AAON Q1 2026 Earnings Report

AAON EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $0.48
• Consensus EPS: $0.31
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.17
• One Year Ago EPS: $0.37

AAON Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $496.94 million
• Expected Revenue: $381.08 million
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$115.85 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +54.30%

AAON Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 5/7/2026
• Time: Before Market Opens
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 7, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 9:00AM ET

AAON (NASDAQ:AAON) (NASDAQ: AAON) is a U.S.-based designer and manufacturer of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment for commercial and industrial applications. The company’s product portfolio focuses on rooftop packaged units, water-source heat pumps, chillers and custom-engineered solutions that cater to a wide array of building types, from office complexes and schools to data centers and healthcare facilities.

AAON’s core offerings include rooftop units available in gas, electric and dual-fuel configurations, precision air-conditioning systems for temperature- and humidity-sensitive environments, and modular chillers suited for both indoor and outdoor installations. The company also produces air handlers, heat recovery units and building automation controls designed to optimize energy efficiency and indoor air quality.

Founded in 1987 by Dr. Norman H. Asbjornson, AAON is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and operates manufacturing facilities in Oklahoma and Texas. The company’s vertically integrated production model encompasses sheet metal fabrication, coil manufacturing and final assembly, enabling tight control over quality and lead times. Sales are conducted through a network of independent representatives and direct channels throughout North America, with select international exports.

AAON places a strong emphasis on research and development to meet evolving environmental regulations and customer-specific requirements. By combining standardized platforms with customizable options, the company seeks to deliver reliable, energy-efficient HVAC solutions while maintaining flexibility for unique projects and emerging market trends.

AAON Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Record Q1 net sales of $496.9 million (+54% YoY) and a backlog of $2.1 billion (more than double year-ago) with BASX sales +72% and AAON sales +42%, indicating strong demand and market-share gains.
• Negative Sentiment: Gross margin declined to 25.1% (down 170 bps YoY) driven by intentional outsourcing, unabsorbed fixed costs at the new Memphis facility, and tariff/inflation pressures—management characterizes these as temporary but they compressed near-term margins.
• Positive Sentiment: Company updated 2026 outlook to ~40–45% sales growth with a gross margin target of 27–28% and says margins should improve through the year as internal capacity scales and reliance on outsourcing falls.
• Neutral Sentiment: AAON is continuing heavy capacity investment (Q1 CapEx $52.9M; full-year ~ $190M) and Memphis/Longview ramping drove higher throughput and a $34M operating cash inflow, while debt sits at $425.2M (leverage 1.71x) and the new CFO is prioritizing margin discipline and working capital.

Presentation

[Operator]

Hello, and welcome to the AAON, Inc. first quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, please press star one on your telephone keypad. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joseph Mondillo, Director of Investor Relations. You may begin.

[Joseph Mondillo, Director of Investor Relations at AAON]

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. The press release announcing our first quarter 2026 financial results was issued earlier this morning and can be found on our corporate website, aaon.com. The call today is accompanied by a presentation that you can also find on our website, as well as on the listen-only webcast. We begin our customary forward-looking statement policy. During the call, any statement presented dealing with information that is not historical is considered forward-looking and made pursuant to the Safe Harbor Provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, the Securities Act of 1933, and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, each as amended. As such, it is subject to the occurrence of many events outside of AAON's control that could cause AAON's results to differ materially from those anticipated.

[Joseph Mondillo, Director of Investor Relations at AAON]

You are all aware of the inherent difficulties, risks, and uncertainties in making predictive statements. Our press release and Form 10-Q that we filed this morning detail some of the important risk factors that may cause our actual results to differ from those in our predictions. Please note that we do not have a duty to update our forward-looking statements. Our press release and portions of today's call use non-GAAP financial measures as defined in Regulation G. You can find the related reconciliations to GAAP measures in our press release and presentation. Joining me on today's call is Matt Tobolski, President and CEO; Andy Cheung, our new Chief Financial Officer, who joined the company in April; and Rebecca Thompson, our Chief Accounting Officer.

[Joseph Mondillo, Director of Investor Relations at AAON]

Matt will start with some opening remarks, Andy will follow with a walkthrough of the quarterly results, and Matt will finish up with our updated outlook for 2026. With that, I will turn the call over to Matt.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Thanks, Joe, and good morning. Q1 was a strong start to the year and an important execution quarter for AAON as the organizational leadership and capacity investments that we have been deliberately building began to show up more clearly in our results. In addition to delivering record sales and 37% earnings growth, we recorded a book-to-bill well above one, resulting in backlog of $2.1 billion, more than double from a year ago and marking the sixth consecutive quarter at record levels. Both brands continue to demonstrate the strength of their value propositions through highly engineered, configurable, and custom solutions consistent with the strategy we have executed against over multiple years. This led to strong customer demand and translated into solid growth and share gains during the quarter.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Demand remained exceptionally strong at BASX, supported by the strength of the data center market and our differentiated solutions that deliver improved performance, greater efficiency, and ease of maintenance. BASX-branded sales grew 72% year-over-year, even against a lofty comparison, and sales in the prior year period nearly 5x. Increased production from our expanded facilities in Longview and Memphis supported a higher throughput, while we also continued to increase output from our Redmond site. Operationally, we executed well for our customers with all three facilities delivering record BASX-branded sales during the quarter. This performance reflects not just strong demand, but improving execution driven by deeper leadership benches, clear accountability, and more disciplined operating processes as capacity scales with a more mature operating structure. In addition to higher throughput, we delivered another quarter of strong bookings.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

BASX posted a book-to-bill ratio over two, driving a record backlog of BASX-branded orders up 160% from a year ago and 24% sequentially. Against the data center thermal management market growing at approximately 30%, our revenue and order growth rates supported continued market share gains at BASX. The AAON brand also performed well, gaining share even as market conditions remained soft and our extended lead times persisted. A key positive during the quarter was a notable improvement in production rates, which drove AAON-branded sales growth of 42% year-over-year and 11% sequentially. These improvements contributed to shorter lead times and a sequential reduction in backlog, though further progress is necessary. With volumes within the unitary HVAC market growing just modestly year-over-year, these first quarter results suggest meaningful share gains.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Bookings of AAON-branded equipment increased approximately 9% year-over-year and were up about 15% on a trailing 12-month basis. In the quarter, growth was driven by strength in our traditional transactional business, while national account bookings were comparable with the prior year period. The improvement in transactional business reflects an acceleration in demand, which is encouraging considering this business was soft for much of last year. Orders of Alpha Class equipment, which comprise our AAON-branded fully electric heat pump configurations, also contributed to growth, increasing 56% during the quarter. The same strength in AAON-branded bookings limited the sequential decline in AAON-branded backlog, even with meaningful improvements in production. AAON-branded backlog declined 3% sequentially and remained up 26% from a year ago. As a result, we remain focused on further ramping production to work down backlog and normalize lead times.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

In the midst of such strong growth, we have been intentionally investing in people, processes, and tools to build a top-performing operating organization, one capable of sustaining higher growth rates while expanding margins over time. These investments are now moving from build phase to execution phase. Last quarter, we discussed the investments we've been making in supply chain management and lean manufacturing. We continue to leverage these investments and expect to see accelerating benefits as the year progresses. Margin expansion remains central to our long-term value creation model. In the near term, we are intentionally prioritizing growth, customer delivery, and system maturity over near-term margin maximization. That decision is reflected in the temporary use of outsourcing and ramp-related inefficiencies as we scale capacity. These are conscious, disciplined trade-offs made from a position of strength and visibility, not demand-driven pressure or structural resets.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

We view them as economically positive decisions that accelerate market share gains and long-term returns on invested capital. Importantly, these decisions do not come at the expense of AAON's growth. Longer term, as capacity builds out and internal capabilities mature, reliance on these temporary measures will decline, driving margin improvement through better fixed cost absorption and productivity. As a result, we now expect higher growth for the year, albeit with more modest margins near term, while continuing to see directional margin improvement as the year progresses. Before handing it off, I want to welcome Andy Cheung, our new Chief Financial Officer. Andy brings a strong financial background and a proven track record of leadership across strategy, financial planning and analysis, and capital management. His experience and disciplined approach will be instrumental as we continue to scale the business, enhance execution, and drive long-term value creation.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Andy's insights and partnership will further strengthen our leadership team and support our focus on growth, margin improvement, and operational excellence. I'd also like to thank Rebecca Thompson for her steadfast service as CFO. I look forward to her continued contributions and her return to the Chief Accounting Officer role. With that, I will now turn it over to Andy, who will walk through the quarterly financials in more detail.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

Thank you, Matt, and good morning, everyone. I'll start this morning by first sharing how excited I am to join AAON and to have the opportunity to partner closely with Matt and the leadership team. I've held financial leadership roles across multiple industries in my nearly 30 years tenure, including an extensive amount of time in the industrial HVAC space with a consistent focus on driving operational efficiency. I'm pleased to bring that experience to AAON and look forward to helping drive the next stage of profitable growth and value creation. The company's strong market position and the high growth opportunity is what initially attracted me to the role. As I have become more familiar with the business over the past few weeks, I've been even more impressed by the strength of the underlying fundamentals and the sizable opportunity that lies ahead.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

I look forward to working with the team to support profitable execution, enhance returns, and deliver long-term value for our shareholders. With that, let's turn to the first quarter financial results. First quarter net sales increased 54% year-over-year to a record $496.9 million. Growth was driven by strong performance across both BASX and AAON brands, supported by elevated backlog levels and recent capacity investments that enabled higher production rates during the period. BASX brand of sales increased 72% year-over-year, reflecting continued strong demand for data center cooling solutions and capacity gains from higher utilization of our facilities in Memphis, Longview, and Redmond. AAON brand of sales grew 42% in the first quarter, driven by improved production throughput as we work to reduce lead times at both our Tulsa and Longview facilities.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

Gross margin was 25.1% in the first quarter, down 170 basis points from 26.8% in the prior year period. Gross margin was impacted by an increased amount of outsourced components to drive growth and share gains, unabsorbed fixed costs at the new Memphis facility, as well as tariff-related and general inflation pressures, all of which are temporary. Despite these near-term margin impacts, earnings growth remains strong, reflecting our exceptional growth trajectory. As internal capacity scales, utilization and productivity increase, reducing reliance on outsourced components and resulting in better fixed cost absorption. Additionally, we have taken margin actions through pricing and mix, and those actions are embedded in the backlog. SG&A expenses as a percentage of sales declined 220 basis points to 13.7%, up 32% to $67.9 million.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

This reflects strong operating leverage and disciplined cost management and demonstrates how our organizational investments are scaling as revenue grows. Driven by the strong top-line performance, non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA increased 44% from the prior year period to $78 million. Non-GAAP adjusted EBITDA margin was 15.7% compared to 17.6% a year ago. Diluted earnings per share in the first quarter of 2026 were $0.48, representing an increase of 37% from the first quarter of 2025. Turning now to the segment financials, beginning with AAON Oklahoma. For the first quarter, net sales increased 51% year-over-year to $244 million. This outsized growth was driven by a strong beginning backlog and improved production throughput, which supported by higher backlog conversion despite a challenging industry backdrop.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

Results also benefited from a favorable comparison to the prior year period, which had been disrupted by the industry's refrigerant transition, contributing to regained market share. AAON Oklahoma gross margin was 26.3%, an increase of 120 basis points from 25.1% in the first quarter of 2025. Overhead expenses associated with the Memphis facility impacted segment margin by $9.8 million. Excluding these costs, Oklahoma margins were 29.6%. The remaining gap to our historical highs in the upper 30 is explained by three items: outsourcing, tariff-related pressures, and general inflation. None represent a structural change to Oklahoma's long-term earnings power or its role as a core margin engine for AAON. All three have already been addressed with actions embedded in backlog and new pricing actions. These temporary headwinds will moderate as the year progresses.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

AAON Coil Products sales were $117.6 million in the first quarter, an increase of $23.6 million or 25% compared to the prior year period. Growth was driven by $93.2 million in BASX branded liquid cooling product sales, which increased 40% during the quarter. This strength was partially offset by a 12% decline in AAON branded output within the segment. AAON Coil Products gross margin was 24.1% in the first quarter compared to 31.8% in the prior year period, up 280 basis points sequentially from 21.3% in the fourth quarter. The sequential margin expansion reflected improved operating leverage from higher throughput at the Longview facility, along with a favorable mix of higher margin BASX sales.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

Sales at the BASX segment grew 104% in the first quarter to $135.4 million. The robust growth was driven by sustained demand for data center solutions and new market share capture as BASX continued its trend of strong order intake and growing backlog. Increased utilization of our Memphis facility was also a significant factor, providing additional production capacity that was additive to segment results. BASX segment gross margin was 23.9%, essentially flat from the prior year period. The stable year-over-year margin reflected strong volume growth, offset by incremental resources and investments needed to support the future growth and share gains. As utilization continues to improve, we expect BASX segment sales and margins to expand through the balance of the year, with the second half weighted more favorably as fixed cost absorption improves.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

Turning now to the balance sheet. Cash, cash equivalents, and restricted cash balances totaled $1.1 million on March 31, 2026, and debt at the end of the quarter was $425.2 million. Our leverage ratio improved to 1.71x, down from 1.77x on December 31. During the first quarter, cash flow from operations was a +$34 million, the highest level since the third quarter of 2024. This is compared favorably to a $9.2 million use of cash in the prior year period and was driven primarily by higher earnings and improved working capital efficiency. Capital expenditures totaled $52.9 million, reflecting continued investment in incremental capacity to support future growth.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

Looking ahead, we expect continued profitability and productivity improvements throughout 2026, which we believe will drive further cash flow improvement and strengthen the balance sheet in support of future growth. I will now hand the call back to Matt.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Thank you, Andy. We entered the second quarter with significant production momentum and a strong backlog that provides excellent visibility through the remainder of the year. Production throughput continues to ramp across all of our facilities, positioning the business to benefit from higher volumes and improved utilization. With this operational momentum and backlog strength, our focus remains squarely on execution and delivering for our customers. In the near term, we expect temporary cost pressures from outsourcing as we support strong growth and continued market share gains. These impacts are transitory, and as internal capacity expands, these cost burdens will diminish, allowing margins to improve. With demand remaining robust, production continuing to scale, and capacity investments coming online, we expect improving margins over the course of the year as operating leverage builds.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

We remain focused on scaling the business efficiently and strengthening margins over time while delivering for our customers and driving long-term value for our shareholders. For the year, we now anticipate sales growth of 40%-45% at a gross margin of 27%-28%. SG&A as a percentage of sales is expected to be between 14% and 15%, and depreciation and amortization expenses are expected to be in the $95 million-$100 million range. These expectations reflect our confidence in demand, improving execution, and the operating leverage embedded in our cost structure. Importantly, our full year outlook reflects a net improvement in both top and bottom line, with earnings up materially despite gross margins reflecting intentional timing and ramp decisions. The additional volume we are taking on this year carries strong incremental contribution and accelerates absorption, productivity, and capacity payback.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

This is a timing issue tied to how we are choosing to ramp and execute, not a reset in long-term margin structure. As absorption improves, outsourcing declines, and pricing flows through, margin expansion follows as these temporary factors unwind. In closing, I want to thank our employees, our customers, sales channel partners, and shareholders for their continued support. We are seeing clear momentum in our operations as recent investments translate into stronger execution. Our visibility, execution priorities, and operating discipline position us well to continue improving performance in delivering long-term value. With that, I will open the call for questions.

[Operator]

Thank you. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, simply press star one again. Your first question comes from Ryan Merkel with William Blair. Your line is open.

[Ryan Merkel, Analyst at William Blair]

Hey everyone. Good morning and congrats on the quarter. Very well done. Matt, you're not going to be surprised by my first question, which is gross margin. There's a lot going on, but I think it would be helpful if you could just talk about Oklahoma because the margins there, I think you said normalized were close to 30%, but the quarter was 26%. That 500 basis points, if I have that right, can you just unpack each of the temporary issues? Then the second part of the question is how should we think about 2Q? You know, why will 2Q improve sequentially? What are the drivers?

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yeah. Good morning, Ryan, and thanks for the question. Touching on Oklahoma margins, just to clarify, the margin as reported includes the overhead impacts of the Memphis investments. When we back that out, the Oklahoma margin for the quarter is sitting around 30%. When we think about that 30% compared to, you know, 2024 highs in the higher 30s, the three key drivers that are embedded in there is, first off, some intentional choices to outsource to help fuel the growth. When we think about it from a system perspective, we've got demand coming across the entire platform for internal manufacturing resources.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

As we balance exactly where all those resources are driving, kind of throughput for the overall enterprise, some of that decision, especially in coil production in places like Longview, we're centered on supporting some of the liquid cooling products we have. Because we tied up some of that capacity in the Longview site for BASX, we did some more outsourcing in the Oklahoma site, which shows up in the overall margin. Beyond that, there's a little bit of price-cost dynamic and a little bit of diluted nature from the tariff surcharge and actual cost incurred. I want to touch on the fact that the price cost issues and the tariff impact were identified and actually pricing actions have been taken at the back half of last year.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Embedded in backlog is actually intentional actions to increase that price already, and we will continue to monitor the input costs and really maintain discipline around pricing strategy.

[Ryan Merkel, Analyst at William Blair]

Got it. Okay, that's helpful. 2Q, can you provide us any kind of color on where you think the margins will land?

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yes. I mean, Q2, we're expecting a sequential improvement quarter-over-quarter in the Oklahoma Segment. That includes both with and without Memphis. The only thing I'd touch on is Oklahoma does traditionally have seasonality in Q4 and Q1, so we anticipate seeing sequential progression in the Oklahoma Segment margin in Q2 and Q3. There still is a little bit of potential pullback in Q4 with the normalized seasonality. All in all, we expect to see consistent improvement kind of during the main peak months in the summer.

[Ryan Merkel, Analyst at William Blair]

Got it. Okay. Just quickly on BASX, I mean, the revenues and orders were way above what I was thinking and maybe even what you were thinking, if I go back to what you told us in Q4. Why did BASX revenue in the quarter beat so much? What is embedded in the guide for BASX growth at this point? I think prior you had said 25% growth.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yeah. You know, it's a good question on what changed or what allowed us to accelerate the sales and the bookings cadence. Really what I'd say is as we looked kind of within our customer base as well as new customer conversations, we continue to see incredibly strong strength in the data center market from an underlying perspective. As we mapped out kind of our execution plan to really capitalize on the opportunity, especially with our differentiated product, we made a choice to accelerate some of the productivity or production ramp, which is part of that additional cost structure that came in on the outsourcing.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

When we saw the opportunity and we really mapped out how we can take advantage of that, we made it a point to really accelerate revenue, which allowed us to then also accelerate bookings. As that demand really started to come online, and show good legs and we gained more and more confidence in our ability to drive more volume through, it allowed us to continue adding more sales or bookings as well. That's really the big driver of really the acceleration both on the sales and the booking side.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

I would just say, you know, high level, what's embedded in the overall guide for the year is when we zoom out, we look at kind of the new 40%-45% kind of marker from a top-line revenue perspective, that implies roughly $1 billion in BASX revenue for the year.

[Ryan Merkel, Analyst at William Blair]

That's incredible. Okay. I'll get back in line. Thank you.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Thanks, Ryan.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Chris Moore with CJS Securities. Your line is open.

[Chris Moore, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Hey, good morning, guys. Nice quarter. Maybe we'll start with on the rooftop side. Obviously you're ramping production there, lowering the lead times. Sounds like you're taking some share. Just maybe you could talk a little bit about, you know, kind of what you're thinking about from the rooftop market for the balance of 2026.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yes. I mean, the rooftop market as a whole, you know, we talked through it last year of obviously making some great strides in our national account success throughout the calendar year. As we came into 2026, we continued to see good strength in the national account structure. Beyond that, what we saw was some solid movement in the more traditional transactional market. A lot of that growth in bookings that we saw in the quarter actually was driven by the more traditional market, which from our vantage point, it shows signs of recovery. We look at the AHRI data kind of through second quarter, and it shows a low single digits recovery and volumes going through, which obviously we're outperforming on. We're taking share.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

We're really capitalizing on the value proposition of the overall portfolio. Seeing a lot of strength in the Alpha Class heat pumps. We're seeing good strength kind of in our local markets. You know, we continue to expect to see ramping production in the Oklahoma segment through Q2 and Q3. Again, a little bit of question mark in Q4 on normal seasonality, really see good strength from our value proposition and driving good revenue and share gains through the year.

[Chris Moore, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Got it. In terms of the premium pricing, is it that's still holding up?

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yeah. I think one thing to point out, mentioned in my response to Ryan's question, you know, embedded in the backlog has been intentional pricing actions that we've been taking through the back half of last year. It's important to note, you know, implied in there obviously is we're maintaining discipline on how we price our product and maintain that premium, we continue to see strength in bookings. With that price, we continue to see the value proposition shine through with those share gains, outperformance on the overall bookings. We definitely think the pricing strategy remains intact. We see the value proposition very much intact, continue focusing on delivering innovative products to the marketplace.

[Chris Moore, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Got it. Maybe just one on BASX. Sounds like you're talking about $1 billion in revenue this year. Just from a capacity standpoint, kind of where you'll be at the end of 2026, and, you know, kind of what's your longer-term target in terms of data center capacity?

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yeah. I mean, we've talked in the past, again, this is sort of what's rough napkin math in the past around about $1.5 billion of capacity. Last quarter, I indicated in a lot of the conversations, in really response to questions, which was we truly see a lot of upside actually beyond that. Embedded inside the initial investments that we made in both Longview and Memphis is actually more revenue potential than that original $1.5 billion. We continue to work to really quantify that. Mix is obviously a huge component of that as we continue to capitalize on the market opportunity. We definitely see the capacity embedded in there, being above $2 billion for sure.

[Chris Moore, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Got it. I'll leave it there.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

We've got headroom. I would just touch too. I mean, there's obviously sequential investments that come along with more equipment, but I'd say the big lifts have already been embedded in the investments we've been making.

[Chris Moore, Analyst at CJS Securities]

Perfect. I appreciate it, Matt. Thank you very much.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Thanks, Chris.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Noah Kaye with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.

[Noah Kaye, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Thanks. Hey, Matt. Yeah, another really strong orders quarter for BASX. Can you talk a little bit about the nature of the orders you're seeing now, how that's evolving? You know, some of these wins, is existing customers, new customers, mix? You know, any color on that and how that's informing your ramp at Memphis would be helpful.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yeah. Good morning, Noah. Great question. When we look at the overall kind of what is embedded inside not only the bookings, but also I'd say the pipeline, which I think is also equally as important about longevity. There is a solid base obviously of existing customers, but we continue to engage with and secure orders with new customer base as well. You know, we see the delivery and the execution and the value proposition of the product helping anchor continued orders from our current customers. Also we see continued engagement and a lot more opportunity with broadening that customer base, which as we've talked about in the past, is actually one of the key focuses that we have as a business.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

We love, we love the customer base that we have, but we also wanna be very intentional about diversification and ensuring we spread out the overall kind of concentration risk within a broader customer base. We continue to focus on that. We continue to see it driving success in the overall results. Just kind of maybe moving one step further beyond just the customer base, I also wanna just talk about the kind of overall product portfolio embedded in the conversation. One thing we're seeing in the midst of all this is really a broad-based demand for our entire portfolio. It's not isolated on one product or another. We're seeing good strength and consistent strength in our traditional air side products that built the basic brand from the beginning days.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

We see the good strength in air side. We continue to see that market actually growing in demand for us. But also continued strength in the liquid cooling products with the CDUs, both liquid to air and liquid to liquid conversations. Beyond that, we are also seeing really good strength and interest in our kind of AI-centric free cooling chillers. Systems that are intentionally designed to operate at optimized levels within higher fluid temps supporting AI workloads. We continue to see increasing demand and increasing success there. Really the wins both from a sales and a bookings perspective are pretty broad based around the customer set and the overall portfolio itself.

[Noah Kaye, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

That's helpful. Thanks, Matt. I think you mentioned around the BASX segment, there was some outsourcing also helping to accelerate sales there. Was that also coils outsourcing? Can you give us any more color on what was being outsourced?

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yeah. There's a variety of things that we look at from an operational perspective to see where the constraints are. One thing I always say is, manufacturing is a world of uncovering the constraints. No matter how much you solve one problem, you know, you move it to the next one. As we look at overall constraints, and really map out, the sort of rocks that are in the way from accelerating revenue growth, coils obviously are a conversation that we continue to invest to expand our capacity. So it's not a long-term outsourcing strategy on coils. It's just essentially as we continue ramping internal production, we're basically using that as a little bit of a short-term, kind of hedge to be able to keep driving the volumes.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Same thing as we think about a Memphis coming online, you know, we're adding a tremendous amount of internal manufacturing capacity in the Memphis site, whether coil production, whether sheet metal, whether weld and coating, all these things that are part of the puzzle. As we push to really accelerate growth, we understand kind of the ramp rates of some of those internal investments, and we balance that with outsourcing to ensure that we can drive volumes while continuing to mature the internal operating processes. That's where we talk about this is a temporary conversation on outsourcing. We continue to have more and more capacity internally coming online, which is what's gonna help drive margin improvement as we keep getting that capacity to mature.

[Noah Kaye, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

Okay. Okay. That's helpful, Matt. One more is just for Andy. First of all, welcome to the call. Maybe you could just talk for a minute about your priorities in the seat. It's nice to come in in a quarter where an operating cash flow is inflecting. You know, I know with your background, you probably see some more opportunities to improve operating cash conversion. Can you talk a little bit about that and just more broadly, what you're focused on here in the near term?

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

Absolutely, Noah Kaye. I'm super excited to be joining AAON here. As you can see, we have really strong fundamentals. In the last few weeks, I really learned a lot and starting to formulate my priorities. I would say near term, I see three things as really important. One definitely is the margin discipline, the ability to grow our margin during this phase of ramping rapid growth. Second, as you mentioned, we do see opportunity in cash generation, particularly on working capital management. I think there are opportunities there. Lastly, I think just from an overall finance function standpoint, the visibility, the connection with the rest of the management team, with our operating team, I think there's a lot that we can do to enhance the capability of the overall leadership team. I'm super excited.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

These are three things I'm definitely gonna share more of my view, in the next call in the next couple of months.

[Noah Kaye, Analyst at Oppenheimer]

We look forward to that. Thank you all.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

Thank you.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Thanks, Noah Kaye.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Tim Wojs with Baird.

[Tim Wojs, Analyst at Baird]

Hey, guys. Good, good morning. Nice, nice job. I guess a couple questions for me, just on the gross margins, Matt. How much of the kind of reduction relative to the prior guide is actually, you know, the investments you're making and any changes to kind of the Tulsa guide versus just a higher mix of data center revenue now being in the sales line?

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yeah. Well, first off, good morning, Tim. When we look at the sort of, kind of prior guide expectation to really where we delivered in Q1, I would say the biggest driver of that sort of a miss or dislocation is really driven by the intentional actions and decisions we made to accelerate volumes. The incremental costs that put on obviously affected multiple segments. By and large, that decision to drive more volume, and in doing so, relying on some more outsourcing activities, certainly was a big driver in that. That plus the Oklahoma margin conversation around a little bit of that price cost that also had some near-term pressures.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Beyond that, the additional pieces that are embedded in there is as we look at the opportunity ahead, we look at that growth rate, and we map out what it's gonna take. We've additionally made some more investments internally, within our people and our process and some other investments to support that level of growth throughout the year. There's a little bit of front load as well that, kind of midway through the quarter, we undertook to really help fuel that growth throughout the year. There's certainly a variety of factors in there. The data center margin is lower that we talked about than the structural AAON Oklahoma margin in the high 30s. Again, we knew that going into the quarter, and that really wasn't the prime driver of that disconnect.

[Tim Wojs, Analyst at Baird]

Okay. Okay, that's helpful. I guess if $1 billion or so of BASX branded is kind of the, the target for 2026 now, I think it implies that there's no real change in the AAON branded sales, I guess, is that math right?

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yeah. I mean, it's They're in line. I mean, there's a little bit upside, but it's not, it's not markedly different on the AAON side.

[Tim Wojs, Analyst at Baird]

Okay. Okay. Then, just the last one. You know, usually you see kind of a several hundred basis points step up if you just look at Tulsa margins from Q1 to Q2, just from a seasonality and a revenue perspective, and I know you're kind of chewing through some backlog. How would you kind of specifically expect the Tulsa business to perform Q1 to Q2 relative to normal seasonality? Thanks.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yes. I mean, I would say, you're going to be, we anticipate being relatively in line with that normal seasonality. I would say you're going to see uptick or we anticipate seeing uptick, Q1 to Q2. I would say additionally, acceleration in that growth or in margin profile really into Q3, before we expect some seasonality. Q1 to Q2, I'd say rough order of magnitude, you're in the ballpark of what we expect.

[Tim Wojs, Analyst at Baird]

Okay. Okay. That's helpful.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Sounds good.

[Tim Wojs, Analyst at Baird]

Good luck on the step up. Thanks. Thanks, Matt.

[Operator]

Once again, if you have a question, it is star one. Your next question comes from Julio Romero with Sidoti & Company. Your line is open.

[Analyst at Sidoti & Company]

Good morning, Matt, and welcome, Andy. This is Justin on for Julio.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Good morning, Justin.

[Analyst at Sidoti & Company]

Can you give us an update on Memphis revenue contribution in Q1 specifically, and help us frame the trajectory from roughly $25 million-$30 million in Q4 to where you expect Memphis to be exiting 2026 on a quarterly revenue run rate basis?

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yeah. We don't have Memphis explicitly called out in terms of that breakout of revenue, but what I would say is I mean, we saw a good contribution step up from Q4 to Q1. That's obviously the big driver in some of that revenue gain for the quarter. We anticipate continuing to see growth in Memphis throughout the year. As that facility continues to mature, and really gets more and more stability in the internal manufacturing process, it allows us to continue ramping that throughout the year. We anticipate seeing strength and growth throughout the year. Really the focus right now in Memphis is ensuring that we mature that operation and really drive consistent performance before we push the accelerator too hard.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

We do see the opportunity throughout the year to keep driving sequential growth from that side of the business.

[Analyst at Sidoti & Company]

Very helpful. With capital expenditures being deployed towards investments and capacity, can you give us a sense of where the capacity investment is being directed, and whether the $190 million full-year CapEx plan is still intact, or whether the demand environment is causing you to revisit that number?

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Yeah. That's a great question. Really when we think about, you know, where that $190 million is spread out, obviously there's a huge concentration in terms of facility perspective on Memphis and continuing to build out Memphis throughout the year. Last year, obviously, we had a huge year of investment in putting more and more equipment into that facility. Obviously that continues in this calendar year as we continue to mature that operation and build the backup house to sustain that continued growth. I wanna just anchor there for one second and say that initial investment in Memphis does provide a tremendous amount of revenue potential. It's not like there's an immediate massive follow-up of additional CapEx to support the continued growth.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

We have made a lot of investments over the last couple of years fleet-wide, whether Longview, Memphis, and really Tulsa, Redmond and the Kansas City site as well. We've been making investments over the last couple of years to obviously show up in our financials. Those investments we've been making in the last couple of years have been very much framed around that forward-looking growth potential. The investments we're making this year are obviously centered in Memphis, the investments we've been making are gonna support a lot of this growth. It's not triggering some massive investment that we have to make to be able to support this rate of growth and that $2 billion marker, kind of from a revenue perspective.

[Andy Cheung, CFO at AAON]

Justin, just to add on your question, we're still seeing $190 million is our current expectation for the year.

[Analyst at Sidoti & Company]

Very helpful. Thank you, and congrats on a nice quarter.

[Matt Tobolski, President and CEO at AAON]

Thanks so much.

[Operator]

This concludes the question and answer session. I'll turn the call to Joseph for closing remarks.

[Joseph Mondillo, Director of Investor Relations at AAON]

Okay. I'd like to thank everyone for joining today's call. If anyone has any questions over the coming days and weeks, please feel free to reach out to me. Have a great rest of the day, and we look forward to speaking with you in the future. Thanks.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Andy Cheung, CFO
• Joseph Mondillo, Director of Investor Relations
• Matt Tobolski, President and CEO

Analysts

• Chris Moore, Analyst at CJS Securities
• Noah Kaye, Analyst at Oppenheimer
• Ryan Merkel, Analyst at William Blair
• Tim Wojs, Analyst at Baird
• Analyst at Sidoti & Company