Autoliv: Financial Report January - March 2015
April 22 2015 - 6:43AM
Business Wire
Strong organic sales growth in Europe and improved adjusted
operating margin
Regulatory News:
Autoliv AB (NYSE:ALV) (STO:ALIVSDB)
For the three-month period ended March 31, 2015, Autoliv, Inc.
(NYSE: ALV and SSE: ALIV.Sdb) – the worldwide leader in automotive
safety systems – reported consolidated sales of $2,174 million.
Quarterly organic sales* grew by close to 4%. The adjusted
operating margin* was 8.9% (for non-U.S. GAAP measures see enclosed
reconciliation tables).
The expectation at the beginning of the quarter was for organic
sales growth of “around 3%” and an adjusted operating margin of
“around 8%”. The higher than expected sales growth came mainly from
strong sales in Europe. The reported operating margin of 3.7% was
negatively affected by antitrust related settlements and the
on-going capacity alignment in Europe by a total of around $113
million.
For the second quarter of 2015, the Company expects organic
sales to increase by around 6% and an adjusted operating margin of
around 9%. The expectation for the full year is for organic sales
growth of more than 6% and an adjusted operating margin of around
9.5%.
Key Figures
For Key Figures summary table, please refer to the full report
at
http://news.cision.com/autoliv/r/financial-report-january---march-2015,c9760648.
Comments from Jan Carlson, Chairman, President & CEO
“I am pleased with our first quarter performance. Organic sales
and adjusted operating margin were both stronger than anticipated
at the beginning of the quarter. These positive developments were
primarily driven by strong sales in Europe, for both passive and
active safety products, coupled with lower than anticipated
overhead costs.
For the quarter we again experienced strong growth in active
safety and we continue to grow the business while investing in
research and development for long term success in this growth
area.
As anticipated, our sales in China showed modest growth in the
quarter. This was due to a challenging customer mix first
experienced in the second half of 2014, which we expect will
gradually improve throughout 2015.
We have continued to adjust our capital structure and we have
now reached a leverage ratio for the Company of 0.5 times, which is
within our long-term target range of 0.5 to 1.5 times originally
communicated at our Capital Market Day in 2013. This has primarily
been achieved by direct shareholder returns through share
repurchases and dividends. In our cyclical industry this range
gives us flexibility to grow the Company while being prepared for
potential costs associated with on-going antitrust matters.
During the quarter we made progress in our antitrust related
matters by reaching additional settlements and we continued to
execute on our European capacity alignment program, which is
important for the long term competitiveness of our European
operations. We further executed well on our improvements in
steering wheels and on our vertical integration strategy while our
operations in Brazil remains a challenge due to the continued
declining vehicle production.
We continue into 2015 with strong focus on quality leadership,
execution and further buildup of our active safety capabilities,
while working towards our ultimate vision of saving more
lives.”
An earnings conference call will be held at 3:00 p.m. (CET)
today, April 22. To follow the webcast or to obtain the pin code
and phone number, please access www.autoliv.com. The conference
slides will be available on our web site as soon as possible
following the publication of this earnings report.
This information was brought to you by Cision
http://news.cision.com
AutolivThomas J�nssonVice President CommunicationsTel +46 (8) 58
72 06 27
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