PPG Reports Small Increase in Performance Coatings Sales, Decline in Organic Automotive Refinish Sales

Overall, PPG reported $3.7 billion in Q4 2024 and $15.8 billion in full-year net sales from continuing operations.

PPG-Q4-2024-earnings-financial-report
The MoonWalk® mixing system is just one of PPG’s recent efforts to advance color-matching performance beyond paint.

PPG Industries Inc. (NYSE: PPG) said performance coatings segment net sales rose 2% in Q4 2024, to $1.26 billion, and a review of quarterly data shows 2024 full year results were up just less than 1%, to $9.85 billion.

Segment income for the quarter leapt 19% to $259 million; segment income for the full year climbed about 9% to $1.75 billion.

Pittsburgh-based PPG makes industrial and performance coatings products, including automotive refinish products, software and a smartphone app for body shops and collision centers. The performance coatings segment includes those results.

Overall, PPG saw fourth quarter and full year net sales of $3.7 billion and $15.8 billion from continuing operations, the earnings press release said.

“Throughout 2024, we demonstrated resilience in a challenging macro environment,” PPG President and CEO Tim Knavish said in the release.

Results reflect a recasting of financial information to include discontinued operations, following PPG’s sale of its U.S. and Canada architectural coatings business -- residential and commercial painting products, including manufacturing, distribution and retail. PPG said in October it would sell this unit to the private equity-backed American Industrial Partners for a transaction value of $550 million. The deal closed in early December.

The sale would result in a pre-tax charge in Q4 of about $250 million, PPG said in October.

Performance Coatings and Automotive Refinish

PPG’s performance coatings segment net sales have been flat or steady through the year -- from down 1% in the first quarter, to up 2% in Q4. In the middle two quarters, the segment was essentially unchanged.

The “segment income %” improved, amid some fluctuation through the year, from 15.4% in Q1 to 20.5% in Q4.

PPG’s earnings releases don’t break out specific results for automotive refinishing -- body shop and collision center products -- but PPG does offer brief comment on global and sometimes domestic results for these.

“Organic sales in automotive refinish coatings declined by a low single-digit percentage with share gains more than offset by lower industry collision claims,” PPG said of its fourth quarter.

In Q3, these grew “by a mid-single-digit percentage, including high single-digit percentage increases in U.S. collision-related products and despite lower overall industry collision claims.”

In Q2, this area’s “organic sales were lower by a mid-single-digit percentage, as a challenging prior-year comparison and uneven distributor order patterns in the U.S. offset solid growth in Asia and Europe.”

In Q1, “Automotive refinish coatings organic sales were flat, as a challenging prior year comparison in the U.S. offset solid growth in Asia Pacific, Latin America and Europe.”

Paul Hughes

Writer
Paul Hughes is a writer based in the American West. He has experience covering business for newspapers and has published several books of essays. He has... Read More
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