You are given a text that consists of multiple sentences. Your task is to perform abstractive summarization on this text. Use your understanding of the content to express the main ideas and crucial details in a shorter, coherent, and natural sounding text. 
Text: I am Pat Ackerman, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations, Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability and our Treasurer.
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Our global A.O. Smith team delivered first quarter earnings per share of $0.60 on a 21% increase in sales, demonstrating solid execution, despite pandemic and weather-related challenges in our supply chain and operations, along with rapidly rising material costs.
I greatly appreciate the diligence of our team to keep each other healthy and safe.
Outside of India, where COVID-19 cases have recently surged, I am pleased that we have experienced steady improvement in this area since the beginning of the year.
North America water treatment grew 12%, driven by continued consumer demand for home improvement products, which provides safe drinking water in the home.
The direct-to-consumer channel with our Aquasana brand and the dealer channel contributed to solid growth to start 2021.
Boiler sales grew 12%, as we have seen strong demand, particularly within commercial boilers, as a result of completed projects carried over from 2020, as well as a resilient replacement demand.
Our volumes of US tank residential water heaters declined in the first quarter, due to weather disruptions at our facility, supply chain constraints, which limited production.
If not for limited production based on our surge in customer orders in the quarter, our US residential shipments would have increased compared with 2020.
Strong orders in the quarter were largely due to extended lead times, our second price increase, which was effective April 1, and announced third price increase effective in June.
Due to continued pandemic-related disruptions in restaurant and hospitality new construction and replacement demand, our commercial water heater volumes declined in the first quarter, largely in line with our expectations coming into the year.
In China, sales increased over 100% in local currency, driven by higher consumer demand and the easy comparison compared with the pandemic disrupted first quarter of 2020.
First quarter sales of $769 million increased 21%, compared with 2020, largely due to significantly higher China sales.
As a result of higher sales, first quarter net earnings increased 89% to $98 million or $0.60 per share compared with $52 million or $0.32 per share in 2020.
Sales in the North America segment of $553 million increased 4% compared with the first quarter of 2020.
Higher commercial boiler service parts and tankless water heater sales in the US, improved water heater sales in Canada, a 12% price -- 12% growth in water treatment sales and inflation related price increases on water heaters in the US were partially offset by lower US residential and commercial water heater volumes.
Rest of the World segment sales of $222 million increased over 100% from the first quarter of 2020 driven by stronger consumer demand in each of our major product categories in China.
Pandemic-related lockdowns and weak end market demand in the first quarter of 2020 provided an easy comparison for the first quarter of 2021.
Currency translation of China sales favorably impacted sales by approximately $14 million.
On slide 6, North America segment earnings of $130 million increased 3% compared with the first quarter of 2020.
The impact to earnings from higher sales and inflation-related price increases on water heaters was partially offset by higher material costs and freight costs and lower water heater volumes in the US.
Segment operating margin of 23.6% was slightly lower than the first quarter of 2020.
Rest of the World segment earnings of $12 million increased significantly compared with the first quarter of 2020, which was negatively impacted by the pandemic.
In China, higher volumes and lower selling and administrative costs contributed to higher segment earnings.
As a result, segment operating margin of 5.3% improved significantly from negative 38.3% in the first quarter of 2020.
Our corporate expenses of $15 million were similar to the first quarter of 2020.
Our effective tax rate of 22.5% was 110 basis points lower than the prior year largely due to geographical differences in pre-tax income.
Cash provided by operations of $104 million increase -- or during the first quarter was higher than the first quarter of 2020, primarily as a result of higher earnings in 2020 compared with the prior year.
Our cash balances totaled $660 million at the end of the first quarter and our net cash position was $559 million.
Our leverage ratio was 5% as measured by total debt to total capital at the end of the first quarter.
We completed refinancing our $500 million revolver credit facility on April 1st of this year.
We currently have no borrowings on this facility.
During the first quarter, we repurchased approximately 1.1 million shares of common stock for a total of $67 million.
The midpoint of our range represents an increase of 20% compared with the 2020 adjusted results.
We expect cash flow from operations in 2021 to be between $475 million and $500 million compared with $560 million in 2020.
We expect higher earnings in 2021 will be more than offset by higher investments in working capital than in our prior year.
Our 2021 capital spending plans are between $85 million and $90 million and our depreciation and amortization expense is expected to be approximately $80 million.
Our corporate and other expenses are expected to be approximately $52 million, which is similar to 2020.
Our effective tax rate is assumed to be approximately 23% in 2021.
Average outstanding diluted shares of 160 million assumes $400 million worth of shares are repurchased in 2021.
Our businesses continue to navigate through supply chain and logistic challenges.
The first quarter was particularly challenging for our North America water heater business.
Severe weather impacted our Ashland City and Juarez facilities resulted in a weak production at each plant in the quarter.
Supply chain constraints limited our ability to make up the lost production within the quarter.
As a result of a surge in orders approximately 30% higher than the first quarter last year, our lead-times have further extended.
We are working with customers on managing orders along with our operations and supply chain teams working diligently to meet demand.
However, we expect to be catching up throughout the second quarter and into the third quarter.
Our outlook for 2021 includes the following assumptions.
We have not changed our outlook for full year US residential heater industry volumes and continue to project a full year volume will be down 2% or 200,000 units in 2021, a small retracement from the record volume shipped in 2020.
We expect commercial industry water heater volumes will decline approximately 4% as pandemic impacted business delay or defer new construction and discretionary replacement installation.
We continue to experience inflation across our supply chain, particularly steel and logistics costs.
Steel has increased 25% since we announced our April 1st water heater price increase.
We announced a third price increase in late March on water heaters effective June 1 at a blended rate of 8.5%.
In China, it is encouraging to see sales of our products continue to remain strong through April.
Our strategy continues to expand distribution to Tier 4 through 6 cities is on track.
We see improvement in consumer trends toward trading up for higher priced products across all product categories, driven by differentiated new products launched in the last 12 to 24 months.
We expect year-over-year increase and local currency sales between 18% to 20% in China.
We assume China currency rates will remain at current levels adding approximately $50 million and $3 million to sales and profits over the prior year respectively.
We have nearly doubled our growth projections and our outlook for our North America boiler sales for mid-single-digit growth to approximately 10% growth based on a strong first quarter, strong backlog, and visibility into coating activity.
Our expectations are based on several growth drivers.
We believe pent-up demand from the declines last year will drive growth.
The transition to higher energy efficient boilers will continue particularly as commercial buildings improve their overall carbon footprint.
In 2020, condensing boilers were 39% of the commercial boiler industry.
That represents our addressable market, which provides continued opportunity for our leading market share commercial condensing boilers.
New product launches including improvements to our flagship Crest commercial condensing boiler with a market differentiating oxygen center, which continuously measures and optimizes boiler performance, an introduction of a one million BTU light-duty commercial Knight FTXL.
We continue to project 13% to 14% full year sales growth in our North America water treatment products, similar to that which we have seen in the first quarter.
We believe the mega trends of healthy and safe drinking water, as well as a reduction of single-use plastic bottles will continue to drive consumer demand for our point-of-use and port of entry water treatment systems.
We believe margins in this business could grow by 100 to 200 basis points higher than the nearly 10% margin achieved in 2020.
In India, first quarter 2021 sales were nearly double the prior year.
While India is challenged with recent COVID case resurgence, we project 2021 full year sales to increase over 20%, compared with 2020 to incur a smaller loss of $1 million to $2 million.
We project revenue will increase between 14% to 15% in 2021, as strong North America water treatment, boiler and China sales, enhanced by pricing action, more than offset expected weaker North America water heater volumes.
Our sales growth projections include approximately $50 million of benefit from China currency translation.
We expect North America segment margin to be between 23% and 23.5% and Rest of World segment margins to be between 7% and 8%.
I'm on slide 11.
Our operations faced continued challenges in the first quarter.
And while we expect continued headwinds in supply chain and logistics in the near term, I have confidence in our teams to continue to navigate through this environment.
Along with the strength of our people, I believe A.O. Smith is a compelling investment for numerous reasons.
We have leading share positions in our major product categories.
We estimate replacement demand represents 80% to 85% of US water heater and boiler volumes.
We have a strong brand, premium brand in China, a broad product offering in our key product categories, broad distribution and a reputation for quality and innovation in that region.
Over time, we are well positioned to maximize favorable demographics in both China and India to enhance shareholder value.
We are excited for the opportunity we see in our North America water treatment platform.
We have strong cash flow and balance sheet, supporting the ability to continue to invest for the long term, with investments in automation, innovation and new products, as well as acquisitions and return cash to shareholders.

user
compname reports q1 earnings per share $0.60.
q1 earnings per share $0.60.
q1 sales rose 21 percent to $769 million.
sees fy 2021 revenue up 14 to 15 percent.

assistant