Dentsply International Inc. (NASDAQ: XRAY) Q1 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Dentsply International Inc. (XRAY) Q1 2020 earnings call dated May 08, 2020

Corporate Participants:

John Sweeney — Vice President-Investor Relations

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Analysts:

John Block — Stifel — Analyst

Tycho Peterson — JPMorgan — Analyst

Michael Cherney — Bank of America — Analyst

Erin Wright — Credit Suisse — Analyst

Elizabeth Anderson — Evercore — Analyst

Nathan Rich — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Jeff Johnson — Baird — Analyst

Brandon Couillard — Jefferies — Analyst

John Kreger — William Blair — Analyst

Kevin Caliendo — UBS — Analyst

Glen Santangelo — Mulvane — Analyst

Yi Chen — H.C. Wainwright — Analyst

Presentation:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Q1 2020 Dentsply Sirona Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]

I would now like to introduce your host for today’s conference call, Mr. John Sweeney. You may begin, sir.

John Sweeney — Vice President-Investor Relations

Thank you, operator, and good morning, everyone. Welcome to our first quarter 2020 earnings conference call. I’d like to remind you that an earnings call press release and slide presentation related to the call are available on our website at www.dentsplysirona.com. Before we begin, please take a moment to read the forward-looking statements in our earnings press release. During today’s call, we make certain predictive statements that reflect our current views about future performance and financial results. We base these statements on certain assumptions and expectations of future events that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Our most recent Form 10-K lists some of the most important risk factors that could cause actual results to differ from our predictions.

And with that, I’ll now turn the program over to Don Casey, Chief Executive Officer, Dentsply Sirona.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, John, and thank all of you for joining us on the call today. We hope you and your families remain safe and healthy. Before we begin discussing our business results for the quarter, I wanted to express our gratitude to all the frontline health care workers who have been so important in dealing with this unprecedented challenge. This, of course, includes dentists, who have continued to provide emergency services for people throughout the world during this global health care pandemic. Their commitment to patients and their safety is an inspiration to all of us at Dentsply Sirona. Typically, this call would focus on first quarter results and outlook. Given the current circumstances we are operating under, Jorge and I will spend most of the time outlining our action plan over the short term. And importantly, the steps we are taking to better position the company for the long term. The first quarter got off to a solid start. Our efforts to accelerate new products while delivering against our restructuring objectives drove solid performance in January and February. These results were in line with our previous expectations. As we discussed in the Q4 call, we anticipated a negative impact in the first quarter due to the COVID-19 related issues that we were seeing at the time, primarily in Asia Pacific.

In mid-March, the COVID-19 response expanded throughout Europe and North America, causing a significant change in the business environment that impacted Q1 results. Across the world, government actions resulted in most dental practices being either shut down or limited to emergency procedures only. Patient flow was also limited by restrictions designed to slow the pandemic. During all of this, I would note that our Wellspect health care business was unimpacted by the disruption we saw in the dental markets. At Dentsply Sirona, we moved quickly to address five key priorities. The first was ensuring the safety of our employees. The second was to be able to continue to deliver a high level of customer service and look to new ways to stay connected with our customers. The third priority was to improve our liquidity position. The fourth, the company took aggressive actions to control both SG&A and supply chain costs to match the changing market conditions. Our final priority was to identify and continue driving on the critical strategic initiatives that will position Dentsply Sirona for the future.

We believe that our quick actions have been effective and will form the basis for recovery when the market improves. The trajectory of the recovery is still not very clear at this point in time as different regions and countries have taken a variety of approaches to managing, both the shutdown, as well as the reopening. We believe that the restart will be a gradual process, as dentist office adapt to the new environment and patient confidence in visiting dental offices increase. Longer term, we are confident that the, attractive market dynamics in the dental industry remain. Furthermore, Dentsply Sirona’s financial strength, broad portfolio and global reach give us confidence, that we have a solid position that will enable the company to succeed in the future. Moving now to slide 8, first quarter revenues were $874 million, down 7.6%, and down 4.3% on an organic basis as the impact of the coronavirus expanded beyond, Asia Pacific and into North America and Europe.

Adjusted operating income margin came in at 14.9%, down 50 basis points versus prior year, reflecting the lower level of sales in March. Non-GAAP EPS for the quarter was $0.43, down 12.2% versus prior year. And operating cash flow was an outflow of $10.7 million.

I will now turn the call over to Jorge, who will review the quarter.

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you, Don, and good morning. I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe. These are obviously unusual times. Today, we will try to offer as much data and color as we have about Q1 and current trends. But as you can imagine, there are more trends. But as you can imagine, there are more beginning to see signs of economic reactivation in a few geographies, we are still experiencing a great deal of uncertainty. With regards to the pace of recovery for the rest of the year, I will start with the results for the quarter. And then, I will share details regarding the actions we have taken to navigate the current market conditions. And ensure that we remain adaptive. And ready to mobilize the enterprise to meet both, short-term and long-term goals. On slide 10, we our first quarter 2020 show expectations, beginning with the top line, organic revenue was down 4.3%, versus last year. Technology and equipment of organic sales grew 4.8% and the consumable business declined 15.2%.

Foreign exchange represented a headwind of approximately 1.9% in the quarter, mainly due to the strengthening of the U.S. dollar relative to the euro. Gross profit was $498.1 million or 57% of sales, down 10 basis points as compared to the prior year quarter. The main driver of this decline was negative manufacturing cost absorption, due to COVID-19 related lower level of sales. SG&A of $367.4 million, represent an improvement of 6.9%, as compared to prior year. This improvement was driven primarily by restructuring cost-saving measures, timing of the biannual international dental show in 2019. And the rapid international dental response we implemented, to match our spending with revenue trends, in line of the current market slowdown. SG&A as a percent of sales was 42%, up 30 basis points as compared to the first quarter of 2019. The rate increase was mostly related to a lower top line base, this year. Operating income declined 10.2% to $130.7 million. The tax rate in tax rate in the first quarter was 24.4%, up 40 basis points as compared to prior year due to income mix variances. Non-GAAP EPS was $0.43, down 12.2% versus the prior year quarter.

One final note on the consolidated P&L for the first quarter, the GAAP operating loss of $139.9 million was driven by a noncash goodwill impairment of $156.6 million and an intangible impairment of $38.7 million. The impairment was the result from new demand projections for the equipment and instruments reporting unit due to the ongoing COVID-19 impact on customer demand. Moving on to slide 11, where we review our first quarter consumable segment performance. Reported sales were $354 million, down 16.8%, and organic sales were down 15.2%. Our consumable business was tracking in line with our expectations for the first two months of the quarter, but then it declined significantly in all regions in March as the impact from COVID-19 began to reach material levels. All of our product groups and consumables were negatively impacted by the temporary closure of offices, resulting from either government or health care policy related guidelines. Consumables operating income margin was 17.4% in the quarter, down from just under 25% last year. The decline in margin was the result of lower volume and unfavorable absorption costs, partially offset by the positive impact of our cost reduction measures, including COVID-19 related actions.

On slide 12, we highlight our technologies and equipment first quarter performance. Net sales were $520.3 million, down 10 basis points as compare to prior year. Organic sales for the quarter were 4.8% higher than last year. This increase was driven primarily by digital dentistry, boosted by strong sales of our new products, Primescan and Primemill. The health care business saw strong growth in the quarter as demand for Wellspect medical supplies maintain a positive trajectory throughout the entire quarter. Other areas in technology and equipment, including implants, experienced lower sales versus last year, a result of the lower demand environment due to COVID-19 pandemic. Technologies and equipment operating income margin was 21.4%, up 760 basis points as compared to the prior year. This improvement was driven by favorable product mix due to higher volume in CAD/CAM products and productivity improvements, partially offset by the impact of lost volume due to COVID-19.

On slide 13, we show our business performance for the first quarter on a regional basis. U.S. sales of $301 million declined 4.1% compared to the prior year. This represents a decline in organic sales of 1.2%. In the U.S. market, we experienced growth in technologies and equipment, which was more than offset by the decline in organic sales in the consumables segment. European sales were $373 million, down 5.7% compared to the prior year. Organic sales were down 2%. Technologies and Equipment posted organic sales growth, while consumable sales were down in the quarter. Rest of the world sales were at 201 million down 15.3% and organic sales were down 12%. From a product perspective, T&E sales grew and consumable sales declined in the first quarter. On slide 14, we show our cash flow performance. In the first quarter of 2020, cash flow from operations was a use of $10.7 million, as compared to cash flow generation of $29.3 million, in the prior year quarter. This performance was driven by a lower level of sales and a higher level of investment in working capital.

In terms of capital expenditures we spend 25.6 million in the first quarter, down as compared to $33.9 million last year. As a result of the impact of COVID-19 on our normal operating cadence, we expect capital expenditure this year to be lower than we had anticipated in our planning process. Having said that, we continue to execute on our key projects, we will ramp back up to normal levels as soon as appropriate. Given the current circumstances, it is unlikely we will spend our targeted amount of $140 million to $150 million in fiscal year 2020. Free cash flow was an outflow of 36.3 million in the first quarter as compared to outflow of $4.6 million in the prior year. We returned a total $162.1 million to shareholders during the quarter, including dividends of $22.1 million and share repurchases of $140 million.

Let’s go now to slide 15, where I’ll talk about some of the initiatives we have implemented to ensure that our balance sheet and liquidity remains strong throughout this cycle. First, let me highlight that the global nature of our business provides a natural hedge to market disruptions, as they cycle through regions around the world. Additionally, our well spec health care business fared well, as demand patterns in that space did not follow the dynamic experience in dental, during the first quarter. In response to the economic situation and the related lower dental demand environment, we implemented a set of actions including the following. We began by adjusting production output. And we reduced spend temporarily in many areas. While our goal is to match fluctuations in demand and cost reductions, it is hard to do it immediately, given the high velocity of revenue decline, we experienced in late March, early April.

We also moved quickly on various finance initiatives to enhance our liquidity and ensure the funding of strategic projects. We added $354 million in committed lines of credit, including our credit revolving facility of $700 million and cash on hand, this brings our total available liquidity to $1.3 billion. As part of our overall liquidity strategy, we also decided to draw down $700 million from our credit lines. We have no immediate need for this cash. The drawdown is entirely a function of our risk management plan, given the uncertain macroeconomic environment. In addition to committed lines of credit, our investment-grade rating, gives us the ability to tap into the capital markets for long-term funding, if we so choose. With respect to business trends for the remainder of the year, I’d like to make a few comments. First, let me start with current volume trends, while we see positive signs of reactivation in the dental space in certain regions. Sales trends in the second quarter remained substantially lower when compared to last year and precrisis levels.

In the U.S. and Europe, with some minor exceptions, dental practices limited their activity to emergency procedures. Consistent with all our data published on the category, at least initially in the North America and EMEA regions, we are seeing volume of 60% to 80% for the month, depending on region. In the U.S., COVID-19 really began to impact dental offices in mid to late March. As a result of the implementation of several social distancing guidelines, we saw a sharp drop-off in patient traffic, which persisted through the end of the quarter and into April. In the last week or so, states have begun to allow offices to open and conduct nonemergency procedures. However, there are still many gating factors, including the availability of personal protection equipment, overlapping regulations and association recommendations and patients’ willingness to patients’ willingness to go back to the dentist.

In Europe, each market behaved slightly differently through the course of the pandemic. For example, Italy and Spain were impacted earlier and more severely than others. In Germany, dental offices generally remain open. However, we did see a fall-off in patient traffic and associated revenues across all Europe in April. With regards to other geographies, we are beginning to see some signs of recovery. On our last earnings call, we said that we had an exposure of approximately $60 million to $70 million in sales in China, Japan, sales in China, Japan, Korea and Taiwan, stemming from Coronavirus. Since then, the dental market in China has played out pretty much as we anticipated. It is a slow road back, but China is now tracking a lot better than what we saw in January and February.

Japan did a little bit better than expected. Most dental offices in Japan remain open, but patient traffic is low. My sense is that rest of the world generally appears to be further along in the process in the U.S. and Europe. But let’s remember that this region represents approximately 20% of our revenue base. Last point I want to highlight regarding trend is that, in light of the economic and business uncertainties caused by COVID-19, we are not in a position to produce reliable updates to guidance at that time. In closing, we believe that the financial strength of Dentsply Sirona at the onset of this crisis, combined with the operational, financial and strategic actions we have taken so far, positioned us well to remain the partner of choice that our customers need in this difficult economic environment.

With that, I will now turn the call back to Don.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Jorge. And now moving to slide 17. Earlier, I mentioned our five priorities in the current slowdown. These are our employees, our customers, our financial strength, the cost containment actions we have taken and continue moving on our strategic priorities. On slide 18, our first priority was to ensure the safety of our employees. We have a comprehensive program around safety in our sites. We have eliminated travel and meetings and have looked too many of our employees working from home. We have taken precautions at sites that are still operating and have adjusted policies that allow us to identify risks and help manage through them. To date, we have been fortunate that the number of employees, in fact it has remained low, due principally to the rapid and comprehensive measures we have implemented to ensure effective infection prevention processes in every workplace. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank the entire Dentsply Sirona organization for their supportive work during this pandemic. They have remained consumer focused, resilient and positive the entire time.

Our second priority is maintaining our strong relationship with our customers. During these challenging times, dentists are looking for organizations that are able to partnered with them and assist in riding out the storm. We have responded by remaining open for business and ensure that our systems and infrastructure have been able to meet customer demand, despite the fact that we significantly reduced our supply chain activity. Our technical service function has remained open throughout the pandemic, in order to address customer needs around the world. We have also worked hard to stay close to our customers. We have focused aggressively on the virtual world. And to-date have been remarkably successful in doing so. During the month of April, in the U.S., the Dentsply Sirona Academy website offered 81 courses with over 33,000 attendees. We saw similar success in Europe, and in particular, in China, where we were able to host 66 live webinars that generated over 650,000 views.

All these efforts created an important touch point. And serve to reinforce Dentsply Sirona’s leadership, in clinical education. Jorge also described the actions we quickly took around liquidity and cost containment. During this period, we also focused on making progress on, the strategic initiatives that will best position Dentsply Sirona for the long-term. These include delivering on our new product portfolio pushing hard to advance digital demonstrate and building relationship with our customers. Looking to the future, while it’s hard to predict the exact shape of the recovery, we believe that the long-term fundamentals of the dental market remain positive. Short-term, we are thinking about the recovery in stages. Those stages include emergency elective procedures only, exemption of elective procedures, addressing the backlog of postponed elective procedures and then ultimately, the resumption of normal services. The speed of that recovery will be based on both the opening of dental practices and how quickly patients can regain their confidence.

We are optimistic that dental practices will be able to adapt to the new environment. Dentists have always put patient safety first. For decades, dentists have been intensely focused on infection control. And we are confident they will adjust to the new circumstances quickly. We are already seeing the ADA and other dental associations around the world or protocols and guidelines that will facilitate a safe reopening. Initiatives like waiting-room management, conspicuous cleaning all staff wearing PPE at all times and using questionnaires to highlight risk will help engender patient confidence. Dentsply Sirona is working with Dennis everywhere to assist them with their individual infection control needs and requirements, as well as communicating to their patients. I mentioned earlier that we are starting to see signs of a recovery in countries that first the ADA saw the pandemic.

So those signs show us a few things that offices will reopen, but takes a little bit longer for patient traffic to recover. In fact, we believe that the recovery in patient confidence will be the key the speed of that recovery. Our expectations are that the more functional procedures return faster. Things like restorations and endodontic procedures will lead. We expect implants and ortho, which tend to be more elective to come back, a bit more slowly. On equipment, the logical expectation is that capital spending will be reduced. But our digital products are really transformative from a workflow and practice economic perspective. So we expect to have an opportunity to continue driving our equipment business. From a regional perspective, Asia Pacific is further along in the recovery process, and as states and countries open, we expect that both North America and Europe will see a measured return. As Jorge indicated at this point, it is difficult to reliably predict the next few quarters.

In conclusion, these are unprecedented times for all of us. Dentsply Sirona has taken rapid action around our employee safety, enhancing our relationships with our customers, improving our liquidity while executing a broad program around cost containment. During this period, the company will continue to drive against our major strategic priorities. While we are starting to see improvement in some countries that have begun to reopen, the recovery is expected to be a slow process. Long term, the fundamentals of the dental market are sound and Dentsply Sirona has the financial strength, product portfolio and the global reach to allow us to succeed and win in the future. We hope you remain safe and healthy.

And with that, we will turn it over to questions. Operator?

Questions and Answers:

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question first question comes from John Block with Stifel.

John Block — Stifel — Analyst

Great. Thanks, guys. Good morning. Appreciate the time. Jorge, I’ll start with you. I guess in the last call, you gave some really helpful color on decremental margins specific to the 1Q loss revenue on APAC, and I get it, things are moving around very quickly. But as you sit here today, after some of the initiatives you put in place, is there any color that you’re able to give on the decremental margins as we start thinking about things for 2Q, 3Q?

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Hey good morning, John. Thanks for the question. As both Don and I indicated, at this point, it’s very, very difficult to provide any sort of guidance for the next few quarters. What I can tell you is, if you look at the numbers for Q1, we came in very much as we were expecting, and we were able to take up some actions to try to protect our margins despite the rapid decline in revenue. But as you can imagine, it’s really hard to match those two revenue decline and cost at the same time to match them in the short term. We will continue to do as much work as we can. We are — Don indicated and I indicated some of the actions we are taking and we’ll try to balance our margins into the future as much as we can. But at this point, given all the uncertainty, it’s hard for me to tell you where we think we’re going to be in Q2 or Q3.

John Block — Stifel — Analyst

Okay. Fair enough. And then, Don, for you, a lot of helpful color on what you think is coming back quicker, what procedures you think are coming back quicker than others. But can I push in any granularity from a geographic standpoint? In other words, any data on what China looked like in the month of April versus January or what Germany looks like versus Italy? Anything that you might be able to pass along as we try to think about some of the leading indicators coming out of this? Thanks guys,

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yes. John thanks for the question. I hope you’re safe and healthy. I think Jorge kind of gave you a bracket on what we think the globe looks like. And obviously there is countries that are higher in that and lower. I mean, if you look at Italy and Spain, they’ve been shut down and they’re shut down hard. Obviously, Asia Pacific is opening up. We’re starting to see stuff in the U.S. open up. But there’s two things, John, maybe that will give you a little help. I suspect we’re going to get questions about why did consumables seem to come down faster in the Q than what we saw in technology and equipment. And I would tell you some of the stuff that we see is there’s a difference between retail and wholesale.

Well, interestingly, when you begin to see start-up, you might see a reverse of that trend where the things that they stop buying very, very quickly are the things they’re short on. So that’s the first thing that we see. The second point that we were trying to make is, I think a lot of the discussion has been about what dental offices are open, Czech one and then Czech two, is where are they in terms of emergency procedures versus moving into more elective procedures. And I actually think there’s a variable that and this is one we’re having the toughest time with is how fast do patients come back?Because what we are seeing in Asia Pacific that, the offices open faster than patient traffic returns, so, the conversation, in our mind, has to be — and it’s numbers we’re has starting to really work and track is okay, the office is open, how are they operating? As a percent of normal, are they operating at 20%, 50%, 100%?

And for us, it’s really been to become a function of by country tracking actually utilization verses offices opened.

So in our mind that’s something it will all going to track again a little bit more sophisticated bit more sophisticated around.

John Block — Stifel — Analyst

Fair enough. Thanks guys.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, John.

Operator

Our next question comes from Steven Valiquette with Barclays. Steven your line is open please ask your question. Please go ahead.

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Then lets go to the next question, please, Kevin. We’ll get — we’ll get Steve back in the queue.

Operator

Our next question comes from Tycho Peterson with JPMorgan.

Tycho Peterson — JPMorgan — Analyst

Hey, thanks. Don, how are you thinking about capex once practices resume? Obviously, a lot of dentists or individual practitioners with high fixed costs, they’re feeling the economic pain.

So I’m curious if you can touch on, their appetite for capex. We also did have one of your competitors talk about increased interest in intra oral scanners, as a way to reduce the risk of infections versus impression. So I’m curious, if you’re seeing any evidence of that? And then ultimately, what does this do to your relationship with DSOs? How involved have they been in the middle of the tandem?

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah Thanks, Tycho. It is interesting as, it’s almost counterintuitive where you’d sit there and say, okay, challenging economic times, the dentists are going to cut their capital spending back, not what we’ve actually seen in terms of interest. And we can track a couple of things by region. What are people looking at in our online things, where have we been successful creating one-on-one sales pitches, if you will, that are done virtually. And it’s all been around Technologies & Equipment. And it’s — I’m not going to come out and say I think technology and equipment is going to lead. But I — what we’ve been encouraged with so far right now is that the interest in digital production, if you will, and inter oral scanners is a great example. Is just a real game changer from an economic perspective and I think — I don’t know if we want to refer to this as a pause, a time off or whatnot and what we have seen is dentists have really is dentists have really been thoughtful about, okay, I’ve had four weeks, six weeks to work with my staff to think about what should my practice be when we return and its interesting in digitizing the office has become a topic that after infection control its actually second most popular topic that we are seeing by country.

If you really go through it, if you’re going to do impression material and then you’re going to send that to a lab, you’re potentially looking at a procedure that has two or three interactions with the patient versus chairside, which You come in, you get scanned and you leave with the crown and the economics, and the workflow productivity are really important. So, I’m not trying to be deliberately dense, but I do think it’s counterintuitive, but we’re pretty optimistic about how our technology and equipment group will perform versus what I think expectation is.

Tycho Peterson — JPMorgan — Analyst

And maybe a follow-up on the productivity. We have heard the guidelines, the CDC guidelines and otherwise have really impacted practice efficiency. I think in some areas, down 20%, 30% in terms of the number of patients that can be seen. How much of an issue is that from your customers? And then you mentioned the volumes of 60% to 90% in April. Can you just give some geographic color, is that a U.S. comment? Thanks.

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

I’ll answer the first question — the second question, first. Actually, I think we said 60% to 80%, and that’s a global comment, as part one. And then the CDC guidelines, Tycho, you almost have to look at there’s — at least in North America, there’s three sets of guidelines, there’s the OSHA guidelines, the CDC, and then there’s ADA recommendations. And right now, I don’t think we reliably know what the ultimate impact on productivity is going to be just because I think people are getting used to it. We’ve been talking to dentist. And literally, we talk to — I was with a group of about 1,300, yesterday. I think they’re getting used to it. I don’t view the change in what workflow will look like as a permanent decrease in the amount of patients. What the dentists are telling us is — and most of them have only been open for a week or two. They got to do a couple of things. I mean, first is, how do you do waiting room management, whether it’s having people wait in cars management and they get text when they come in, how do they perform the questionnaires, the questionnaire done in the office or not? And then there’s a whole discussion about cleaning, and what is conspicuous cleaning and infection protocols look like.

I think, ultimately, dentists have been — if you go all the way back to like HIV aids, and if you look at when hepatitis became an issue, dentists have gotten pretty good infection protocol. They’ll adapt. I don’t look at the current changes as permanent decrements in the capacity, if you will, of the dental offices. And then on the DSOs, it’s really interesting. The DSOs, I think, have been taking a very measured response. We’re going to open. If you look at the big three and even if you kind of go to the kind of the second size, kind of, the 50 to 100, they’ve been pretty cautious. We’re going to do emergency procedures only, and then we’re going to open it up right now. They really haven’t opened up like hygiene, if you will. There’s been a lot of discussion about ultrasonic root planning and production of aerosols. And then as a result, I think they’re going to gradually bring the hygienist back, and they’ll focus on mechanical scaling and root planning. But our conversations with all of them have been, hey, look, it’s going to be a gradual return. It’ll start with emergencies. We’ll get into critical elective procedures, root canals and things like that. They’ll bring hygienist back. They’re optimistic that they’ll be able to bring hygienist back in the summer, and they’ll just do it stepwise.

Tycho Peterson — JPMorgan — Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks Tycho, be safe.

Operator

Our next question comes from Michael Cherney with Bank of America.

Michael Cherney — Bank of America — Analyst

Good morning thanks for the color so far. Don, I wanted to pick on the equipment question a little bit. In terms of the goodwill impairment, you said it was tied to readjusting, reassessing for the level of demand. What was the process you went through in terms of looking through and risk weighting the order book, in terms of the decision to take that approach. Clearly, another what, all your comments seem to think that there is some level of temporary nature to this, who knows how long the temporary nature will be. But in terms of that impairment, can you just walk us through a little bit more what the thought process was behind what you saw across your book of business to get there?

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Michael, good morning, this is Jorge. Let me take that question. So, every quarter, companies have to go through an analysis of their entire balance sheets. And so this quarter, we follow the normal process. And when you look at the asset value or the value of all of your reporting units, some units have more headroom than others with respect to goodwill and intangibles and so forth. And when we did our normal process in this quarter, one of the reporting units that historically had a smaller headroom, as we did some sensitivity analysis and look at probabilities of outcomes for the foreseeable future, we concluded that one specific reporting unit, equipment and instruments. This is not the digital aspect of our business. Not CAD/CAM is on the equipment and instruments piece. We concluded that based on our sensitivity analysis, a potential range of outcomes for the future, it was prudent. And we had to adjust our carrying value for that specific unit. And that’s how we came to this conclusion. I don’t think is a result of any significant changing to our views of equipment in general for the future.

It’s very specific to one, our reporting unit and is as a result of many scenario analysis and sensitivity analysis that we did.

Michael Cherney — Bank of America — Analyst

Thanks Jorge and just one quick additional question. How do you think about the value of something like 1DS and the rollout you have of that program against the backdrop of this current demand pause? And how is it look coming out on the other side?

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Mike. It’s been very interesting that originally, we thought, okay, our sales guys aren’t going to be able to talk to dentists and dentists are going to forget about things like 1DS. And it’s been the exact opposite. Our average call per day in Europe and average calls per day in North America have actually increased, because there’s not a lot of windshield time. And then the number one thing out of the bag right now and talking to them’ Hey, doc, had you signed up for 1DS? And if they had, this is where you are, and hey, as we think about reopening in May or June or July, this is the easiest way for you to maximize 1DS. So, I was lucky enough to have a conversation with most of our U.S. sales leaders last week. And they feel that there is an excellent level of awareness of 1DS and the idea of starting up restarting is an opportunity for them to — again, we take advantage of what’s a terrific program.

And again, Michael, just — I think there was a — I remember, we were mid-winter having a lot of conversations about 1DS. Again, we’re not asking people to purchase incremental to what they normally purchase. We’re just asking them to switch what they purchase to Dentsply Sirona. And that’s going to give them a real opportunity for meaningful discounts on the equipment side of the business. And we’ve been — again, we’ve been having a lot of what we think are pretty positive conversations around equipment. So, again, we think our strategy is right. We’re obviously adopting the message to be a little bit more focused on like the restart. But we think we’ve got some pretty good tools in place around office productivity, and things like 1DS to let people start-up.

Michael Cherney — Bank of America — Analyst

Thanks.

Operator

Our next question comes from Erin Wright with Credit Suisse.

Erin Wright — Credit Suisse — Analyst

Great. Thanks. So two-part questions. So one, can you remind us your experience during the most recent recessionary environment and how this may or may not play out differently in your view? And then in states, for instance, like Texas and others that have started to open up at limited capacity, I guess, are you actually seeing the processes open? Are they waiting to feel more comfortable? Are they waiting for sufficient PPE supply? What percent of dental practices are actually still closed in the U.S. and looking at the employment numbers this morning, I mean, dental practices were obviously an area of under pressure. How realistic is it that things can really recover this year? Thanks.

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thanks, Erin. It’s interesting. If you go back to 2008, and we’ve done it, our business is a little bit different. You kind of had Sirona at the time, which is very early. So they were growing very rapidly. We’ve looked at the total equipment market. And basically, what our experience was that as long as we stayed focused on productivity, we didn’t see a real drop-off in technology and equipment. On the consumable side, Erin, and again, I’m not the greatest historian, but we’ve been doing a lot of work going back and looking at that. And actually, the nice thing about part of the Dentsply history is we can go back to 2001 as well. Typically, what we see is that with the unemployment numbers, you obviously, heading to a recession, people actually use their health benefits, whether it’s COBRA that keeps people around for 12 to 18 months. People recognize that they may be entering a time period where there’s not benefits and they tend to use their benefits up.

So our experience says that dental actually lags the economic news in terms of it doesn’t — we don’t see an immediate decrement. But on the same side, on the back side of a recovery, we recover a little bit slower because you’ve got to get people back in jobs to get their benefits. In terms of Texas, and obviously, we’re tracking stuff by state. And without giving you too much specificity, the offices are opening. I mean, the dentist will tell you that they’re opening. We don’t have exact numbers by the exact state. That’s a representative sample. But what we see is that the dentists — they open, the offices haven’t been opened in four to six. So there’s almost a cleaning out. They have to retool what the dentists have been telling us they have to retool their waiting room because there’s got to be social distancing, stuff like magazines and all the stuff and waiting rooms have to be taken out. They have to put where you go out and you pay, they’ve got to be installing shields and whatnot. So they’re opening and they’re actually doing a lot of adjusting, if you will.

But then, Erin, what we’ve seen in Asia Pacific, which is starting to be echoed and what we’re hearing from the U.S. dentists. The offices will open faster than patient traffic returns to normal. Everybody we’ve talked to said, they don’t have as much PPE as they would like. But it’s getting better every day. And our discussions with our distributors say that, as we get into the summer, they should be able to manage that. So, adding that all up, you sit there and you say the offices will open the PPE situation is, we think, a short-term issue that’s not going to really result in slowing of traffic. And it’s going to be much more variable of when patients return to the full norm. And then, look, we saw the jobs report, and obviously, it should be concerning to all of us. Our sense of it is that again, history would tell us that were lag in terms of people tend to use their health care benefits and then obviously when we come out of it we come out a little bit slower. So I hope that’s helpful.

Erin Wright — Credit Suisse — Analyst

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Elizabeth Anderson, Evercore.

Elizabeth Anderson — Evercore — Analyst

Hi guys. Thanks for the question. I was just wondering if you guys are seeing anything in terms of like, changes in payment terms or discounts from customers, either requesting or you guys are offering that.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Elizabeth. I’ll take that one and Jorge will you need to answer any color. Look, we’re working with our dealer partners all around the world to help the dentists — we’re putting programs together. And we will put programs together as things open up. But in terms of a lot of changes in payment terms and that we’re seeing or impact on AR to-date, we haven’t seen it. And it’s an area of focus for us. Overtime, will that change? But it may. But ultimately, right now we feel pretty good about it. We are putting programs in place. It would be if we do offer extended terms or whatnot that would be self paying because we would take that out of if. That’s a marketing charge we would cut another marketing program. I don’t know what you want to add for.

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

I would say, in this type of circumstances, it’s not unreasonable to expect that there will be some area or procedures. We are working very, very closely with all of our customers and having good conversations. And as Don indicated, so far, we haven’t seen a big impact. But some of that will happen overtime. And — but I think the trends are good so far.

Elizabeth Anderson — Evercore — Analyst

Got it. And just, sort of, a bigger picture question. I mean you get obviously one dominant player in the manufacturing industry, which is generally very fragmented, how do you see over the longer term, the possible change in competitive situation is shaking out. I mean it’s interesting. We’ve been asked a lot about, like is this going to accelerate consolidation, whether it’s the DSO side or manufacturing side, ultimately, we think the trends that had been going on, Elizabeth, are going to continue. I think this location is really going to probably accelerate things? Again, I think some of the smaller companies without as big a balance sheet, maybe — maybe press a lot harder than what holding. So we look it as an opportunity. We think the consolidation is going to accelerate. And we think we should be a net winner in that situation.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

I just want to ask everybody to mute, if you’re not talking at this time.

Elizabeth Anderson — Evercore — Analyst

Thank you.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks Elizabeth. As it might be the last one thing, mid winter, when we got to see a bunch of you guys — last big dental show before everything is shut down.

Operator

Next question comes from Nathan Rich with Goldman Sachs.

Nathan Rich — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Hi, good morning. Don, sorry to go back to the April comments. But I’d be curious to know how consumables versus technology kind of trended in April relative to that 60% to 80%? Did you kind of see similar trends in both segments or was one hold up better than the other?

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Nate, hope you’re doing well. In April, they performed about the same. There’s two things I would point out though, and we tried to give you a little bit of color. If you look at how the quarter finished and if you look at there’s a change in how consumables perform versus technology and equipment, actually, the quarter numbers on T&E were actually pretty good.

Basically, there’s a lag effect between what goes on at retail and how wholesale manages that. So, we think you saw consumables get pulled down because that’s the lever that the dentists pulled the fastest. And obviously, our dealer partners could react to that. But what we’re seeing is countries start-up, and we’ve seen this in Asia Pacific and other stuff, you see a reverse of that. So you would see things they did in order as they were shutting down or things they need to open up. So over a longer period of time, we don’t think there’s a change in trend. We think there may be a change in timing around consumables decrement and how fast consumables will come back up. And then again, in April, on a global basis, they performed pretty similarly. There was not a big change, which we actually are a little bit optimistic about because we’re seeing capital expenditures in places that were not disrupted.

Nathan Rich — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Okay. Great. And then looking at those stages of recovery that you outlined, I appreciate there’s a lot of uncertainty, but do you have a sense of how long it could take to kind of progress through those stages and is that something that we could see be a bit more gradual and potentially extend into next year?

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yes. It’s a hard question to answer. I mean, could it extend into next year? Yes, it could extend into next year. I think the only thing we were trying to do with the stages, and we — as we sit inside, what are we trying to do? And look, we said, let’s take care of our patients. Let’s make sure we’re talking to our customers. Jorge said a couple of times; we’re trying to sync manufacturing to demand. And as such, you don’t just call up on a Monday and turn a plan on. So, we’ve been trying to be thoughtful about that. So the stages, we actually have outlined those stages, and we’ve outlined the regions. And right now, where we are is pretty much everywhere around the world, people are doing emergency procedures. And we tend to think the emergency procedures is 10% to 20% of all procedures. We are starting to see move back to elective in all around the world. And that’s the important stage for us to start seeing in North America and EMEA. And as I’ve said a couple of times today, not to beat a dead horse, but we think offices will open faster than patient traffic returns.

And whether this is a three-month return to normal from consumers or a six-month or a nine-month, it’s really, really difficult to say, and which is why we’ve kind of declined on providing specificity around quarter-to-quarter.

Nathan Rich — Goldman Sachs — Analyst

Make sense. Thanks for the comments.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Thank you. Be safe.

Operator

Our next question comes from Jeff Johnson with Baird.

Jeff Johnson — Baird — Analyst

Thank you and good morning guys. Don or Jorge, either one, I guess. I would like to ask a cash flow question to start. Just how should we think about buybacks and M&A in this environment? I know the M&A topic was broached earlier in the call here. But just as you think about conservation of capital versus going on the offensive in some areas or even using cash on buybacks and that? Just how should we think about the next couple of quarters?

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for the question. Again, I’m going to refrain from talking about the next two quarters of your P&L, cash flow or capital deployment. But I would tell you, from a philosophy perspective, our capital allocation has thinking has not changed from a long-term perspective. At this point, we are not changing that.

In the short-term, given the market dislocations that we are all facing, there are priorities that are higher right now and cash conservation is a very important priority. Now we want to preserve cash so that we can actually invest in things that really matter for us to be competitive as even more competitive as we come out of — at the end of this cycle. So, reinvesting in our business, we’re not stopping that. We — as I indicated in my prepared remarks, we are — we have kept our investment priorities very much in touch. We are important projects for us that will yield significant value in the future. And we are still investing on those. And as we have more data points over the next several months and quarters, we will readjust the priorities. And we’ll try to go back to a more normalized balanced approach to our capital deployment.

Jeff Johnson — Baird — Analyst

Thank you. And then Don, maybe one last question, just kind of broader market thoughts. You do sell some sterilization equipment I’m assuming there’s going to be increased focus at these offices on a lot of products like that. Are there any other products in your portfolio or in the R&D pipeline that you could tack towards, and think about kind of an emerging secular trend in the offices? Number one, and number two as these offices done more PPE and it looks question belong whethe4r we are not in invest in well in corporate that higher PPE costs does that squeeze out the focus on premium consumables in you portfolio? How do you respond kind of in an environment where costs in other areas you don’t compete might be going up for these kind of? Thanks.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. Thanks, Jeff. There are a couple of things in there. Let’s pull apart. We do sell some infection control stuff. It’s not huge. Just in terms of the size of the overall portfolio. But I would tell you, there’s going to be some stuff that we’re starting to see. We’ve got high-volume evacuation equipment, pure VAC and some other stuff that we think is going to do pretty well. We’ve had a lot of interest. Again, we’re kind of judging interest in stuff by what the dentists are actually attending webinars. And aerosol management is a topic that’s gotten a fair amount of interest. The second thing I would tell you is one of the things that we made a big deal about with Primescan was that it’s a seal system and disinfecting that is relatively easy versus things that we had done in the past. And as a matter of fact, we now have come up, and it’s — we think it’s going to result in something that’s very important to us. We have a temporary shield that makes — it goes right over the probe and it’s disposable. So, we think that’s very good.

We’ve also moved very quickly into single-use packaging, which we think allows you to sterilize something, so that will aid the dentist. So when you look at our endo and a lot of our implant products moving to single-use packaging, is we think is something that we’ve been able to do because we have the manufacturing expertise and everything we’re hearing is that’s very important. In terms of does the does the incremental PPE cost create downward price pressure on premium consumables? Yes, it could. Look, I think the dentist office is going to be taking a hard look at their economics from top to bottom. One of the things that we will stress and something we’ve always stressed is now the time when you’re really going through a challenging time, to change your reliable brands that you’ve been using in important procedures.

And look, we’ve been competing in — against a private label or white label set of competitors for a long period of time and we feel that we can kind of hold our own. And a lot of that is going to be innovation. And then the last kind of question you asked in there, I think I tried to unpack all of it, is do we think infection control should be an area of future R&D development? It’s always been an area we’ve looked at. I mean, we have a lot of infection, our DUC unit and other things and is part of our innovation package that we’re looking at, will it take on a higher priority. Too early to say, Jeff, but I would tell you, right now, and I said this in my prepared remarks and Jorge mentioned it around cash flow. We’re going full out right now. And one of the reasons we were trying to protect liquidity is because we believe that ultimately, the digitization of dentistry is going to be as important as any trend.

Short term, everyone is going to have to get used to PPE and infection control at different levels. But if that puts pressure, say, there is a detriment in overall time that the dentist can spend with patients because of incremental PPE requirements. Well, they’re going to — on the other side, they’re going to be looking for ways that how do we use throughput. And we think things like CEREC, things like the software we’ve developed around implants and other things will become increasingly important.

Jeff Johnson — Baird — Analyst

Thank you.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Jeff, stay safe.

Operator

Our next question comes from Brandon Couillard with Jefferies.

Brandon Couillard — Jefferies — Analyst

Thanks. Two more question for Jorge. First, just on the P&L, can you help us understand the flexibility of the P&L? How much of the cost structure is variable? And then, what are the — what exactly are the prerequisites that you’d want to see before we’re storing guidance because I could envision visibility remaining low for some period of time. Thanks.

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Thank you for the question. Yes. On the first part, with respect to fixed versus variable, I think in the short term, typically, I would say, for our business, you could have between 25% to one-third of our costs being, I would say, very variable in nature. And — but as you go through a cycle, a lot of the fixed costs that you have, you can become variable. And that is part of what we are trying to figure out now.

And as part of that analysis, we actually have already made some decisions that essentially change some of our fixed costs into variable in the short-term. And we’ll do more of that. And I think most companies are trying to figure that out. And the idea, as I indicated before, is trying to match as close as possible, our revenue with our cost structure, and that is why we have been as a company, always very much focused on margins. And so we have to balance net margins. We need to balance that with investment for the future. And so there are a number of scenarios that we are looking at to ensure that what are the decisions we make end up resulting in the best interest of the company for both the short-term and the long-term. With respect to guidance, I think, I don’t know exactly when we are going to be in a position to do that.

But let me tell you a few elements that I think would be important for us. I think as we have more conversations with our customers, with our dealer partners and with just overall — all the stakeholders in this industry. We’ll understand better the cadence of a potential recovery will start having a better understanding for future orders. And how dentists are going to manage their capacity and how they’re going to reopen.That’s going to be a very important element in this analysis, of course. Then we have to look at overall macroeconomic conditions, what is happening with overall economies and unemployment levels and there is a series of elements that I think we all are going to be looking at. And at some point, we’ll know okay, now the range of potential outcomes for the next six to 12 months is within a reasonable range. And at that point, we will be in a position to share that range with all of you. Clearly, we are not at that point right now.

Brandon Couillard — Jefferies — Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from John Kreger with William Blair.

John Kreger — William Blair — Analyst

Hi. Thanks very much. Don, two quick ones, you mentioned, I think, that you procedures are maybe procedures are maybe 10% to 20% of a typical practice. How the — how is’s your endo business holding up? I would think that’s mostly emergency related.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah. The endo business is mostly emergency related. And by the way, some of the resto procedures, I mean, if you’ve got a crack tooth, you kind of have get that taking care of endo has been okay. And by the way, John, when we say okay, there’s okay there is okay in normal times and there’s post COVID-19 normal times, but if you were to look at the business that’s been the most consistent to this endo business has been the most consistent through this process.

John Kreger — William Blair — Analyst

Great. Thanks. And then maybe if you go back, as you mentioned, seemingly normal times back in Chicago Midwinter, what was your early experience like around the plan mill launch? Just curious if you were seeing uptake mainly from people that had some of your older mills. And so those were upgrade sales? Or were you actually seeing maybe a bit of resurgence in the convincing practices to go full chair side?

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yes. I would tell you, the Primemill — the response to Primemill was really good. We were very excited. And look, mid winter was a great example of that. And our emphasis on Primemill was how do we sell full chairside systems. I mean, that’s our first lever that we always go to how do you sell full chairside. And we were pretty successful.

I mean, if you look at the pricing and if you look at how we package that it was designed for us to be pretty aggressive around pulling — selling full chairside and we’re pretty successful about that. Coming out it, John, coming out of the COVID challenge, I — we’re going to be banging very hard on the idea that full chairside where you have an opportunity to take care of a patient in one visit is going to be pretty important. And if you look at the speed advantages of Primemill, we think it’s going to be a pretty important part of our overall story. But we were very excited about the initial reception to Primemill.

John Kreger — William Blair — Analyst

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Our next question comes from Kevin Caliendo with UBS.

Kevin Caliendo — UBS — Analyst

Hi, thanks for taking my call. I guess this is for Jorge. Can you talk a little bit about the sales and accounting cycle for equipment, sort of how you record the revenues and any chance that changes going forward, meaning like is it possible? You make it. I know you already have payment terms and extended payment terms and the like. But is there anything that could change with that going forward post COVID?

And then the second question I had was, just getting back to the first quarter, I think you said January and February were tracking in line with expectations. Can you tell us what you thought consumables and equipment would have done ex COVID? Thanks.

Jorge Gomez — Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Good morning, Kevin. The way we report our equipment sales is similar to the way we record every other sale within the company, including consumables. So it’s — there is no there’s no deferral revenue we straight up sales. So there’s nothing we do different in that case. Can it change — can that change in the future? At this point, we’re not thinking about that. There are some companies that provide financing for equipment. We don’t do that today. So that’s not in our plans right now.The January, February, overall, as Don indicated and I indicated, based on our internal planning, based on internal forecast. We came out of a strong Q4 ’19 and we were seeing trends in Q1 or we’re expecting that Q1 to perform very much in line. The technology business doing extremely well with Primescan, the launch of our Primemill, doing very well and in both January and February and consumables trending also very much in line with our expectations for the first two months of the quarter.

And then towards mid-March, is when we start to see a rapid decline in the consumable business, the technology business, CAD/CAM, in particular, continued to perform well throughout the first quarter. And as Don indicated, now going into April, May, both segments are trending in a similar way.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yes. And the only thing I would add, Kevin, is consumables — if you look at the difference and we’ve said this in our prepared remarks, in the quarter, it looks like T&E kind of kept going and consumables came down faster. We think that was a function of timing, not a function of demand. If you think about what goes on at retail versus wholesale, obviously, as our dealer partners began to see challenges in the dentist office and the dentists would stop ordering, the thing you stop ordering and the things you use most frequently.

So, we think consumable was impacted fastest there. What we’re seeing as places like Asia Pacific open up, you see a reversal of that. You see actually people come back in on the consumable first. And it’s — so we look at the disparity and the performance as much more of a function of timing than underlying demand stuff and I would say we were very happy with how the quarter was going on both the technology and equipment side and the consumable side. We’d started to see some good trends in the fourth quarter around consumables, which is carrying over into the first quarter.

Kevin Caliendo — UBS — Analyst

That’s helpful. Thanks so much, guys.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Kevin.

Operator

Our next question comes from Glen Santangelo of Mulvane.

Glen Santangelo — Mulvane — Analyst

Hi thanks for taking my question. Hey Don, I just want to follow-up on some of the comments you actually just made with respect to Asia Pac, for example, it sounds like globally, the volumes are trending down 60% to 80%. But is it intuitive as you would think that maybe APAC is doing a little bit better since they closed earlier and opened first and then EMEA and then maybe North America sort of last. And assuming that’s the case, I’m kind of curious specifically about the reboot in Asia Pac. And you talked about maybe certain areas of digital that you’d expect to come back faster, maybe not being as economically sensitive, as we think with maybe implant and ortho may be coming back a little bit slower.

Could you talk about the reboot on the equipment side, in Asia Pac. And what you’re seeing? And I don’t know if there’s any numbers you feel comfortable putting around that?

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yeah, Glen. Thanks the question. Here’s what — Asia Pac, first, you’ve got to kind of think about Asia Pac as not Asia Pac. In our mind, there are almost three chunks to it. There’s what went on in China, how do you think about kind of things that have reopened Hong Kong, Taiwan and Korea. And then, Japan is a big business for us. And by the way, I think Jorge said in the prepared remarks, on an aggregate basis, that’s less than 20% of our total portfolio. But what has gone on in China? Again, it exactly is what our prepared remarks were that we’re seeing consumables comes back we — again, you’re going to see kind of functional procedures come back pretty quickly. At least on our side, we’re not seeing orth in influence of the first things back and we’ve been pleasantly surprised at how technology and equipment has performed kind of in line with everything. In terms of like kind of that next group, when you think about Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, they seem to be a little bit further in front. Again, the business is performing kind of in line with each other.

And again, that — in our mind, that’s kind of a little bit counterintuitive because the expectation would have been that technology and equipment would have come up slower. We’re seeing good solid demand. Now again, we have worked very, very hard to talk about the economic benefits of the workflow, efficiencies and other things. And that’s been very — it’s resonated well with the patients — excuse me, with the doctors in that area. Japan was kind of a third circumstance where they never really shut down the dental offices. You saw a slowing in patient demand. And what we saw was technology and equipment and consumables performed similarly, implants kind of slowed. So — and that — in our mind, you almost, Japan is almost a little bit of an outlier. So, we’ve been watching how China mimics, kind of, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and if those are a harbinger of the future, you see dentist office open, you see patient recovery a little slower than what — how fast the dental dentist office open, you see functional comeback the fastest.

Glen Santangelo — Mulvane — Analyst

Thanks for the details.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Thanks, Glen, stay safe.

Operator

Our next question comes from Yi Chen with H.C. Wainwright.

Yi Chen — H.C. Wainwright — Analyst

Thank you for taking my question. Do you expect the recovery trajectory for dentists practice to be similar between different regions, although in different time frames?

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Yes, Yi Chen, I think the answer is probably yes. Again, we’re trying — I wish that we could see a Q2, Q3 more clearly. What we have seen is that the — on the way down, things looked very similar all around the world. As things shut down, how it impacted businesses, it looked very similar. What we’re starting to see at least in Asia Pacific which is a wide variety of circumstances. It seems to be coming up in a similar way. The thing that we can’t predict, though, is how fast does this all come back.

Yi Chen — H.C. Wainwright — Analyst

Okay. Does Dentsply plan to provide any service to help dentists practice return to normal operations sooner, such as facilitating the COVID-19 testing, particularly saliva-based testing in dentist office?

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

No. I think it’s essential that doctors get access to PPE and if they fee appropriate, if they want to test their staff that they are going to need, access to point of care, but it’s not an area of expertise for us.

Yi Chen — H.C. Wainwright — Analyst

Okay.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

It’s just not something we do.

Yi Chen — H.C. Wainwright — Analyst

Okay. Thank you.

Donald M. Casey Jr — Chief Executive Officer

Thank you, Chen.

Operator

And I’m not showing any further questions at this time. I’d like to turn the call back to John Sweeney.

John Sweeney — Vice President-Investor Relations

Thank you, very much for joining us today. We look forward to updating you on our next earnings conference call. Have a good day.

Operator

[Operator Closing Remarks]