Autoliv reports Q2 adjusted EPS $1.93, consensus $1.43

Reports Q2 revenue $2.64B, consensus $2.54B. Sales increased organically by 27%, which was 11pp better than global LVP growth of 15.5%. “We outperformed significantly in all regions, mainly due to new product launches and higher prices,” the company stated. Mikael Bratt, President and CEO, added: “During the quarter, we took further steps towards our full year indications, that support our medium term targets. First, we achieved new second quarter records for sales, adjusted operating income and operating cash flow since the Veoneer spin-off in 2018. Second, we achieved the price compensations from customers we planned for. Third, to secure our medium and long term competitiveness, we announced the acceleration of our structural cost reductions. Last week, we announced the first step towards the necessary optimization of our cost structure to the market environment. This first step is expected to reduce costs by around $25M in 2024, increasing to around $55M in 2025 and to reach around $75M when fully completed. Further actions will be announced as plans materialize. We generated an organic growth of 27%, growing 11pp faster than LVP due to successful product launches and price compensation achievements. The strong volume growth combined with price compensations, cost saving activities and lower premium freight costs enabled us to improve adjusted operating income by 71%, despite substantial inflationary pressure and FX headwinds. I am pleased that we delivered an adjusted RoCE of more than 20%. We delivered strong operating and free cash flow in the quarter, driven by an improved adjusted operating income and reversal of the negative working capital effects from the first quarter, in line with our previous indication. This contributed to an improved leverage ratio which supports our share repurchase ambitions. We saw continued improvement in call-off volatility in the quarter but still higher volatility than pre-pandemic levels. We believe this reflects an improving global supply chain environment for both our customers and suppliers. Except for two isolated supply chain disruptions in Europe and Americas in the quarter, Autoliv’s supply chain showed sequential improvement.”