STOCKHOLM--April 26, 2013: Regulatory News:
Autoliv, Inc. (STO:ALIVSDB)
Sales: $2,135 million
EPS: $1.29
Cash Flow: $141 million
For the three-month period ended March 31, 2013, Autoliv, Inc. -- the worldwide leader in automotive safety systems -- reported an operating margin, excluding costs for capacity alignments and antitrust investigations, of 8.8%, beating our guidance of "around 8%". On the same basis, operating income amounted to $187 million.
Consolidated sales declined by 2% to $2,135 million and organic sales by slightly less than 1%. The organic sales decline was more than 3 percentage points (pp) better than our guidance of a 4% decline. Operating income amounted to $182 million with an operating margin of 8.5%, including costs for the antitrust investigations and capacity alignments totaling almost $5 million. Income before taxes amounted to $170 million, net income to $125 million and earnings per share assuming dilution to $1.29.
For the second quarter Autoliv's consolidated and organic sales are expected to grow by around 3%, compared to the same quarter of 2012, with an expected operating margin around 8.5% excluding costs for capacity alignments and antitrust investigations. The indication for the full year 2013 is for an organic sales growth in the range of 2% to 4%, a slight upward revision of the previous indication of 1% to 3%. The indication for an operating margin of around 9%, excluding costs for capacity alignments and antitrust investigations, remains unchanged.
Comments from Jan Carlson, President and CEO "I am very pleased with Autoliv's performance in the first quarter, both sales and margins were higher than we expected at the beginning of the year. A good model mix and higher sales in China were the primary areas of strength, but smaller sales declines than expected in Europe and South Korea also contributed. It is especially rewarding to see that our long-term investments in China continue to pay off as evidenced by our quarterly growth of 24% in China, outperforming the Chinese light vehicle production (LVP) by more than 10 pp.
We continued to execute on our cost control strategies by streamlining manufacturing, consolidating our supplier base, increasing the level of components sourced in low-cost countries and implementing productivity improvement programs. We are also actively pursuing our capacity alignment program, as we do not see any signs of improvements in Western European LVP. In this environment we also continue to focus on our strategy of growing the company, especially in China and the area of active safety products while continuing our focus on quality and innovation."
An earnings conference call will be held at 2:30 p.m. (CET) today, April 26. To follow the webcast or to obtain the pin code and phone number, please access Autoliv . The conference slides will be available on our web site as soon as possible following the publication of this earnings report.
