U-Haul Holding Company (UHAL) Q4 FY26 earnings call: guidance and Q&A

Can you discuss the trends in U-Box revenue per transaction, which has been down, and how volume is playing out?

U-Box activity, including moves and boxes in storage, is up, with boxes in storage growing faster. The decline in revenue per transaction is due to shorter moves, lower freight rates, and increased market competitiveness.

“As far as the revenue per transaction issues, we're seeing a couple of things. One would be the same thing we're seeing on some of the One-Way moves, and that is shorter moves, right? Shorter moves combined with whatever we've seen on the freight side, which for most of the year has been down. And then the last item I would like to highlight would be that competitively, I think the market appears to be a little bit more competitive than, say, it was a year ago, and we're going to be competitive right along with it.”

asked by Steven Ramsey · answered by Jason Berg

Is the 50% cross-usage of moving and storage a peak, and can U-Box cross-usage reach similar levels?

The 50% cross-usage is seen as a baseline, with significant potential for further growth, especially in converting truck transactions to storage. U-Box storage penetration can also increase by growing moving transactions and converting self-storage customers.

“I think the 50% is more of a baseline. I think there's -- I continue to believe it's one of the things that's frustrating but also it gives you optimism for the future. And that is, I think there's so much more that we can harvest on cross-selling. And so I think the 50% is a low part.”

asked by Steven Ramsey · answered by Jason Berg

Can you elaborate on the uptake of toy hauler trailers and their diverse, non-moving oriented usage, given the increased investment?

The initial expectation was for larger vehicle transport, but usage has expanded dramatically to include items like smaller tractors. The company plans to invest about half to two-thirds of last year's initial rollout spend into toy haulers next year.

“The first group of people that we expected to use it were the people that traditionally use our auto transports, but then with larger vehicles, weren't able to use it. Now I think what we're seeing is the usage scenarios have expanded dramatically.”

asked by Steven Ramsey · answered by Jason Berg

Beyond the stock being cheap, what are the nuances and rationale behind the $350 million share repurchase program, including capital availability and fleet expansion implications?

The Board believes the stock is discounted, and the program is enabled by a change in capital availability. The pace of growth in recent years has created sufficient capacity, allowing a temporary pause in some growth CapEx, freeing up capital for the buyback without materially affecting leverage.

“Our view on that really hasn't changed too much. What I'll say has changed is the availability of capital. And for those who've been around a long time as you have, you know that our first instinct and what we typically do is we want to reinvest back into the business. I would say that the pace at which we've grown over the last several years has now afforded us the opportunity today to do this because we've added so much capacity that under normal circumstances, it would take about this much time in order to soak up that with demand.”

asked by Steven Ralston · answered by Jason Berg

What drove the improved year-over-year growth in self-moving equipment rental revenue in Q4, and what is the outlook for fiscal 2027?

Q4 saw increases in both In-Town and One-Way transactions, a positive shift from earlier quarters. While miles per transaction are still declining, the rate of decrease is slowing. The expansion of the dealer network is expected to support revenue growth in the busy season, with a goal to return to 4.5%-5% growth.

“But we're still seeing small declines in miles per transaction. I think I've been saying now for over a year that I expect that to bottom out. The actual mild decreases are getting much smaller, but that continues to be a little bit of a headwind, and that's probably not going to turn around until consumer confidence gets better.”

asked by Steven Ralston · answered by Jason Berg

How much did lower realized prices from selling retired fleet impact profitability compared to underestimated depreciation, especially given extended holding periods?

The issue wasn't primarily lower realized prices for older trucks in the last 12 months, as the cargo van replacement cycle is back to 12 months and resale prices were resilient. The main problem was that resale prices were insufficient to cover the increased purchase price of units 2-3 years prior. The company needs to buy units cheaper and sell them for more to reduce monthly depreciation.

“The bigger issue was it was not enough to cover the increased price that we paid for those units 2 to 3 years ago. And what we're seeing so far this year is pricing improving a little bit. We had a couple of good weeks in April, a little bit of a step back. So I'm not going to say that there's a trend yet.”

asked by Steven Ralston · answered by Jason Berg

With ongoing delinquency cleanup, when can occupancy gains be expected, and how should physical occupancy be viewed versus economic occupancy?

System-wide delinquency is back to normal, with remaining issues being idiosyncratic. The pace of rent-up has improved by a few thousand rooms year-over-year, but there's still ground to make up to reach normal occupancy levels. The cleanup ensures that physical occupancy aligns with economic occupancy, making more rooms available for paying customers.

“The delinquency issue now is really an idiosyncratic issue to specific locations. System-wide, we're back to the system expectation, the system standard. So we went -- we took all of our pain in 1 quarter, cleaned every one out, had a little bit of an amnesty program for folks that we're letting that go on. And then now we're on program.”

asked by Andy Liu · answered by Jason Berg

The number of U-Box co-locations appears to be down this quarter; is there a reason for this trend?

The decrease reflects a strategic consolidation of warehouse space for efficiency, not a reduction in customer availability. The company is replacing many smaller warehouses (under 100-box capacity) with fewer, larger ones (over 500-box capacity), increasing overall container storage capacity by 52,000-53,000 units.

“What we've been doing is we've been consolidating warehouse space. So when we first got into this business, we were kind of finally trying to find anywhere we could to store these containers. As you look at our supplement, you can see these new warehouses that we're building, they're storing 1,000 to maybe 2,000 containers.”

asked by Andy Liu · answered by Jason Berg

How much does a 1% increase in storage occupancy impact revenue, and what is the outlook for moving and storage margins given depreciation and disposal losses?

A 1% increase in occupied storage rooms over 12 months translates to just under $14 million in revenue. The company aims to double its current pace of 25,000-27,000 occupied rooms per year. For moving and storage, fleet depreciation is expected to decrease in H2 FY27, and disposal results are set to improve. Combined with stable repair/maintenance and liability costs, the FY26 EBITDA margin of 29% (350 bps off target) is expected to improve, primarily driven by revenue growth.

“I think today, just a rough rule of thumb is for every 1% increase in occupied rooms for a 12-month period, it's just under a $14 million increase in revenue. So our year-over-year increase in occupied rooms, excluding the effect of this whole delinquency issue has been I think, around 25,000 -- plus 25,000 to 27,000 rooms, I think.”

asked by Jeff Kauffman · answered by Jason Berg

Could U-Haul revisit the idea of selling advertising space on the side panels of its trucks to generate significant incremental profits?

The company has considered this but prioritizes brand imaging and customer awareness of its full product offerings (storage, U-Box, supplies) over short-term advertising gains. Concerns include potential customer confusion, irritation from local communities/zoning boards, and the risk of turning trucks into generic rolling billboards rather than U-Haul brand vehicles.

“Our view on that is that it would be a gain likely in the short term. Our challenge now is customer awareness of our product offerings. And we have excellent awareness of the rental equipment because people see it everywhere, and it's a clear brand imaging. What is less clear to customers is self-storage, moving supplies, U-Box and how all of those can be used together.”

asked by James Wilen · answered by Jason Berg