RE:RE:RE:TRMB Reports 3Q13
Additional TRMB transcript comments pertaining to agriculture:
European Sales in the Quarter:
"The picture across the regions remains inconsistent and volatile. European sales for the quarter were up approximately 13% year-to-year, with the strongest push coming from agriculture."
Conference call Q&A:
Eli S. Lustgarten - Longbow Research LLC
Yes, well talk a bit about the ag business. You have your approach to the market. Deere is now playing games. And now Monsanto has gone out and bought a company, and they want to play in the same kind of market. Can you give us some color as to how you see the market shaping up?
Steven W. Berglund - Chief Executive Officer, President and Director
Yes, so again, until recently with Monsanto becoming -- assuming a different profile in the industry, the competitive set has really been constant for 10 years. There've been few, if any, real entrants into the business. There have been actually a couple of departures. But I would say Deere, from a competitive mix, is nothing new. Monsanto is, if you will, the new entrant. But I don't think they have yet become, let's call it, a force in the marketplace. And then I think there are larger themes that play out over the next few years in agriculture that kind of extend beyond kind of the current product mix and the like. So I think it's quite an interesting story playing out over the next 3 or 4 years, which involves much more service, much more information content, much more of an advisory role to the farmer. I'll just indicate that it's -- that market is forming up. You can see us responding to that changing market with some of the acquisitions we've done and in some of the acquisitions that are likely to happen.