are reduced. How would that impact you from a timing of inventory perspective, right? If costs come down, would that more likely be like a second half of '26 phenomenon at this point?

Yes, Steve. Regarding the first part, Brad mentioned how we view the inflation pace in his prepared remarks. It's primarily influenced by what we are comparing it to and our expectations for 2025. As you may recall, the first quarter had relatively low inflation, around 0.5 points. We anticipate a similar level of same-SKU inflation moving forward. However, the final outcome may be affected by the mix of products we sell, particularly regarding the extent of cost changes. Currently, we expect the benefits from same-SKU pricing to be more pronounced in the first half of the year compared to the second half. As we approach periods where we experienced benefits in 2025, analyzing it on a stacked basis, we should see similar outcomes although the benefits could gradually decrease as the year progresses. What was the second part of your question?

On tariffs.

In terms of how we view the impact of tariffs from a cost standpoint, as a LIFO reporter, we have been transparent over the past few years in discussing what we see in our gross margin results and our cost of goods sold. This is more reflective of current costs. Therefore, any cost reductions that occur usually manifest quickly in our gross margin results. This is the appropriate way to understand the tariff changes we may experience in 2026. Moreover, as Brent mentioned earlier, we expect a fairly stable environment, with potential changes, but ultimately believe there are alternative approaches the administration might use concerning tariffs.

Okay. And the follow-up I had, Steve asked earlier about growing in the Northeast. Can you just help us understand where you are from a market share perspective maybe DIFM in like the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, versus where you are from a market share perspective in some of your mature markets? How do you see the pace of that sales lift happening over the next couple of years now that the DC is opening and then probably more to come?

Yes. That's a great question, Steven. The good news is that in our $170 billion industry, we hold about a 10% market share. This may come as a surprise, but even in our most developed markets, the difference between having a 5% share and a 50% share isn't as significant as one might think. For instance, looking at our operations in Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Arkansas, and Texas, we still have a lot of market share to capture. The variations in share aren't nearly as pronounced as you might assume. We've been active in the Mid-Atlantic and parts of Virginia, particularly in areas like Roanoke, Richmond, and Virginia Beach, for many years. While these markets, along with those in North Carolina, are somewhat more developed, they remain closer to our average 10% share rather than showing a dominating market position. We don’t disclose our penetration rates by market, but in places like Northern Virginia, the D.C. metro area, Baltimore, Philly, and New York, we currently have no presence, which presents a significant opportunity for us. Ultimately, our success will hinge on executing our business model effectively on both sides and building strong teams at the store and sales levels. There remains considerable potential in our current markets, as well as growth opportunities in our more established ones.

Thank you, Matthew. We would like to conclude our call today by thanking the entire O'Reilly team for your continued dedication to our customers. I would like to thank everyone for joining our call today, and we look forward to reporting our first quarter results in April. Thank you.