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Oshkosh Corp (OSK 0.74%)
Q4Â 2019 Earnings Call
Oct 30, 2019, 9:00 a.m. ET
Contents:
- Prepared Remarks
- Questions and Answers
- Call Participants
Prepared Remarks:
Operator
Greetings. Welcome to the Oshkosh Corporation Reports Fiscal 2019 Fourth Quarter and Full Year Results. [Operator Instruction] . A question-and-answer session will follow the formal presentation. [Operator Instructions]
It is now my pleasure to introduce your host, Pat Davidson, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations for Oshkosh Corporation. Thank you, Mr Davidson, you may begin.
Patrick Davidson -- Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Good morning and thanks for joining us. Earlier today, we published our fourth quarter and full year 2019 results. A copy of the release is available on our website at oshkoshcorp.com. Today's call is being webcast and is accompanied by a slide presentation, which includes a reconciliation of GAAP to non-GAAP financial measures that we will use during this call and is also available on our website.
The audio replay and slide presentation will be available on our website for approximately 12 months. Please refer now to slide 2 of that presentation. Our remarks that follow including answers to your questions contain statements that we believe to be forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks that could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
These risks include, among others, matters that we have described in our Form 8-K filed with the SEC this morning and other filings we make with the SEC. We disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements, which may not be updated until our next quarterly earnings conference call if at all.
All references on this call to a quarter or year are to our fiscal quarter or fiscal year unless stated otherwise. Our presenters today include Wilson Jones, President and Chief Executive Officer; Dave Sagehorn, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, both of whom you have come to expect from us.
Also joining us for the first time on a quarterly earnings call is John Pfeifer our recently hired, Chief Operating Officer. Please turn to slide 3, and I'll turn it over to you, Wilson.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Pat. Good morning, everyone. And a follow-up on Pat's comments, I'm happy to welcome John Pfeifer to the call. John brings a lot of expertise to the table and you'll hear from him in a few minutes.
Today we're pleased to announce strong fourth quarter and full year results. Fourth quarter earnings per share of $2.17 was up 20.6% compared to the prior year's adjusted earnings per share, and full-year adjusted earnings per share of $8.31 was up 30.7% versus 2018.
We delivered 38% adjusted earnings per share CAGAR since 2016. I'll say that again, we've delivered 38% adjusted earnings per share CAGAR since 2016, that's pretty good performance. And I'm proud of the efforts of all the Oshkosh team members and our people first culture in posting such strong results. I'm also very proud to announce that last month, we were named to the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index recognizing Oshkosh is ongoing commitment to sustainable business practices.
We've been recognized by many different organizations for strong corporate governance and sustainability over the last several years, but the Dow Jones Sustainability Index is a gold standard and we are proud to be listed among this group of global leaders. Last quarter we talked about mixed economic signals that trend has continued and is reflected in our initial outlook for 2020. Today we are announcing our 2020 earnings per share estimates with a range of $7.30 to $8.10, which would be the third highest earnings year in our company's history. Dave will discuss our 2020 expectations in more detail.
As I mentioned earlier, our team has been performing at a high level and our execution and operations are performing better than ever as a result of our MOVE Strategy and simplification efforts, which should allow us to deliver strong results in 2020 while also continuing to invest in the business.
Additionally, the benefits of being a different integrated global industrial provide us with a stable foundation based on solid outlooks for our fire & emergency, defense and commercial segments.
Please turn to slide 4, and let's talk about full year. I would characterize our performance in 2019 as strong execution and results in an uncertain environment. We successfully navigated the impacts of volatile trade policy and tariffs along with talk of an impending recession. We posted double-digit percentage sales increases in our fire & emergency and defense segments and record sales of more than $4 billion in access equipment.
Additionally, all three of the segments I just mentioned delivered full-year operating income margins of 10% or more. That's outstanding performance. The commercial team was on track for solid improvement in 2019 as well until production was disrupted by partial roof collapse in February.
We continued our track record of disciplined capital allocation returning more than $425 million of cash to shareholders through the repurchase of 4.9 million shares and ongoing quarterly dividends. We announced this morning that we are raising our quarterly cash dividend by 11% to $0.30 per share. This will be the sixth consecutive year that we have raised the dividend rate by double-digit percentage.
Please turn to slide 5 to begin a discussion for each of our business segments. I'll start off with defense and then turn it over to John who will discuss our non-defense segments. Last quarter, our defense team received word that the JLTV was moving to full-rate production status and we've been building off that success over the past several months. The team is working through operational excellence programs as they ramp JLTV production including incorporating the configuration changes we discussed earlier this year.
The program is in great shape and the team is being recognized for it. In fact, we just hosted senior Navy officials including Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer who presented Oshkosh Defense with the Bravo Zulu Award for delivering JLTVs to the Navy and Marine Corps ahead of schedule and on budget.
On time, on budget and exceeding performance are all hallmarks of our defense programs and we're going to keep performing to those standards. The JLTV continues to drive strong interest from the international defense community with multiple countries playing the purchase of this amazing vehicle. We participated recently in two important defense trade shows, DSEI Europe [Phonetic] and AUSA, just two weeks ago in Washington DC.
Our defense team reported strong activity engagement at the shows. At AUSA we displayed two new JLTV variant concepts that showcase our strength as a tactical wheeled vehicle leader. We continue to be confident that we will book JLTV international orders in 2020 for shipment to foreign allies beginning in 2021. We previously talked about the two-year US government budget deal that was hot off the presses in July.
We also mentioned that a continuing resolution could still happen and that is in fact what did happen as President Trump signed a CR in late September keep in the government funded until November '21.
The timing of finalizing the government 2020 budget will not, I repeat, will not have a significant impact on our 2020 outlook due to the extensive backlog, we already have in place.
Let's turn to slide 6, and I'll pass it to John to discuss our non-defense segments.
John Pfeifer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Thanks. Wilson, and good morning everybody. I'm proud to be part of the Oshkosh team and happy to be speaking with all of you today on the call.Our access equipment team delivered strong results this quarter with sales of just over $1 billion contributing to the annual record sales that Wilson just mentioned.
Full year sales were powered by North America and Asia Pacific, which were both up double-digit percentages over the prior year. The catalyst for increased demand for access equipment in the Asia Pacific region is product adoption, which is driven by safety and productivity improvements on the job site versus previous work methods.
The strong growth we've experienced in this region over the last several years and positive outlook for continued growth have led us to expand our operations in China. The team is expanding production capacity on its current campus, which we expect to be completed in the next year.
Last quarter we talked about a moderation in access equipment demand in North America and Europe that slowing continued this quarter and we expect it to continue into 2020. Orders and backlog for the quarter were down significantly due to the lower market demand and timing of order placement. We are generally hearing that customers plan to place their orders this year more closely to when they expect to need the equipment.
This means we will likely experience timing differences throughout the year when comparing orders and backlog to 2019. The annual negotiations with the national rental companies are under way. But it's early and we'll have more insight into demand levels and order patterns for 2020 on our next earnings call. We continue to believe the long-term prospects for our rental customers and the access equipment market remain healthy. With that said, we expect lower but still historically high sales in the segment in 2020.
And as the industry leader, we also expect to deliver solid financial results. Looking out beyond 2020, we know there is a lot of equipment that is coming up on seven, eight and nine years of age, that will need to be replaced. We believe this fleet demographic will translate into strong replacement demand in North America, putting us on a solid path for 2021. We also believe we will continue to benefit from a rapidly growing Asian market through 2021 and beyond.
Please turn to slide 7 for a discussion of the Fire & Emergency segment. Once again, Fire & Emergency led by example as they delivered sales and operating income growth for both the quarter and the full year, in fact they set new full-year records for sales, operating income and operating income margin.
We've talked a lot over the past several years about the hard working Fire & Emergency team and their dedication to simplifying operations, sales order management, and the entire business process, the results are impressive and provide a great roadmap across the company for yielding positive results.
Under Jim Johnson's leadership, the Fire & Emergency team has been able to increase their operating income margins by nearly 1100 basis points since 2013. In addition to the domestic municipal fire truck customer base, the segment benefited from increased US Air Force activity as well as international shipment timing in 2019. We expect the Air Force business to be a driver of strong performance again in 2020.
Orders were up solidly in the quarter, rebounding from a slight decline in the third quarter. For the full year, orders were up 10%, keeping the backlog at a high level. In fact Pierce book more orders in 2019 than they have in any of the last 10 years. Fire & Emergency has experienced a slowdown in international orders recently due to the impact of uncertain trade policy. Fortunately higher domestic activity has helped offset the lower international order volume.
Looking ahead to 2020, we expect flat to slight growth in the fire truck market in North America. We maintain a very positive long-term outlook for this business.
Please turn to slide 8 and we'll talk about our commercial segment. Our commercial teams showed their resiliency as they continue to bounce back from some weather related adversity that impacted production earlier in the year and finished 2019 on a high note with sales up nearly 5% in the quarter, led by our refuse collection vehicle business. Operations are back to normal and the segment continues to focus on driving improvements through simplification initiatives.
It takes time for the simplification benefits to be visible and they've had to overcome some unexpected challenges that we've previously discussed, but I'm confident that they are regaining the momentum they built from 2018 into early 2019. We expect 2020 and 2021 to be key years in the further transformation of this business. We expect the refuse collection vehicle and concrete mixer markets in 2020 to be similar to 2019 at levels even with or slightly above long-term average for refuse collection vehicles and below long term average for concrete mixers.
We expect some choppiness within the year however, as customers continue to monitor macroeconomic indicators looking for clues to where the economy may be headed. That wraps it up for our business segments. I'm going to turn it over to Dave to discuss our 2019 results and outlook for 2020 in greater detail.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks, John and good morning everyone. Please turn to page 9. We're pleased with the team's strong finish in 2019. Consolidated net sales for the fourth quarter were $2.2 billion, 6.7% increase over the prior year, led by greater than 20% increases at defense as the JLTV production ramp continued and Fire & Emergency with both higher airport products and fire truck sales.
Access equipment sales were down low-single digit percent as expected and commercial sales were up modestly driven by higher RCV sales. We've included an updated rev rec standard chart in the slide deck. Again this quarter. This will be the last quarter that we include this slide though as next year, we'll be reporting year-over-year results on a comparable ASC 606 basis.
Consolidated operating income for the fourth quarter was $203.1 million or 9.2% of sales compared to adjusted operating income of $180.6 million or 8.8% of sales in the prior year. We're pleased that the Access Equipment team was able to offset almost all the impact of the lower volume to deliver operating income at nearly the level of last year and higher operating income margin.
Favorable regional mix and lower freight costs, offset in part by higher marketing spending were the primary drivers of the positive margin performance. Defense Operating income in the quarter benefited from the higher sales noted earlier. And while operating income margin was down compared to the prior year, due largely to the continued shift to a higher weighting of JLTV sales. Fourth quarter operating margin was stronger than we expected, leading to a 10% full year operating margin. Fire & Emergency delivered another quarter of operating income and operating margin growth overcoming headwinds compared to the prior year quarter.
And the commercial segment continued to rebound nicely from the partial roof collapse earlier in the year, delivering a second consecutive quarter of operating income margin above 7%. Favorable mix with a higher percentage of RCVs was a primary contributor to higher operating income margin versus the prior year. Earnings per share for the quarter was $2.17 compared to adjusted earnings per share of $1.80 in the prior year, a 20.6% increase. Higher operating income in the defense, fire & emergency and commercial segments along with lower corporate expenses and lower share count accounted for the higher earnings per share. The fourth quarter benefited $0.15 per share as a result of share repurchases completed in the last 12 months and we repurchased $66 million of Oshkosh shares in the quarter, achieving our full year target of $350 million of share repurchases. And we generated more than $400 million of free cash flow during the year.
Overall, we're pleased with our fourth quarter and full year performance. Please turn to slide 10 for a review of our initial expectations for 2020. We expect to deliver solid results again in 2020 even with the market for our largest segment access equipment projected to be down compared to 2019.
The benefits of our end-market diversity and operational leverage are reflected in this outlook. Our expectations for 2020 assume that we continue to execute our MOVE strategy including increasing our investment in new product development or NPD and expanding access equipment production capacity in China, which has been that segments fastest growing market.
On a consolidated basis, we are estimating sales of $7.9 billion to $8.2 billion compared to $8.38 billion in 2019. We're also estimating operating income of $690 million to $765 million compared to $797 million and earnings per share of $7.30 to $8.10 compared to adjusted earnings per share of $8.31.
At the segment level, we are estimating Access Equipment sales of $3.5 billion to $3.8 billion, a 7% to 14% decline compared to 2019. This range assumes sales declines in North America driven by a pause and fleet growth by rental companies compared to the last two years in the EMEA region, partially offset by continued strong sales growth in the Pac Rim reflecting expected continued product adoption in that region.
We are estimating operating margin in this segment will be 11.25% to 12.25%, we expect lower amortization expense in the positive impact of operational initiatives to partially offset the impact of the lower volume, a less favorable regional mix and higher new product development investment.
Turning to defense. We are estimating 2020 sales of approximately $2.2 billion and 8.25% increase compared to 2019. The estimate reflects additional JLTV production and modestly lower FHTV and FMTV sales. Backlog for 2020 was nearly $2.1 billion at September 30. So defense is largely booked for the year. We estimate the contracts for international JLTV sales that are currently in the works with other countries will not be signed in time to recognize sales in 2020 providing opportunities for 2021. We are estimating operating margin in this segment will be approximately 9%, consistent with our comments over the past several years of high single-digit percent margins. Compared to 2019, the expected margin in this segment reflects the continued mix shift to a higher percentage of JLTVs and increased NPD spending.
We expect Fire & Emergency segment sales will be approximately $1.2 billion, roughly $65 million lower than 2019. The lower expected sales are mostly a reflection of what happened in 2019. There were $40 million of sales that moved from the fourth quarter of 2018 into the first quarter of 2019. And we did not see a similar shift at the end of 2019.
We expect to continued flat to slow growth fire truck market in North America in 2020 and slower international activity especially in Asia if the trade war drags on. We expect operating margin in the Fire & Emergency segment to increased to 14.5% to 15% offsetting the negative impact of lower sales and operating income. The Fire & Emergency team has continued to effectively execute its simplification strategy and expects to realize additional benefits that will allow them to achieve the targeted margin range for 2020.
We are estimating sales of approximately $1.05 billion in the commercial segment, up slightly from 2019 and consistent with what John described and we're expecting a rebound in operating margins for this segment to a range of 7% to 7.25% after 2019 margins were negatively impacted by the partial roof collapse last May [Phonetic].
We estimate corporate expenses will be $150 million to $155 million roughly equivalent to 2019. Below the operating income line, we estimate the tax rate for 2020 will be 21.25% to 21.5% similar to 2019. And we are estimating an average share count of 69 million, which reflects the full year impact of 2019 share repurchases and an expectation that we will return 50% of free cash flow to shareholders in the form of dividends and share repurchases consistent with our long-term target.
For the full year, we are estimating free cash flow of approximately $450 million reflecting another year of strong cash generation. We also estimate capital expenditures will be approximately $150 million. This level of capex reflects continued investment in initiatives designed to drive long-term earnings growth and shareholder returns.
Looking at the first quarter, we expect sales to be down mid-single digit percent compared to 2019 with lower access equipment and fire & emergency sales more than offsetting higher Defense segment sales. We expect commercial sales to be down modestly, reflecting some of the choppiness we expect on a quarter-to-quarter basis this year in this segment. We expect earnings to be down meaningfully more than sales on a percentage basis, due in large part to the impact in the prior year quarter of the receipt of a large JLTV order in the defense segment which essentially double the units under contract, resulting in a large cumulative adjustment to margins on that program under ASC 606 and segment operating margin of more than 15%.
The Defense segment expects another large JLTV order in the first quarter of 2020, but they don't expect the cumulative adjustment impact to be as large as last year. Defense is also expecting higher R&D spend in the quarter. We expect commercial operating income margin will also be down a larger percent and their sales decline due to several favorable adjustments in the first quarter of 2019 that we don't expect to repeat again in 2020.
I'm going to turn it back over to Wilson now for some closing comments.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks, Dave. Another strong quarter and outstanding year driven by our teams execution. We've initiated our outlook for 2020 which includes expectations for solid results. As I mentioned earlier, would be the third highest earnings year in the company's history. We have the right strategy with move and believe we can manage these businesses to deliver impressive sales and earnings performance and we believe we are investing in the right places to best position the Oshkosh Corporation for the future.
I'll turn it back over to Pat to get the Q&A started.
Patrick Davidson -- Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Thanks, Wilson. I'd like to remind everybody, please limit your questions to one plus a follow-up. After the follow-up, we ask that you get back in queue if you'd like to ask additional questions. Operator, please begin the question-and-answer period of this call.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you. (Operator Instructions) Our first question comes from the line of Neil Frohnapple with Buckingham Research Group. Please see with your question.
Neil Frohnapple -- Buckingham Research -- Analyst
Hi, thanks. Good morning, congrats on the nice quarter.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Neil.
Neil Frohnapple -- Buckingham Research -- Analyst
Starting with the Access Equipment segment, it appears the implied decremental margin for FY '20 at the mid point of mid to high teens is considerably better than how you performed in the last downturn. So, could you walk through some of the drivers underpinning the margin outlook, customer mix, regional mix. I think Dave mentioned product mix would be negative, price cost, etc., just so we can get comfortable with the profit outlook for '20.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Sure, Neil, and good morning. So overall I would say, not only in access but really with the whole company overall, I think we're in a much better place than we were in 2016 when you referenced it. And, you look at the strength really in the non-access segments. I think it's very apparent that we're different, even access we're coming off of a much higher base. But overall, as you think about the incur --decrementals for access in fiscal '20 as we said in the prepared remarks, we've got a number of positive things there, one being lower amortization expense. So some of the purchase accounting amortization from the JLG acquisition is rolling off, that's about a $25 million favorable item year-over-year.
We've got, operational initiatives, which really fall under the whole simplification category there. We've talked a lot about some of the improvement year-over-year, working with the supply base. We think we still have opportunities there as well as [Indecipherable] internally that we're working on, that will help us offsetting those as we mentioned, regional mix is going to be a little bit of a headwind for us and then higher NPD as we continue to invest in the business, but I would say that our view really is there's nothing heroic in here, a lot of things that we do have within our control that we think we can execute on to deliver the decremental margins that we've put out there.
Neil Frohnapple -- Buckingham Research -- Analyst
Okay, that's helpful, Dave. And then, just wanted to ask about the margin outlook for the commercial segment for FY '20, 7%. I think you made 7% to 7.25%. So I think excluding the roof collapse in FY '19, you would have been north of 7% I believe. So could you talk about sort of why the margin outlook going to be higher for next year when also considering the simplification initiatives in the low-single digit sales growth?
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Sure. The biggest driver there is continued investment in the business. We talked about the higher NPD and we're really seeing that across all of our segments and then there are some other initiatives that they are undertaking to better position themselves for the future. So I think overall, we view this is a very good thing that we're investing for the long-term future of the businesses.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
I think if you go back Neil to when [Indecipherable] started their journey, the first couple of years were slower improvement from a margin standpoint, because of the investment that they made and that's what you're seeing with commercial there in the early stages of that continued investment.
Neil Frohnapple -- Buckingham Research -- Analyst
Okay, thanks so much. I'll pass it on.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Jerry Revich with Goldman Sachs. Please see with your question.
Jerry Revich -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Yes, hi, good morning everyone. You folks had really strong share gains in access equipment and then fire & emergency. Can you just talk about, are there any specific product lines or distribution initiatives that are driving the share gains. Can you just expand a bit more on your really strong performance and momentum in the market. Thanks.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Jerry, I think from a share gain standpoint, we've been focused on the targeted segments that we see where we can grow profitably and we're putting more resources to those areas. I think the refuse collection has been a good area for us. Fire & emergency with some of their continued introductions of the Ascendant and some variance off that where we have a clear competitive advantage. Just continued innovation products that we're introducing that give us sustainable long-term competitive advantage.
So I can't point to just one really big thing, but the telehandler share was probably the one that maybe jumped south [Phonetic] at the most. And that was because we didn't have the capacity in '18 and we had in '19, so we gained our share back. But I guess if you're asking what is the biggest share gain, it would be back in telehandlers in '19.
Jerry Revich -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Okay. And then in terms of the outlook in '20 for the access segment, are there any share gains embedded in the top line outlook because it looks like the order run rate exiting the year is bit tougher and obviously we had backlog come down over the course of '19 as you delivered to that strong telehandler backlog. So I'm wondering if you could just touch on any tailwinds that we should be keeping in mind relative to market demand that's embedded within the top line outlook considering what we're seeing appear to be more significant capex cuts out of the rental industry.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
That's a lot, Jerry. I think the quick answer for it is that there is not any significant market share gains into our forecast. I think it's a -- we have some targeted conquest accounts that we -- that you would see in our sales plan on a year-end based -- on an annual basis, but there is not any really large targeted market share gains. It's really working through our normal customer contacts and and working through the markets like we do year in and year out. I don't know, John, if you have anything, you want to share with it.
John Pfeifer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Well, I'll just -- this is John, just talking in general about the outlook for access in 2020. We've got a pretty robust forecasting process with the business and we think we've got the right outlook for the year. We've modeled in a 15% to 20% decline in North America in access based upon what we're seeing in the marketplace. Still high neighborhood that we're in, we like the neighborhood that we're in. It's just not going to be as frothy as '18 and '19. We've got double-digit declines were forecasting in Europe. But we've also got double-digit improvement or increases in Asia Pacific and we think that this is right now, the right outlook for 2020 for the business and that leads us to to the access forecast that you see.
Jerry Revich -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
Okay. I appreciate the discussion. Thank you.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Jerry.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of David Raso with Evercore ISI. Please see with your question.
David Raso -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Hi, good morning. Actually first, can you clarify that JLG amortization roll off of $25 million for 2020.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yes. If you go back and look at the 10-K last year, David, it was, we put the next five years amortization numbers in there and it was indicated that there would be a significant roll off.
David Raso -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
I -- I'm trying to understand the roll off, is it just simply, it's been about 13 years since the deal or is there something unique for that step down?
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
No, If we had some of the intangible assets that had lives of 12 to 13 years and they're becoming fully amortized.
David Raso -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Okay and regarding the comment 50% of free cash flow to be returned to shareholders. Just trying to figure out, there are some messaging there. The last couple of years, you've essentially used most all the free cash flow for dividend and repo and even with the new repo -- I mean the new dividend rate of $0.30 a quarter, I mean, dividends, only about $80 million. So I'm just trying to square up; a. Why is it only 50% and then, b. the share count is assumed flat for the whole year when also you should be able to take out 2.5% of the shares before creep, so a. Is that much creep and again why so low as a percent of free cash flow given the net debt accounts 11%, the net debt to EBITDA is only 0.4.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
So if I miss any head of your questions that were all embedded in there, David, please just remind me. But, so the 50%, you've heard us talk over time about our capital allocation strategy. We try to take a disciplined approach with that, the targets returning 50% of our free cash flow to shareholders over the course of the cycle and you're going to see that ebb and flow from year to year. The last couple of years have been significantly higher, you go back a few years, and it was significantly lower than that. This is the initial guide for fiscal '20. It's early and the 50% is right in line with what we've said is part of that capital allocation strategy and approach. So we think that makes sense. At this time, we'll continue to monitor that as we go through the year and we can adjust as we deem appropriate with that.
And then in terms of the share count on a full year basis or average for '19, we are at 70.6 we're guiding to 69, there will be some creep and depending on the timing of when we repurchased shares in the year, right now the assumption going in is that that we will purchase those shares evenly throughout the year. Again, that may change depending on and how we see things play out here during the year, but those are kind of the components that came into the whole calculation of share count for the year.
David Raso -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
I appreciate that. So again the messaging here is then only 50% of free cash flow less than the last two years going to dividend and repo because we're more acquisitive in our thought process for '20. It's just some of the mechanical we've at 50% that's the baseline and we'll go...
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, this is more the baseline there. Yeah, we were not intending to message one way or the other. We are going to continue to be opportunistic and that may mean more or less share repurchases and that may mean we do look at external opportunities that they present themselves.
David Raso -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
All right, thank you very much, I appreciate it.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks David.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Tim Thein with Citigroup, please see with your question.
Timothy Thein -- Citi Research -- Analyst
Yeah, great thanks. Good morning. Just one question on Defense, maybe you can walk through some of the programs in terms of how they are expected to to play out here in '20. I was thinking that JLTV would be up order magnitude 300 million to 400 million based on, what's been announced, so maybe you can just help us with some of the other puts and takes. I think -- I thought that the FHTV had some mods within the recent budgets that should be helping you, but maybe you can just give us some more color in terms of mediums and heavies and how those are expected to land here in '20. Thank you.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Sure, Tim. As we said on the prepared remarks, we do expect continued sales growth in JLTV, that's going to become a bigger percentage of this segment sales overall. And then along with that we expect some modest declines in both the heavies and the mediums in terms of sales and that's really in line with what we've seen out of the President's or the DoD budgets the last several years.
So I think it's really kind of consistent with what we've been saying for a while now that JLTV continuing to grow in moderation and the two other major domestic programs.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
And that backlog is pretty well in place.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, 2.1 billion of backlog for fiscal '20 so that we feel real good about how defense is setting up for the year.
Timothy Thein -- Citi Research -- Analyst
And again, I know it's difficult to non-possible to forecast, but what is the team hearing from an international landscape in terms of M-ATV prospects?
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. Tim, we continue to hear good things from international standpoint, I think you probably heard us talk about Slovenia, we have a letter of agreement with them, Lithuania has a state department approval and just recently Montenegro got state department approval. So, started to see more activity from some of our European allies. We've talked before about our UK customer that has two variance that they're testing right now, we expect them to come with an order. We're not sure about the timing of that order at this point because they are testing, but several other countries in Europe and the Middle East. We had a couple of good trade shows and I would say the interest level is continuing to grow for our international JLTV.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Tim, I would just add that. I think we're overall confident that we are going to actually get some international JLTV orders in the backlog this year for sales starting in fiscal '21. So, it's taken a little while but you know we're dealing with international customers and that's probably not unexpected. But I think we're on the cusp of seeing some of the -- this activity translate into actual purchase orders.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
And I think the full rate production decision has helped...
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Right.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
push them along too.
Timothy Thein -- Citi Research -- Analyst
Got it. Thanks for your time.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thank you.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Ann Duignan with JPMorgan. Please see with your question.
Ann Duignan -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Yeah, hi, good morning. My first question is on the access business you had imposed surcharges, not list price increases when steel prices rose. And I'm wondering, our customers now looking at requiring you to lift those surcharges that the steel prices are down or are those now embedded in list price to. If you could just talk a little bit about the price cost environment and what your customers are asking of you?
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Sure. Ann, First I would say, I think you saw our pattern in '19. Our teams were very disciplined with their pricing. It was important to cover our costs, some of those costs were significant. And so, we're in discussions now with the NRC's, actually in discussions with all of our customers in non-defense segments. I think the thing that you would hear us talk a lot about, I'm not going to be too specific today from a competitive standpoint, but there are other factors from an inflationary standpoint than just steel.
If you look today in access, they have the anci safety standard cost that are coming into play. I think all manufacturers are going to increase in labor cost with access, the skilled labor being very scarce, other non-steel material issues that we're working through. I think you probably know, we try to buy the majority of our steel in the US, but there are some components that we have to buy outside and those are subject to some of the 301 tariffs and we're working through those from exclusion standpoint. And those are on an annual approval.
So there is a lot involved in going into setting pricing. And because we are in the middle of negotiations right now, we're going to pull back on some of the specifics of what we're going into the market with and probably talk more about those as we get further into this year. But I would say the discussions are going well.
Most of our customers, they understand that these costs are real even though steel has moved down. There is some significant move in other costs that we're dealing with.
Ann Duignan -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Okay. I appreciate the color. And then on the backlog for access heading into fiscal '20, does that -- do orders have to reaccelerate before the end of this quarter for you to make your forecast or can we wait to get into the spring, is that kind of your expectation that we may not see large rental companies order until we get into sometime around com expo [Phonetic]. Just help me with the risks to the outlook on the access side.
John Pfeifer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Yeah. Ann, this is John. I'll start by answering that question. First of all, we've seen a big shift in timing with regard to orders and probably the shift was really in '18 and '19 when things really change and we're seeing it go back to normal. So some of the big orders that we would have gotten last year in the fourth quarter, we're expecting those orders at a later point in time, but if you really look at our backlog over the past few years, our backlog is very consistent with where it was say in '16-'17 period. So it's not an abnormal backlog right now. It's only abnormal when you look at it against the gigantic backlog that we had a year ago.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Ann, maybe -- this is Dave, just add a little color on that. So if you look at the headline numbers in terms of fourth quarter orders and backlog, there are -- it's very easy to see when we look into that. There were several larger customers last year that placed sizable orders in the fourth quarter that are now placing those orders in the first quarter of this year and so on the magnitude of a couple of hundred million dollars. So if we look at the orders in the fourth quarter and try to do more of an apples to apples and kind of remove some of this timing issue, we think on a more pure basis orders instead of being down 38%, we're down like 7.5% in the quarter.
So I think that just kind of supports a little bit of what John was saying about some of the timing shift back to a more historical typical pattern that we've seen in the past. The other thing I would say is we got to remember of last year, the first quarter, we had also a very strong order quarter, was like over $1.5 billion, the last two years, again kind of talking about how those two years kind of stood out from what we had typically seen in the past. So as we go through this quarter, we're going to see some timing benefits from some of those quarter or customers that shifted from Q4 to Q1, but it wouldn't surprise us to see some of the larger customers move some of their orders out of Q1 and into Q2. So it's going to be a different year this year in terms of the order cadence in access and I think we should all expect that.
Ann Duignan -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
That's very helpful color and if I could squeeze in a real quick follow-up on that. How big is Asia in access as a percent of total sales spent?
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
It's, you know, it's nowhere near where North America and Europe is, but it is our fastest growing region. We've seen strong double-digit growth there. And what I would say is, it is quickly becoming more relevant. We expect that's going to continue into the coming years.
Ann Duignan -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Is that 10%, 15%, 5%?
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Today it's less than 10%.
Ann Duignan -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Okay. Thank you.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Ann.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Seth Weber with RBC Capital Markets. Please see with your question.
Seth Weber -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Hey, good morning guys. Actually, following up on the Asia access question. Can you just frame the size of the investment that you're making there and kind of what that -- what kind of capacity level you'll be add for that market. And then, I guess it sounds like, I think in your remarks or how you answered the question, Dave, it sounds like the margin profile from some of these faster growing markets may be lower than the more established markets. So, is that the right way to think about going forward that Asia -- Asia-Pac margins are going to be dilutive to access going forward. Thanks.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Sure. And so let's start with the expansion, one not going to get into the specifics, but from a production capacity standpoint, this is a significant increase from a percentage of production. So it's a meaningful expansion in the region and we think it's warranted, given the growth we've seen there in the last couple of years. And given the outlook that we expect in the coming years, we're excited about the opportunities there. And then just overall on the regional mix, yes, so North America is probably not surprising is our best margin region in the world. If you think about some of the smaller international regions, one, we're still building infrastructure in Asia. So we're scaling that for growth that we expect there. So that's a little bit of a going to be a drag on margins. We do produce a lot in country, but there are certain things that we are still shipping over there from North America.
And we've got logistics cost associated with that that you don't see in North America. So I think over time, you're going to see those -- the margins in those regions moderate or increase and get closer to what we're seeing in North America.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, just to add a little bit. The SG&A is higher, because we're investing, as you know, a big country, Seth and we're trying to to work at, there is five or six, what I would call very sophisticated rental companies that operate a lot like the NRCs in the US and we've built good relationships with them and working closely with them. And one thing we would like about this market is, it's a heavy boom market. They don't have palletized loads in China. So a lot of booms and use tower cranes to move materials around job side, so potential down the road to develop telehandlers is still in front of us. So it's -- we've started with booms and we expect that down the road that we'll have some opportunities with telehandlers. So, the dynamics of this market if it stays on the pace it's been, it won't be that many years until the boom market is as big as Europe's boom market. So we like China, we like Asia Pacific.
Seth Weber -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay, thanks, thanks for that color. And then just a clarification, JLTV is still 4,500 units. Is that still a good number to use for 2020?
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yes, yes.
Seth Weber -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Okay, thanks very much guys.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Seth.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Mig Dobre with Baird. Please see with your question.
Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Good morning, everyone. Hello, I want to go back to access equipment and I guess I'm just looking to understand your thinking and how you assembled your revenue outlook for fiscal '20 and I guess the framework that I'm using, what I'm looking at is in fiscal '19 you had $3.5 billion worth of orders you've got, call it $400 million worth of backlog, but backlog obviously is down about call it $600 million or thereabouts from the prior year. So when you're looking at fiscal '20 and you're talking about $3.5 billion to $3.8 billion of revenue. What are sort of the puts and takes here that get us to 3.8 and is it that we have to assume a flat market from an order standpoint versus fiscal '19, are you assuming some kind of reacceleration and if so, where would that happen because it strikes me and correct me if I'm wrong, that when you talked about your outlook embedding declines in North America, in Europe, that's really predominantly a factor of existing backlog rather than future demand. So maybe -- correct me if I'm misunderstanding something, shed some light here if you would [Phonetic].
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah, I'll take off, Mig and let John and Dave jump in. Real broad question you're asking. But, a good question in terms of, OK, how do we build up our outlook for 2020 and John touched on some of it. It's a very robust process and we review it on a regular basis to make sure that we are looking at the right assumptions. I think the first thing that we had to come to understand is that '18 and '19 were anomalies. Those order years we haven't seen or years like that that type of expansion and in talking with our customers, I think you hearing the same commentary, we are. They see '20 is a good business year for them. But our categories of equipment, they expanded quite a bit and we believe they're going to take a little bit of a pause with the level of buying they were making. So if you go back to '16 and '17 where we came into those years, you'd see a very similar backlog number that we have today. So the buying patterns in '16 and '17 are very similar to what we've seen our customers go through today. There was capacity manufacturers were performing on time and so lead times have come down and our customers are comfortable in ordering within that quarter and taking delivery of products in the same quarter.
So it -- there's a lot of -- lot more science to it than what I'm going to share with you on the call today. But I can tell you from assumption standpoint, we don't look at this forecast as a big heroic forecast and obviously on the high end of the guidance -- or the low end of the guidance, North America be down 20%, double digits in Europe, but we do see construction needs, we see construction spending, and a lot of good commentary with our customers on what they are thinking about and looking for in this coming year.
So there's a lot more buildup toward the one on go to on the call, but I can tell you we've worked through this long and hard, and I'm comfortable today with the assumptions we have with the guidance we've introduced.
Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Okay. Recognizing that obviously this is a backlog business and we are all kind of trying to figure out expectations for Q1 as well. How would you advise us to think about revenue here on a year-over-year basis and margin for Q1?
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Mig, we commented during the prepared remarks, Mig that we do expect lower sales in the first quarter. I think we're probably going to see sales down year-over-year pretty consistently throughout the quarters based on the early view that we have here and obviously it will firm that up as we go. But this is going to be as John has talked about, Wilson has talked about it, orders are going to be becoming closer -- come in closer to actually wanting the equipment and '19 and '18 were a little different from that respect.
We are back to where we were prior to those two years.
Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Okay. But I guess -- what I'm trying to figure out here is, if we're starting with backlog that's down, call it 60%, should we be thinking that revenue in Q1 is going to be down 30%-40% on a year-over-year basis?
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
No, no.
Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Okay.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
We do not believe that. We believe it will be down in line with our overall guidance.
Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Last question. Okay, last question for me is on the segment margin, the low end of margin of 11 in a quarter. I think somebody already asked about the decrementals that they're relatively low in the low 20s, let's just assume that there is downside versus the low end of your revenue guidance, how do we think about any decrementals on that additional revenue decline meaning should decrementals accelerate if for instance, we're talking an extra $200 million to $300 million of revenue downside, how would you advise us to think on that?
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
I wouldn't say. Well, I would say -- I would start with a typical decremental which is depending on the margin mix, the region mix whatever is going to be in the low 20s to mid 20s percent. And then if things get worse in the magnitude that you're talking about, I guess what I would say, first off is the magnitude that you're talking about is, we would look at as a full-blown recession.
Based on what we've seen historically in this -- in this market absent '08, '09 and I don't think anybody's thinking we're headed there again. But I would start with that [Indecipherable] low to mid 20%. And then if we get into a full-blown recession, we'll take a look at what actions we can take to mitigate that and pull that decremental margin down. We will be responsible.
This is something that would be timing. We aren't going to sacrifice the long-term health and opportunity for this business overall. But we would work to mitigate that.
John Pfeifer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Just that -- this is John, Mig. Just on the additional comment on that. We do not see right now. We're not forecasting, we are not seeing with any of our customers a quote-unquote downturn scenario. It's more of a leveling before we start to grow again in '21 and beyond.
(Speech overlap) in the market.
Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
I understand. I just wanted to make sure that we stress that the assumptions here and everybody can kind of have something to work with, if they want to think about the world a little differently than you. So I appreciate the color. Thank you, guys.
John Pfeifer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
Good question, Mig. Thanks.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Jamie Cook with Credit Suisse. You see with your question.
Jamie Cook -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
I guess it's just a couple of follow-ups that access, they down 15% to 20% in North America. Is that what your customers are telling you in North America, or do you have a different view than them? And then my other question is there, you talked about regional mix, I guess is there a mix relative to booms versus telehandlers implied in your guidance. And then third, just color on the F&E margins, which are going to hold up very well again in 2020 despite sales which are off modestly or flattish just what your assumption is on self-help simplification efforts. Thanks.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
I'll start Jamie and then I'll let Dave and John jump in there too, but on the access, North America down 15%. This is our view. Obviously, our customers are part of our view, but we've taken a lot of other factors there that roll up our assumption. So I wouldn't say it's -- most of our customers are in the same commentary we are. They look at next year as a good for them from a business standpoint. We just believe our category is going to be a little less than what it has been in the last couple of years. On the regional mix, I'll let Dave jump in on booms and...
Jamie Cook -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Well, yeah, I understand the regional mix. I'm just trying to understand if there is a favorable boom versus telehandler mix.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, I think overall, Jamie, we don't expect a significant shift telehandlers. We do believe we're going to be down, but then you have movement within the product categories, so for example, within the telehandler family or within the boom family. So overall, as the numbers have rolled together, we don't see a significant tailwind or headwind from a product mix standpoint.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
and F&E margin.
Jamie Cook -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Okay.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
And in F&E margins, just a continuation of the simplification activities that they've been successfully executing over the past number of years. The team continues to be energized and engaged and it's fun to watch them in action. I think they find new opportunities everyday and challenge themselves everyday and they have high confidence in their ability to meet the outlook that we're providing for them for fiscal '20.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
And what's needed [Phonetic], our commercial team is running with that same playbook now. I think we're excited about what they're going to do with the same type of a product placement, things are going on with fire & emergency.
Jamie Cook -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Okay. I appreciate the color. Thank you.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Jamie.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Mike Shlisky with Dougherty & Company. Please see with your question.
Mike Shlisky -- Dougherty & Company -- Analyst
Good morning, guys.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning, Mike.
Mike Shlisky -- Dougherty & Company -- Analyst
Yeah, thanks guys. I think it was [Phonetic] on the last conference call that fiscal 2020 in access could be down modestly. I'll now looking at guidance here. And at the midpoint, you're probably down about 10%. So, is that what you were thinking last quarter or has outlook for access improved or softened since August 1.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah Mike, I think our outlook has evolved. The more conversations we have, the more data points we get as we work to roll up. Our guidance for the year, you get a little bit better with every meeting and every data point that's added. So we weren't calling the specific number back in the last quarter other than we felt like it would be down modestly, and this is what we rolled up to now, is what you're seeing today.
Mike Shlisky -- Dougherty & Company -- Analyst
Okay. And then secondly I wanted to follow up on your last comment earlier on Jamie's question about commercial margins. I mean clearly, you've been great on fire 10 plus points of margin over the last couple of years. It's a different business, of course, but can you give us an update on to as to where you think you can get commercial margins as far as a number and a timeframe.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Well, our goal is always to be double-digit [Indecipherable] margins with all of our business, Mike. This one is a little bit tougher. They're dealing with the commercial chassis. If you look fire & emergency, the majority of their products are custom chassis where they have much more value add available to them than say a commercial concrete mixer or refuse collection vehicle that's on a Freightliner or Mac chassis. So a little more challenging to get to that margin level with commercial, but we believe they can do it and what you're seeing now is continued investment as they're carving their way and simplifying their business really around the 80/20 principles. We believe that they will start to gain momentum.
Unfortunately, we had the event last February that slowed them down a little bit. But the last two quarters were good quarters for them. Good execution by their team and we expect that to continue. It's just going to -- we haven't called the actual year when we get there, but that will be the goal for them going forward.
Mike Shlisky -- Dougherty & Company -- Analyst
Okay, thanks guys. I appreciate it.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thanks Mike.
Operator
Our final question comes from the line of Ross Gilardi with Bank of America, please see with your question.
Ross Gilardi -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Thanks guys. Thanks for squeezing me in. I just wanted to know these California power outages and the wildfires obviously last year was -- it was a huge wildfire issue, is that become -- has that become a any type of like structural demand driver for your fire & emergency business, for any parts of your access business, for any parts of the refuse business, I mean is it -- has it moved the needle at all?
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Ross, it's moved it a little bit. I wouldn't say anything significant. The fire example, we build wildland vehicles, but it's not one of our primary product lines. There has been cleanup with refuse collection, there has been pouring of concrete because of unfortunately the fire devastation, but I wouldn't say it's anything that has been a big needle mover for us.
Ross Gilardi -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Okay, got it. And then just on access and inventories, just curious to hear your view on how you're managing production, how you're your inventories, how they looked at year-end relative to history, going into a softer demand year like this. And just what are you seeing competitively, does it feel like there is just a lot of equipment out there from your competitors that needs to find a home?
John Pfeifer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
This is John. Ross, I'll answer the question. You know, we were to put it very directly. We really don't need to take any extraordinary steps to manage inventory. We didn't make any big bets in the last year. So we're comfortable with the level of inventory that we have and certainly production in 2020 for us is going to be lower than it was in in 2019. As we get production in line with demand, but that lower absorption is factored into the forecast and guidance that we've got.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. I would just add there, Ross that you've watched us over years. We manage our production levels on a weekly basis. And so we've been adjusting production since orders were slowing this past year. I think the things that our teams are really good at is letting head count go down with attrition and we look at managing over time, we look at all the different factors that go into a product line that may be slowing down. We try to stay way ahead of that with our weekly management of our sales and inventory and operations planning process and as John said, we've got that all factored into our guidance for 2020.
Ross Gilardi -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Thanks very much guys.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you, Ross.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Courtney Yakavonis with Morgan Stanley, please see with your question.
Courtney Yakavonis -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Hi, thanks for squeezing me in. I just had a quick question to follow up on the comments about the robust growth in APAC, on access, in fire & emergency you guys called out some of the trade policy impacting your international orders there. So I guess I just wanted to understand why is that different dynamic between the two segments. And if we can also get a sense of what you think the international orders and estimate or kind of been pent up and we'll come back when we have some resolutions or if those are kind of going elsewhere. And also how big international was as a percent of F&E in 2019. Thanks.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Yeah, it's a great question. First of all, our F&E business, our business is highly weighted to the North American market first of all. Having said that, our international growth is material to our business in China for example is one of the largest export markets that we have in the F&E business when you look at it on an international basis and because we're a primary exporter to China, that's why the trade war has hurt our business in China.
I do believe there is a little bit of pent-up demand there that we're not able to fill. And we hope for an easing of the trade conflicts so that we can resume normal business and get that growth back, but that's primarily what's going on. Our access business produces in China. So they are a lot less impacted by the trade conflict that we're seeing.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
Yeah. The other thing I would add, Courtney on that as you just look at the end customer. So the fire & emergency customers typically a governmental entity and access equipment customers are commercial entities.
Courtney Yakavonis -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Okay, great that's helpful. And then just on the new product development costs that you called out is about $25 million. How does that split between the divisions. I think you said that it's kind of higher across all the segments And how does that growth year-over-year compared to your growth in NPD over the past couple of years?
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
As we said, it's all four segments that we're going to be spending more. From an absolute dollar standpoint, the segment with the highest dollar growth is going to be defense within that. And then in terms of the growth year-over-year, this is a -- it's a more meaningful growth than we have seen year-over-year in the new product development spend.
Courtney Yakavonis -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Okay, great. Thank you.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Courtney.
Operator
Our final question comes from the line of Stanley Elliott with Stifel. Please see with your question.
Stanley Elliott -- Stifel -- Analyst
Hi. Thank you guys for fit me in. A quick question on the North American fire market, it sounds like it's kind of flattening maybe up modestly. If I'm not mistaken, I feel like we're still fairly well off from kind of prior peak or kind of a higher level. Normal -- I mean is this the new normal that we're thinking about, I'm just trying to get a kind of a framework to work with as we move even beyond this coming year.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
We will so, Stanley at 4500 or so unit market. We'll see a little bit of growth here and there. But back 10 years or so, maybe a little farther than that that market was 5500 that's when there was a lot of export going on out of the US into the Middle East and that really has slowed and in most cases stopped with US fire trucks going that way. So we believe the new normal is about where it is now with some growth opportunities.
Stanley Elliott -- Stifel -- Analyst
Great, guys. Thank you very much.
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Thanks Stanley, take care.
Operator
This concludes our question-and-answer session. And I would like to turn the call back over to management for any closing remarks.
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
I just want to thank everyone for joining us today. We appreciate your interest in the Oshkosh Corporation and look forward to speaking with you at a conference or on our next earnings call. Take care, everyone.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]
Duration: 67 minutes
Call participants:
Patrick Davidson -- Senior Vice President, Investor Relations
Wilson Jones -- President and Chief Executive Officer
John Pfeifer -- Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer
David Sagehorn -- Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Neil Frohnapple -- Buckingham Research -- Analyst
Jerry Revich -- Goldman Sachs -- Analyst
David Raso -- Evercore ISI -- Analyst
Timothy Thein -- Citi Research -- Analyst
Ann Duignan -- J.P. Morgan -- Analyst
Seth Weber -- RBC Capital Markets -- Analyst
Mig Dobre -- Robert W. Baird -- Analyst
Jamie Cook -- Credit Suisse -- Analyst
Mike Shlisky -- Dougherty & Company -- Analyst
Ross Gilardi -- Bank of America Merrill Lynch -- Analyst
Courtney Yakavonis -- Morgan Stanley -- Analyst
Stanley Elliott -- Stifel -- Analyst
