(Reuters) -Carrier Global lowered its 2025 sales and profit forecasts on Tuesday, as it faces weak demand for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning products from residential markets.
It also announced a buyback of up to $5 billion, sending its shares up 2.6% in early morning trading.
Carrier’s sales in the Americas from residential markets fell 30% in the third quarter, as distributors cleared out bloated inventory levels.
A slump in the North American housing market, largely due to stubbornly high mortgage rates and a surge in home prices, has hurt demand for heating and ventilation.
Despite a slight easing in mortgage rates after the Federal Reserve cut interest rates in September, an uncertain economic outlook and tepid hiring are keeping prospective homebuyers on the sidelines.
“We are of the view that demand will not recover in earnest until rates come down materially and a new housing market inflects up – including more sales of existing homes,” said Scott Davis, analyst at Melius Research.
Slowing residential sales were partially offset by commercial customers such as data centers that use Carrier’s products to cool down IT servers powering artificial intelligence technologies.
Carrier expects full-year net sales of about $22 billion, compared with its earlier forecast of about $23 billion. It forecast 2025 adjusted profit per share of roughly $2.65, compared with $3 to $3.10 estimated earlier.
The Florida-based company reported a third-quarter adjusted net income of 67 cents per share, compared with analysts’ expectations of 57 cents, per data compiled by LSEG.
(Reporting by Anshuman Tripathy and Aishwarya Jain in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Devika Syamnath)
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