Diebold Nixdorf (DBD) Q2 2026 earnings call transcript

Hello, good day and welcome to DIEBOLD NIXDORF's second quarter 2026 earnings call. My name is Paige and I'll be coordinating today's call. Following our speakers remarks, there will be a question and answer session. In order to ask a question, please press star one to raise your hand.

I'd now like to turn the call over to our host, Maynard Um, Vice President of Investor Relations. Maynard, please go ahead. Hello, and welcome to our second quarter 2026 earnings call. To accompany our prepared remarks, we posted our slide presentation to the investor relations section of our website. Before we start, I'll remind all participants that you'll hear forward-looking statements during this call. These statements reflect the expectations and beliefs of our management team at the time of the call, but they are subject to risks that could cause actual results to differ materially from these statements. You can find additional information on these factors in the company's periodic and annual filings with the SEC. Participants should be mindful that subsequent events may render this information to be out of date.

We will also discuss certain non-GAAP financial measures on today's call. As noted on slide three, reconciliations between GAAP and non-GAAP financial measures can be found in the supplemental schedules of the presentation.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Octavio, who will begin on slide four.

Thank you Maynard and good morning everyone. Thank you for joining us. Commercial momentum remained strong during the quarter. Order entry increased 3% year over year and 6% sequentially. First half order entry reached its highest level in 4 years. Backlogs grew sequentially to 814 million and we remain on track to deliver on our full year outlook. Revenue increased 1% year-over-year and 4% sequentially to $928 million. Adjusted EBITDA grew to $121 million, an increase of 8% year-over-year and 22% sequentially, while adjusted earnings per share increased 17% year-over-year to $1.10. Across the business, we continue to execute the strategic priorities we've discussed throughout the year. In banking, we continue to expand our branch automation strategy beyond the ATM, with growth in teller cash recyclers, transaction middleware, and managed services.

Retail delivered another quarter of strong growth across all our regions. We also achieved record service level performance, meeting or exceeding our customers' expectations, and continue improving the efficiency of our operating model through lean initiatives. At the same time, we also navigated several challenges. Higher memory costs in our electronic point of sale portfolio continue to be a headwind. We have taken pricing, sourcing, and other mitigation actions, and while memory pricing environment remains uncertain, we expect these actions to continue gaining traction through the third and fourth quarters. In response to the evolving memory market dynamics, we made the strategic decision to increase inventory to secure components and support customer deployment schedules in the second half of the year.

This inventory investment contributed to lower free cash flow during the quarter, and we expect inventory to remain elevated through the third quarter before normalizing in the fourth. Tariff refunds recognized and adjusted EBITDA from prior period costs largely offset the impact of higher memory costs during the quarter. Tom will provide additional detail on these items in his remarks. Importantly, underlying customer demand remains healthy, our diversified portfolio and global footprint continue to be a competitive advantage, and our order book, growing backlog, and customer deployment schedules continue to support not only our confidence in the full-year outlook, but also in the durability of the momentum we're building across the businesses. Let's now turn to slide 5 to review our banking strategy.

The bank branch continues to evolve. As routine transactions become more automated, employees can spend more time providing financial advice and strengthening customer relationships. At the same time, banks increasingly want integrated technology partners that help them automate routine transactions, improve branch operations, and better connect the physical and digital customer experience. Our core ATM franchise continues to deliver. During the quarter, we secured several important wins, including a new customer in the UK for approximately 1,100 DN series units, together with a long-term service agreement. In Mexico, a key customer refreshed its fleet with 600 DN series recyclers. And in South Africa, one of the country's largest banks selected DIEBOLD NIXDORF to replace their entire legacy fleet. Building on our leadership in ATMs, our strategy is to expand deeper into the branch through teller cash recyclers, branch automation solutions, and managed services.

We're seeing encouraging momentum from this strategy. During the second quarter, we achieved record TellerCash Recycler shipments from our North Canton facility, reflecting growing customer adoption and reinforcing our confidence in this under-penetrated market. We're also gaining traction with our branch automation solutions, which combined our ATM and TellerCash Recycler hardware, managed services, and our Vynamic transaction middleware platform. Our BINAMIC transaction middleware platform connects self-service, assisted service, digital banking, and core banking systems, simplifying transaction management across the enterprise while giving us a unique position within our customers' branch infrastructure. Today, most of the top five financial institutions in North America rely on BINAMIC transaction middleware to process millions of transactions every day. That install base provides a solid foundation to expand our software, automation, and managed services as customers continue modernizing their branch networks.

Recent deployments with Lloyds in the UK and ViStar Credit Union in the US demonstrate this strategy in action. At Lloyds, our branch automation solution is live in an initial pilot across two high-traffic branches, representing an important first step that positions us for broader deployment across the Lloyds branch network over time. At Vistar, our end-to-end branch automation solution supports more than 200 advanced ATMs through our managed services offerings, helping simplify operations and enhance the member experience. These deployments demonstrate how our integrated portfolio expands our opportunity well beyond the ATM, allowing us to deliver greater value through software, services, and automation, while strengthening customer relationships. Our fit-for-purpose product, designed for the India market, continues to gain traction.

Our pipeline is growing, and we believe India represents one of our most attractive long-term growth opportunities given the size of the market and our relatively modest market share position today.

Finally, in Brazil, one large public sector bank tender has shifted into the second half, with the associated revenue originally expected in 2026 now expected primarily in 2027. While this affects timing, it does not change our full year outlook, and we remain confident in our ability to capture our share of this opportunity.

Turning to retail, revenue grew approximately 25% year over year. Retailers continued to invest in technology to create a more seamless shopping experience across physical and digital channels, while improving labor productivity and reducing shrink. Our strategy is to build on our market leadership in Europe while accelerating growth in North America through innovative store technology, AI-enabled solutions, and managed services. We're seeing momentum across each of these priorities. In North America, we're converting a growing pipeline into new logo wins. During the quarter, we secured self-checkout wins with two grocers, a point-of-sale deployment with a quick-serve restaurant chain, and a service agreement with a large fashion retailer supporting technology deployments across hundreds of stores. Across Europe, our checkout solutions continue to lead the market.

We secured a more than 4,000 unit point of sale order with an existing customer in Germany. 1,600 units with a retailer in Romania and an 800 unit new logo win in Germany. In addition, we won a 1,500 self-checkout plane deployment with one of the United Kingdom's largest grocers. Our Smart Vision AI solution is gaining meaningful commercial traction. We've deployed hundreds of lanes year to date, and new multi-year contracts signed this quarter will expand deployments to thousands of lanes by the end of 2026. Most notably, we signed BINAMIC Smart Vision AI deployment contracts for 1,400 new lanes across two large European grocers, representing the largest new deployments to date. These wins demonstrate that retailers are increasingly deploying AI at the enterprise scale.

Together, our market leadership in Europe, growing momentum in North America, and the rapid adoption of the Smart Vision AI platform, The next step is to give us confidence that our retail business remains in the early stages of significant long-term growth opportunities.

Turning to slide 7. For the second consecutive quarter, we achieved record service levels in both North America and globally. Based on customer feedback and available market data, we believe we're leading the industry in response times and availability. These improvements strengthen our customer relationships today and position us to win additional business over time. Service margins improved 10 basis points sequentially, despite the near-term impact of our North America fleet renewal program. This investment is improving technician safety, increasing parts availability, strengthening repair execution, and improving fuel efficiency, creating a stronger service platform for the future. The actions we've taken are delivering measurable results. With the largest phase of our investment cycle now behind us, we expect to leverage the stronger operational foundation to continue improving service margin in the quarters and years ahead.

As we continue expanding our install base through tellered cash recyclers, branch automation solutions, and retail, we're also expanding higher value service opportunities. Combined with the operational improvements we've made, this gives us confidence in our expectation of up to 50 basis points of service margin expansion this year and continued improvement over time.

Now, let's turn to slide 8. Our lean operating system continues to be a foundational element on how we run the business. Across the company, we're applying lean principles to improve productivity, simplify operations, increase capacity, and deliver a better experience for our customers. These efforts are making our business more efficient, more scalable, better positioned to support profitable growth. One example comes from our Powderborn manufacturing facility. As customer demand increased, the team implemented flow manufacturing and added a fourth production line without increasing operating costs. The result was 25% increase in output and improved safety, demonstrating how lean enables us to grow efficiently while improving operational performance. In North Canada, LEAN initiatives reduce dispatch times by more than 50%, shorten receiving and shipping leave times by two days, and generate greater than $200,000 in annual labor savings.

These improvements increase responsiveness, improve productivity, and enhance the experience we deliver to customers. We are also applying LEAN to our service operations through our Plan for Every Part initiative. By improving parts availability and inventory planning, we're reducing incomplete service calls and helping technicians resolve customer issues on the first visit This directly supports the record service level agreements we discussed earlier and strengthens both customer satisfaction and operational performance Our commitment to innovation continues to be recognized externally. During the quarter, our Vynamic Transaction Middleware platform received two international industry awards, recognizing our leadership in payment technology.

These examples demonstrate that LEAN is much more than a manufacturing initiative. It is the operating system that drives continuous improvement across our company. Every productivity gain, process improvement, and quality enhancement strengthens our ability to execute for our customers, expand margins, and support sustainable long-term growth.

With that, I'll turn the call over to Tom to review our financial performance in more detail.

Thank you, Octavio. Starting on slide 9, the second quarter financial results reflect our continued commercial momentum and operational execution. Non-GAAP revenue was $928 million, up 1.4% year-over-year and more than 4% sequentially. Increasing retail demand helped offset the timing of certain banking deployments being pushed out, while orders and backlog both increased sequentially, giving us continued I will now turn the call over to management for the second half of the year. Before reviewing our margin performance, I would like to provide some context around two items that influenced our second quarter results. We received a one-time tariff refund of approximately $13 million, with approximately $10 million benefiting banking product margins and the remaining $3 million benefiting banking services.

The benefit was almost entirely offset by approximately $10 million of higher memory costs. As we have now diversified our memory supply base and implemented customer pricing actions, we expect the impact of higher memory costs to continue to decline throughout the remainder of the year. And as in prior periods, both items are reflected in our reported non-GAAP results. Non-GAAP gross profit grew approximately 1% year-over-year and 9% sequentially, driven by continued strength in our retail business. Non-GAAP margin was 26.4%, essentially flat year-over-year and up 100 basis points sequentially. Non-GAAP product gross margin increased 70 basis points year over year to 28.7%, driven by banking, execution, and partially offset by memory costs and a higher mix of retail point-of-sale products.

Sequentially, non-GAAP product margins increased 240 basis points. Non-GAAP service margins were 24.9%, down 60 basis points year-over-year, and up 10 basis points sequentially. The year-over-year decline primarily reflects the rollout of our new North America service fleet and increased investments in technicians to support future growth. These investments are already improving operational performance, and we remain confident that they will contribute to continued service margin expansion over time.

Non-GAAP operating expenses declined $7 million, or 4%, year-over-year, and improved by $2 million sequentially, reflecting the benefits of our continuous improvement initiatives and disciplined cost management. We now expect total operating expenses to decline approximately 2% for the full year at the higher end of our previously guided 1-2% decline. As a result, non-GAAP operating profit increased 13% year-over-year to $82 million, while non-GAAP operating margin expanded 90 basis points to 8.9%. Sequentially, non-GAAP operating profit increased 35%, with non-GAAP operating margin expanding 200 basis points.

Now, let's turn to slide 10. In Q2, adjusted EBITDA grew 8% year-over-year to $121 million, and margin expanded 80 basis points to 13%, driven by higher retail revenue and operating expense discipline. Sequentially, adjusted EBITDA grew about 22% and margin expanded 180 basis points. Non-GAAP earnings per share were $1.10, up 17% year-over-year, and up 64% sequentially, driven by higher net income and lower share count as we continue to execute our $200 million share repurchase program.

Turning to free cash flow, we reported an outflow of $11 million. Free cash flow was primarily impacted by inventory bills of approximately $40 million to support demand in the second half and to secure memory supply. This figure excludes discrete tax items attributable to prior fiscal years related to increasing profitability in our German legal entities. In 2026, we expect approximately $50 million of higher-than-anticipated estimated cash tax payments related to years 2024 and 2025, which we are excluding from free cash flow to better reflect operational cash flow generation. We expect inventories to be below prior years level in the fourth quarter as customer deployments accelerate, reinforcing our confidence in achieving our full-year free cash flow guidance.

Continuing on to slide 11, turning to banking, revenue was up approximately 2% sequentially and declined approximately 6% year-over-year. As we've discussed, revenue was impacted by the timing of certain customer projects, but our backlog in product gives us confidence in the back half of the year. The banking segment delivered strong margins in the quarter, increasing 100 basis points year-over-year to 28.5%. Banking product gross margins were 36.8%, up 620 basis points year over year, and up 540 basis points sequentially. Excluding the tariff refund benefit, banking product gross margin would have been 32.5%, up 190 basis points year over year, and establishing another new record for product gross margin.

Banking service gross margins were 23.6%, down 180 basis points year over year, and down 10 basis points sequentially, reflecting the tariff refund that was more than offset by additional fleet investment and lower installation and project volume.

Looking ahead in banking, our backlog, and with the majority of the investments for services now behind us, gives us confidence in the second half of the year outlook. Turning to slide 12, retail delivered another outstanding quarter. Revenue was up approximately 9% sequentially and up 24% year over year. Retail product and service both delivered double-digit growth for the second consecutive quarter, driven by growth in point of sale in both Europe and North America. Gross profit dollars increased approximately 5% sequentially and 15% year-over-year to $64 million. Total gross margin was 21.9%, down 70 basis points sequentially and 180 basis points year-over-year, reflecting a higher mix of point-of-sale products and the related higher impact of memory costs.

Retail service margin improved 230 basis points year-over-year to 28.2%, driven by the higher revenue. Looking ahead in retail, we expect to see product margin improvements in the second half of the year, driven by pricing to offset increased memory costs and improved product mix.

Moving to slide 13, let's review our 2026 guidance. We are reaffirming our full year guidance with revenue of $3.86 billion to $3.94 billion, which is supported by our recurring service revenue and the $814 million of product backlog.

Turning to gross margin, given the stronger mix of point of sale and higher memory costs impact in Q2, we now expect full-year product gross margins to be comparable with prior year, while service gross margins are still expected to improve up to 50 basis points, consistent with our previous outlook. For adjusted EBITDA, we reaffirm a range of $510 million to $535 million, reflecting our confidence in the commercial momentum and operational execution we've discussed throughout today's call. For free cash flow, while the quarterly cadence is now expected to be more weighted toward the fourth quarter, our full year expectation remains at $255 to $270 million, excluding the higher-than-expected tax payments of approximately $50 million related to the 2024 and 2025 tax years.

We continue to expect adjusted earnings per share to be in a range of $5.25 to $5.75, assuming an effective full-year tax rate in the range of 35% to 40%, with a higher tax rate expected in Q3 versus Q4. Looking specifically at the third quarter, revenue is expected to represent approximately 25% of full-year revenue at the mid-week. Gross margin is expected to be approximately 25%, flat sequentially excluding the tariff refund. We expect third quarter adjusted EBITDA to represent approximately 24% of the full year adjusted EBITDA at the midpoint.

Turning to free cash flow, we expect a continuing carrying elevated inventory in Q3, in addition to higher restructuring payments related to our OPEX cost savings program as well as the divestiture of our business in Turkey, resulting in a free cash flow at similar levels to Q2. As we exit the year, we expect significant improvement in free cash flow in Q4, driven by approximately $100 to $120 million of inventory reductions, other working capital improvements across the business, and the annual receipt of our customer service contract prepayments.

Turning to slide 14, we maintained a Fortress balance sheet with over $590 million of liquidity at the end of Q2, comprised of $282 million in cash and cash equivalents, and our revolving credit facility of $310 million. The net leverage ratio stood at 1.4 times, providing financial flexibility for share repurchases and M&A activity. During the quarter, we repurchased approximately 752,000 shares at an average price of $79.82 per share, returning $60 million to shareholders under our existing $200 million share repurchase authorization. We have approximately $57 million remaining under the current authorization. Our capital allocation priorities remain unchanged. We are committed to maintaining a strong balance sheet, returning the vast majority of our free cash flow to shareholders through share repurchases, and preserving the flexibility to pursue disciplined, value-enhancing acquisitions that strengthen our strategic position.

With that, I'll turn it back to Octavio for closing remarks. Thank you Tom To conclude the second quarter demonstrated continued commercial momentum across the business First half order entry was the highest in four years Our backlog sits at over 800 million Retail delivered another great quarter and our banking growth initiatives continue to gain traction The underlying demand environment remains healthy The quarter presented both operational opportunities and challenges. We were able to build inventory to secure supply to better position us for a strong second half of the year, while our service margins still have room for improvement. Our priorities are clear. Convert backlog into revenue, reduce inventory, improve service productivity, and maintain operating expense discipline.

I want to thank our employees for their continued focus and commitment to our customers. Their work is driving the service improvement, customer wins, and operational progress we discussed today. We remain focused on delivering the full year outlook, strengthening the quality and consistency of the business, and creating sustainable long-term value for shareholders.

With that, operator, please open the line for questions.

Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, press star 1 again. We ask that you pick up your handset when asking a question to allow for optimum sound quality. If you are muted locally, please remember to unmute your device. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster.

Yeah, so I'd say you're pretty much spot on for Q3 in terms of what you implied for the EBITDA component. You know, look, the incremental spend that we saw as relates to service margins this quarter was entirely related to our fleet, right? That impacted service margins by about 50 basis points. So obviously, you know, we're driving that fleet renewal program as well as the underlying technician investments, but the timing and concentration of the rollout in Q2 had a larger near-term impact on the service gross margin. You know, the key point is these were deliberate decisions and investments in that service platform and don't meaningfully change the underlying trajectory for margins, right? Which, Matt, as you know, we said that we expect to be able to grow service margins, and we still do, up to 50 basis points this year.

And then as it relates to product margins, right, we said that they'd be flattish when compared to prior years and, you know, really strong banking product gross margin performance, you know, with or without the tariff refund. So just jumping back to services, you know, we think the largest phase of the investment cycle is now behind us. And we expect to be able to leverage this stronger foundation to improve the service margins, certainly in the quarters ahead. And, you know, as it relates to banking, right, that being slightly down in revenues, we expect that some of the push-out and deployments are going to end up in the, you know, third and fourth quarter.

So I'd say, yeah, big fourth quarter for us from a cash flow perspective as well, but we feel like we've got a pretty good line of sight, whether it's the backlog. You know, Octavio spoke about order entry being the highest. It's been in four years, so we'll be able to convert that as well. And, you know, we feel really confident that we're going to be able not only to deliver the EBITDA, but the associated free cash flow.

Yeah, so Matt, we're really focused on delivering 2026 first, and it'll be very high double-digit growth for the North America business. As you know, in Europe, the over a billion dollars that we're thinking retail will do this year, still the vast majority comes from Europe. And with North America being the biggest market, the opportunity remains relatively untapped yet. So as we look into the next year, we still believe that retail in North America can continue at that same pace of growing a very high double-digit growth for the foreseeable future. This quarter, we had two important wins with groceries in the grocery space. We had one important win in the self-checkout space. We continue to, as we engage with customers, find new opportunities.

A very large fashion retailer hired us to deliver RFID technology across hundreds of stores. So we're very excited about the opportunity, and we just see the opportunity getting better. And again, we are taking all the appropriate measures to do that. We remain very excited about the prospects of retail in North America.

But the only thing I'll add to Octavio's comment, as it is more focused on 26, right, we do expect to see product margin improvements in the second half, driven by a slightly better mix of, you know, self-checkout when compared to point of sale. And then, you know, because of the challenge in memory that we saw, right, that headwind of about $10 million in the quarter, right, that's predominantly retail. We have now, and well, we're close to probably finalizing, revising all of the contracts to reflect the updated market pricing and memory. And we've also diversified, as it relates to memory, our product, the supply chain, which has helped keep us, you know, with the right amount of supply to support second-half demand, and has also helped a little bit on the pricing side of things.

So, you know, we will, going forward, be able to pass up to 100% of those costs on as we price these things, these contracts. And the other big change that we made was that we went from our price quoting mechanism, where we would usually allow a price quote to be active and open for a 90-day period of time. We've shrunk that down significantly because of the volatility to seven days.

You know, so between that and our ability to escalate pricing in the contracts, we expect retail to continue to deliver, and we offset that pricing headwind on memory.

Hey, Matt, I'm not counting, but I think you snuck in two questions there, but happy to address the first one. So, yes, is the answer. So, we expect to make discrete one-time payments related to 24 and 25 of $50 million between the second quarter, which we had about $18 million incurred, and then third quarter, a similar amount, fourth quarter, sort of makes up the difference, and that's the 50. Now, to more specifically answer it, the run rate for our cash tax payments, if you look at last year as a basis, we spent about $57 million on cash tax payments. Because we are now going to be profitable in Germany and no longer have NOLs, we're also required in 26 to pay an additional $25 to $30 million of taxes, and that'll get added into our new run rate for 27.

So the way to think about it is the run rate that we saw last year of, let's say, 57, you can add 25 to 30 on it. That'll be our new run rate going forward. The one point that you'll see for this year is the added 50 million for the 24 and 25 years. So we backed out that 50 million thinking it was more appropriate to show what the business can generate operationally from a cash flow perspective.

Yeah, and before I start, you know, I think that this does not change our long-term outlook. What we've discussed would be our goals for a three-year period that will end next year remain unchanged. So, you know, even with a higher cash tax payment probably next year, based on the increased profitability in our German subsidiaries, we still feel very comfortable with our cash flow outlook for 2027 and beyond.

So let me walk you through the world now, as you like to say. So I'll start with Europe this time. So as you know, Europe is a more mature market, you know, very modest growth, but we're really winning in that market. You saw some of the wins I referenced in the UK, you know, winning new customers, you know, a 1,100, 100% competitive win that we had in the UK that will now be coming our way. I referenced Lloyd's, where our branch automation is piloting in two very high-traffic branches, but proving once again that the combination of going beyond the ATM and moving into the branch will prove successful. So I think that, you know, in Europe, we see as the market continues to move in the direction of shared networks or of a utility, customers are prioritizing partners that can really provide a technological edge to their operations.

So we see that that's where our strength is, providing technology and integrated solutions. And so Europe, we expect to see continued success as we keep growing our base there with innovative solutions. When I look at North America, and preempting sometimes the question about where are we in recyclers, I think that recycling in North America is now moving significantly downstream.

You know, we also talked about Vistar this quarter on how they are now using, you know, 200 advanced recyclers through our managed service offering. So we're seeing a lot more deployment of full recycling in smaller financial institutions. Think of the credit market, the super regional accounts. So we're excited about what we're seeing there. And more importantly, the integrated value proposition of ATM recycler plus teller cash recycler is gaining traction. This was the highest volume of shipments we've had for teller cash recyclers out of our North Canton factory. And I'm happy that that trend continues through the year. So we do see that this combination of recyclers at the brand, at the ATM, recyclers at the teller, common components is a very, very powerful way of growing.

And I would tell you that that is also what gives me significant confidence on our numbers for the remainder of the year, because we see all these orders coming in and the acceptance of these new solutions. When we move to LATAM, as I mentioned, the large Brazilian tender for government banks, for one of the large government banks, now moved into the third quarter. This shifts revenue more towards 2027. However, we remain confident that LATAM will continue to be a strong market for us, will continue to grow. We will see improvements year over year. And, you know, we remain confident that this is a very strong market, you know, still very heavy dependent on cash dispensers, but also moving significantly into cash recyclers, significant wins.

One bank in Mexico replaced solid sleep with cash recyclers. So we see that that should also be an important factor for us going forward. And lastly, when we think of the Asia Pacific, Middle East, Africa region for us, fit for purpose, we'll have a very strong second half of the year. That what gives us confidence When we look at the order book and some of the big deals that we expecting in that part of the world you know they are very heavily weighted towards the third and in some cases the fourth and more importantly the fourth quarter So you will see us you know perform exceptionally well in the later half of the year in the Asia region As I said India is you know still a growing market We underrepresented there and we feel very good that the second half of the year will provide ample opportunities for growth So I would tell you that the ATM market overall, we see healthy demand.

We've seen some shifts in timing of large projects and things move a little bit, but the demand environment remains very, very healthy.

Your next question comes from the line of Justin Ages with CJS Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Just wanted to dig a little bit deeper and see, you know, were you able to make working capital improvements outside of what was happening on the inventory side? So, we expect going forward that we're going to make substantial improvements in the DAES inventory outstanding. So, you know, if you think about the cash flow, and it's kind of connected to the question that Matt asked as well, right? You know, our Q4 cash flow is going to be somewhere We have a lot of time to do with the cash, we expect a lot of that to come from additional inventory takedown. Typically, we probably turn inventory anywhere between $80 and $100 million in the fourth quarter. We have line of sight to be able to do even more than that this year, the way our schedules are working out.

And we're feeling really, really positive about that. DSO, for sure, will be a tailwind for us as we get into the fourth quarter as well. And then don't forget, right, the fourth quarter is when we have our annual receipt of the customer service contract prepayments. So, again, you know, we guided to Q2, positive free cash flow, similar to Q2 last year. That's about $13 million, and really what you're seeing manifesting itself in Q2 and Q3 is just the inventory buildup and some of the memory costs and procuring that so that we could secure the revenue. But we expect to be able to burn through that and deliver a really solid free cash flow quarter for Q4.

So, Justin, again, you know, I think one of the reasons why we're winning in North America is the modularity of our products, you know, the openness to work with different softwares. So, I would say that when we think of the wins that we have in self-checkout in North America, all of them come with service contracts. I think that there the relationship is very tightly coupled. When you think of the point of sale wins, in some cases, that being an easier product to service, service attach rates are in between the 30-50%, depending on the customer. So we continue to see that trend continue to manifest itself. And I think that the exciting part is that as we go into these retailers, whether it's the AI platform or the hardware solution, we're discovering additional service opportunities that we didn't have.

The example I gave of this very large-fashioned retailer as they're rolling out RFID across the stores where they were the partner, that's just a service opportunity that we want to help them deploy technology across literally hundreds of stores. So I think that the way I like to think about it is a strong product portfolio or strong AI platform opens up opportunities. And whether we are talking to a customer about hardware, the AI platform or services, it just creates multiple entry points into an account, and then we can really expand within that account as time goes by.

Is there anything specific you'd call out there? Yeah, I would say that, you know, even though we have for the first half like record order entry for the company, the highest it's been in four years, we did see the push out of this very large Brazilian tender. You know, that is, you know, tens of millions of dollars that got pushed. You know, now the order will be in Q3, we expect with, you know, the majority of the revenue now happening in Q4. So that is a little bit of the, you know, the rollout of that now is delayed a little bit. I would also say that as we're now selling a lot more teller, cash recyclers, and ATMs combined, it requires a lot more coordination in our installation teams to really address the full branch rather than just the ATM.

So that is adding, I would say, additional opportunity for us, but also creates more coordination needed with the customer because we're not just touching the outside of the branch. Now we're talking the inside of the branch plus the software layer that we delivered with our transaction malware. So I think that some of those rollouts that we expected to be faster have been a little bit slower than what we expected, but customers have placed the orders and are waiting for us to deliver.

And lastly, I would say that, you know, the APAC region with our fit-for-purpose product, you know, will have a very strong second half of the year. So, you know, that is also more related to customers' rollout schedules than anything else, but we see the orders coming in, and now it's just our ability to turn those orders into revenue in the, you know, late third and early fourth quarter in banking. So, I would say that it's a little bit of everything in every region, but the demand environment that we met with looking first at the orders remains solid. The optimism in the team on delivering their full-year outlook remains unchanged, and it's just a matter of executing against the backlog that we have today and the projects that are coming up in the coming weeks.

Was there anything unique to the quarter that pushed gross margins higher? Or is that just the result of you guys continuing to optimize and sell a richer product mix? So there's a little bit of product mix that has helped in the first half. We've had very higher concentration in the US market, which is better margins, higher concentration in Europe. The second half will be a little bit more global. But also our lean initiatives continue to gain traction. So we're very focused on maintaining those margins. If you remember Q1, we set up all time high in margins for APM products. You know, Q2, we once again did that. So we're very, very focused on making sure that for the year, we continue maintaining that margin discipline.

I think the competitive environment and the – sorry, Matt, go ahead.

So we haven't seen any impact right now, Matt. As you know, this combination won't be effective until the first quarter of next year, and all indications are that they're on track to that. I would say that, you know, when I look at the competitive positioning, sometimes, you know, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. And I was happy to see, you know, Athleos now reselling TCRs, you know, that validates our strategy that, you know, it's very important to move across the branch and work, you know, so we think that that is a winning strategy. And we think that, you know, providing this integrated solution as banks keep transforming the branch infrastructure will be key to success in the future, not so much pricing actions, you know, clearly, banks always are worried about reducing costs, increasing operational efficiency.

But more importantly, they're focused on how do I make a branch more efficient? How can it become a service point, an advice point for my customers, remove the manual work out of it? And I think that our solutions are very well positioned there, and we're in a unique position to keep doing that with the common components across the platform, common service infrastructure. So we're excited. And again, we will always be vigilant. And both, you know, Brink is an outstanding company, you know, great competitor. So we will always be mindful of any changes in the dynamics and how we need to adjust our strategy.

Yes. So, listen, our POS business is growing in the very, very high double digits and in some markets triple digits. I think we have a unique position in that we have strong customers that are expanding, that are refreshing their fleets. But don't forget that even though in Europe we're seeing significant demand, we're also just starting to scratch the surface in the North America market with Winston POS in the North America market. So we feel that, you know, that growth is still very much in the plans for our retail business going forward. And POS is still a very important part of that strategy, making sure that we continue to advance in the North America market while continuing to expand our share in Europe.

We're deploying, you know, AI in our GBS center in Poland, which is a great asset for us and continues to, you know, really provide strong returns. So, yeah, where there's an opportunity and where it makes sense and we've got the right level of data in the right format so it can be digestible, we are availing ourselves to that. Which is why, you know, Matt, we did raise guidance to a degree, right, as it relates to the OPEX reduction. We used to say 1% to 2% op-ex reduction year over year. Now we're sort of at the high end of the 2%, and it's a direct result of that evolution program and where and when possible, deploying AI to help facilitate.

Thanks, Drew. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today's call.

Yeah, I'll now hand it over to you, Maynard, for your closing remarks. Thanks so much. Yeah, thanks, everyone, for joining today's call and your interest in DIEBOLD NIXDORF. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to reach out to the investor relations team, and thanks again, and have a good rest of the day.

Thanks, Maynard. This concludes today's call. Thank you for attending. You may now disconnect.