Earnings Call Highlights: The best CEO insights from ASX reporting season

Each week, we gather notable quotes from ASX-listed company CEOs and leaders that shed light on key industry trends and the economy. Below are some of the most interesting insights from August reporting season.

You can check out the full list of company earnings call highlights here.

Banks

• "Net interest margin turned from a headwind over the year to a tailwind over the most recent half as net interest margins stabilized over recent months." – Commonwealth Bank

• "Arrears rates increased across home loan, credit card, and personal loan products as pressure continued to build on household disposable incomes." – Commonwealth Bank

• "We expect a recovery in GDP growth, and a rebound in disposable income over the next 12 months ... Australia's economy continues to be well-positioned, benefiting from strong fundamentals." – Commonwealth Bank

• "On balance, based on what we know today, we expect more stability in margins compared to what we've seen in the last few years." – Bendigo Bank

• "The unknown factor remains the degree of price competition on both sides of the balance sheet. We are seeing that competitive intensity is stabilising." – Bendigo Bank

Discretionary

• "[Average transaction volume was] actually slightly up and volume was slightly down so it's not too dramatic, but ASP has held up and that's more to do with the mix of the products that are going through than the individual categories." – JB Hi-Fi

• "Wholesale was impacted by intense competition, which has had a material impact on the gross margin and EBITDA." – Bapcor

• "Retail sales declined due to higher discounting and lower volume sales in our discretionary range." – Bapcor

• "Slowing in the momentum with the enquiries lowered across the sector and frequency flattening ... There has been some flattening in growth, likely a result of increasing affordability challenges impacting discretionary bookings." – G8 Education

• "The Australasian regions continue to be the most challenging market and opportunity for improvement." – Lovisa

• "So, majority of it (re gross margin expansion) was price." – Lovisa

• "We continue to see strength in the younger demographic ... which is great for us to see." – Guzman y Gomez

• "Our businesses are continuing to meet changing customer needs ... capturing a greater spend from younger generations such as Gen Zs and Millennials while continuing to meet the needs of the broader market." – Wesfarmers

• "The step change in performance in 2024 (re productivity gains) is unlikely to occur again in 2025 to the same magnitude." – Wesfarmers

• "The moderating fare environment we've seen across Domestic and International impacted our results." – Qantas

Staples

• "Group net selling price increased 5.4% versus FY23 ... The general rate of inflation across the economy may have moderated a little, but costs are still rising and our costs therefore remain elevated." – Inghams

• "The second half of 2024 was a challenging outcome (re liquid business), but there are certainly reasons to be more positive as we look towards 2025." – Coles

Industrials

• "Customer demand continued to improve off second-quarter lows, and we delivered strong sequential volume improvement in Q4." – Amcor

• "Price mix had an unfavorable impact on sales of approximately 3%, primarily driven by continued destocking in high-margin healthcare categories." – Amcor

• "Like-for-like volumes increased 1% as growth from existing customers in Australia and US pallets businesses more than offset lower pallet volumes in Europe." – Brambles

Resources

• "Looking ahead, we anticipate higher free cash flows in the second half of the year, driven by increased production volumes and lower unit cost" – Newmont

• "Gold and copper prices are very high. And as I articulated in my biggest Diggers and Dealers presentation last week, I believe there is very good reason to believe they will go even higher." – Evolution Mining

• "We suspect that at these price levels, this will be a very difficult price point for many of the converters and suppliers through the industry." – Pilbara Minerals

• "As the world's population continues to grow and economies develop, the demand for energy is increasing ... demand for reliable, affordable, and increasingly lower-carbon energy will continue to grow ... We firmly believe that LNG will remain an important global energy source as countries seek to lower their emissions." – Woodside

• "We see a clear and sustained opportunity for coal to gas switching in key markets as they navigate the energy transition." – Woodside

• "The market this year was depressed ... It had the lowest sustained prices since 2020 and slower demand growth than we have seen over the past four years." – Lynas Rare Earths

• "We are very pleased to see the recent firming of prices. Our intelligence indicates improved inside China demand and reduction in inventories." – Lynas Rare Earths

Real Estate

• "Nationally, new listings were up 7% year-on-year and were 5% above the six-year average ... Inquiries returned to growth in FY 2024, up 14% year-on-year and continued to trend higher in the second half." – REA Group

• "The Australian property market strengthened in FY 2024 with interest rate stability supporting market activity. The return of vendor confidence, coupled with strong buyer demand, saw sales volumes increase, while national house prices reached a new peak in June." – REA Group

Health Care

• "The underlying fundamentals of plasma collection remains strong with continued momentum in donation growth. While we remain at the early stage of our gross margin recovery timeframe, we are making good progress." – CSL

• "At the beginning of the year, we said for Healthcare that we expected some destocking ... We had a much clearer view of forward trends in our industry ... The demand on Ansell is now normalising back to ongoing end-user demand." – Ansell

Technology

• "Megaport continues to see more and more cloud providers, more and more multi-cloud connectivity and growth across all of those areas." – Megaport

Macroeconomic environment

• "Industrial demand conditions, they’re not very exciting... Across most of the European Union, you see PMIs sub-50... Importantly, we’re not seeing those trends change." – Ansell

Supply Chain

• "Frustratingly, we had the orders to also achieve growth in Surgical in the second half, but a sizable chunk of those orders were deferred through congestion and disruption that we've seen arising as a result of the Red Sea container shipping impacts." – Ansell

State of the Consumer

• "There's no doubt, though, that we had a really solid tax time promotional period. Again, consumers are really reacting to that discounting." – JB Hi-Fi

• "Households continue to respond to higher prices and are finding it even harder than six months ago. More spend is being directed towards essentials and discretionary spend is being cut back." – Commonwealth Bank

• "Flat like-for-like sales reflected the impact of higher interest rates and increased cost of living, which dampened consumer sentiment and spending." – Super Retail Group

• "We're really looking at a recovery in that channel (re quick-service restaurants). And in fact, interestingly enough, we've seen some of that in the first seven weeks." – Inghams

• "We've seen a really pleasing consumer engagement. We've got more customers in store than we've ever seen. They are certainly putting a little bit less in the basket." – Wesfarmers

• "Yes, you're seeing some down-trade and that definitely where Jetstar is benefiting from, but also we have seen some shift into international as international fares come down." – Qantas

Commodity Markets

• "India is expected to be the largest driver of coking-coal demand over the coming decades." – Aurizon

Inflation Trends

• "It's probably fair to say about half of it is inflation related, so obviously salary increases. And then we have the flow through and obviously technology costs associated with suppliers." – REA Group

• "The main area of inflation now is really in the labor side of things, and that’s probably in that kind of mid-single-digit range ... From a raw material standpoint, it’s a pretty benign environment at the moment." – Amcor

• "Cost inflation, especially employee and occupancy combined with increased technology costs and interest, are negatively impacting NPAT." – Bapcor

• "The overall rate of input cost inflation moderated... However, labor inflation persisted in all markets." – Brambles

• "We're definitely seeing labor pressure come off a bit. We've seen stability of teams. We've seen new hires having skills coming from other sectors." – Northern Star

• "Cost of doing business as a percentage of sales increased by 120 basis points due to inflation in rent, electricity, and wages, partially mitigated by cost control initiatives." – Super Retail Group

• "Inflation was a material headwind during the year, with award wage increases of over 6% as a notable example." – Endeavour Group

AI Usage

• "Our continued investment in our AI generated personalised home page experience is encouraging consumers to take the next step in their property journey. The home page delivered 7.5 million personalised recommendations ... In June, we added an AI room visualisation feature to our property owner experience powered by Roomvo. The feature enables consumers to digitally change property images and has been used to restyle over 500,000 property images in the first few weeks since launch." – REA Group

• "Over the next five years, global demand for data centers is expected to more than double what it is now. The data center industry is grappling with growing barriers to entry, compounded by land scarcity, complex planning, regulatory hurdles, and the challenges of securing power." – Goodman Group

• “In the half, the half of the upside [regarding gross profit margin] was generated out of AI. And we're seeing that benefit become even greater as time goes by.” – Endeavour Group

Miscellaneous

• "Yeah. So the answer to the first one is, no, we haven't lost anybody. So our retention rate is 100%." – Pro Medicus

• "We now hold the largest share of stable household deposits in Australia, which have grown over $110 billion since June 2019 and are 65% higher than the nearest peer bank." – Commonwealth Bank