Autoliv (NYSE:ALV) released second-quarter financial results and hosted an earnings call on Friday. Read the complete transcript below.
This content is powered by Benzinga APIs. For comprehensive financial data and transcripts, visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/.
Access the full call at https://edge.media-server.com/mmc/p/5a227u8d/
Summary
Autoliv delivered record second-quarter sales and adjusted operating income, demonstrating resilience and a strong market position despite a challenging environment.
The company announced strategic cooperation agreements with leading Chinese vehicle manufacturers to bolster growth and competitiveness in China and globally.
Autoliv plans to discontinue its manufacturing operations in Turkey by 2028, affecting 2,200 employees, with production being consolidated in other EMEA facilities to optimize costs.
Full-year 2026 guidance is maintained, with expectations of flat organic sales and an adjusted operating margin of 10.5% to 11%, despite a predicted global light vehicle production decline of 2.5%.
Cash flow improved significantly, with a record operating cash flow for Q2 of $434 million, supporting shareholder returns through share repurchases and dividends.
The company is focusing on managing geopolitical risks and raw material cost pressures, with anticipated recovery of costs and compensations in the fourth quarter.
Sales growth was driven by strong performance in Asia, notably a 40% outperformance in China and 36% organic sales growth in India.
Autoliv's leverage ratio improved, and the company has a strong balance sheet to support continued shareholder returns.
Operational highlights include a new Innovation Center in Sweden to accelerate innovation and support long-term growth.
Full Transcript
OPERATOR
Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Autoliv Second Quarter 2026 Financial Results Conference call. At this time all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session you will need to press Star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press Star one and one again.
Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Anders Strap. Please go ahead.
Anders Strap, VP Investor Relations
Thank you, Sandra. Welcome everyone to our second quarter 2026 earnings call. On this call we have our President and Chief Executive Officer Mikael Bratt, our Chief Financial Officer Monica Girama, and me, Anders Strap, VP, Investor Relations. During today's earnings call, we will highlight several key areas including our strong performance despite the challenging market environment. We will provide an update on our structural cost reduction initiatives in EMEA, an update on the latest market development, our full-year guidance, and the potential impact of ongoing geopolitical challenges.
Following the presentation, we will be available to answer your questions as usual. The slides are available on autoliv.com. Turning to the next slide, we have the Safe Harbor Statement which is an integrated part of this presentation and includes the Q&A that follows. During the presentation, we will reference non-GAAP measures. The reconciliations of historical GAAP to non-GAAP measures are disclosed in our quarterly earnings release available on Autoliv.com and in the 10-Q that will be filed with the SEC and also at the end of this presentation.
Lastly, I should mention that this call is intended to conclude at 3:00 pm Central European Time, so please follow a limit of two questions per person. I now hand it over to our CEO, Mikael Bratt.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Thank you, Anders. Looking at the next slide, we delivered a record second quarter both for sales and adjusted operating income, underscoring the resilience of our company and the strength of our market position. Supported by strong customer partnerships and a relentless focus on continuous improvement, we have built solid momentum for the rest of the year. During the quarter, we also navigated geopolitical developments effectively, mitigating the impact of tariffs, supply chain disruptions, and raw material cost volatility.
As you might have seen in the report and will hear from us during this call, we had several positive and negative one-time items in the quarter. This includes a supplier settlement reversal from Q3 2025, an IIPA refund, government income in India, an impairment charge related to restructuring activities in Turkey, and a reversed expected credit loss reserve. Combined, these items have virtually no impact on the adjusted operating margin and only a slight negative impact on the top line.
Our positive sales momentum in Asia continued during the quarter. In China, we once again outperformed light vehicle production, driven by strong growth with Chinese OEMs where our sales outperformed by more than 40 percentage points. In India, we grew sales by 36% organically, reflecting mainly the trend of increased safety content in vehicles. In India, adjusted operating income and margin improvement improved despite raw material headwinds, particularly higher helium prices.
The strong performance was primarily driven by higher sales and well-executed activities to improve efficiency and costs. I am pleased that our cash flow improved in line with our expectations, resulting in record operating cash flow for the second quarter and supporting our ambitious shareholder return strategy. Despite repurchasing over 1.6 million shares for US$200 million and paying a dividend of US$64 million, our leverage ratio improved to 1.
During the quarter, we announced additional structural cost initiatives which we will elaborate on in the next slide. Based on what we know today, we reiterate our full-year 2026 guidance of flat organic sales. With continued significant outperformance of light vehicle production in both China and India, we continue to expect an adjusted operating margin of around 10.5 to 11%. This is based on the assumption that global light vehicle production will decline by around 2.5% and that the gross headwind from raw materials is around US$110 million.
I'm also proud that we signed strategic cooperation agreements with leading Chinese vehicle manufacturers. These agreements mark important milestones in our strategy to expand with leading Chinese vehicle manufacturers and further demonstrate the competitiveness of our safety solutions. They strengthen our position as a trusted safety partner and create a strong platform for sustainable long-term growth both in China and globally as they expand their footprint.
Looking now at our continued cost reduction activities on the next slide, to strengthen our competitiveness and support our financial targets, we are continuing our global structural cost reduction initiatives. As a part of this effort, we have decided to gradually discontinue our manufacturing operations in Turkey, which today produce steering wheels, airbags, and seatbelts. Production will be transferred to our existing facilities across the EMEA region, allowing us to optimize our manufacturing footprint while maintaining our ability to serve customers efficiently.
This decision is expected to affect approximately 2,200 employees. The transition will take place over the coming years with the complete closure anticipated during the first half of 2028. From a financial perspective, we expect total restructuring charges of approximately US$142 million, of which US$90 million was recognized in the second quarter of 2026. Cash out is expected to be approximately US$129 million with a limited impact on our 2026 cash flow.
Importantly, this initiative is expected to generate annual pre-tax savings of approximately US$40 million with benefits beginning to materialize in 2027 and reaching the full run rate in 2028. Overall, this action is an important step in improving our cost competitiveness and is supporting us in achieving our financial targets. Looking now at the next slide, second quarter sales increased by approximately 3% year over year driven by outperformance relative to light vehicle production along with favorable currency effects partly offset by lower tariff-related compensations.
The adjusted operating income for Q2 increased by 7% to US$270 million. The adjusted operating margin was 9.6%, 30 basis points higher. Operating cash flow was a strong US$434 million, an increase of US$157 million. Looking at the next slide, we continue to deliver broad-based improvements. Our positive direct labor productivity trend continues. This is supported by the implementation of our strategic initiatives including automation and digitalization.
Gross profit increased by US$8 million while the gross margin decreased by 30 basis points mainly due to the reversal of a supplier settlement. The decline in gross margin from 18.5% to 18.2% was driven by a supplier compensation reversion and asset impairment related to the Turkey restructuring which combined reduces gross margin by almost 80 basis points. R&D and E net increased year over year primarily on negative currency translation effects, higher personnel costs, and lower engineering income due to the timing of specific customer development projects.
SGA decreased by US$7 million mainly due to a reverse estimate of credit loss reserves, partly offset by negative FX translation effects in relation to sales. SGA improved by 40 basis points to 4.9%. Looking now at the market development in the second quarter on the next slide, according to S&P Global's July data, global light vehicle production declined by 0.3% in the second quarter, approximately 160 basis points better than expected in April. Stronger than expected performance in North and South America, Europe, India, and South Korea helped offset softer production levels in China.
The global regional LVP mix was approximately 60 basis points unfavorable in the quarter, primarily driven by stronger slightly liquid production in lower content markets relative to other markets during the quarter. Volatility improved year over year but declined slightly sequentially driven by weaker development in China. We will talk about the market development more in detail later in the presentation. Looking now at our sales growth in more detail on the next slide, our consolidated quarterly net sales exceeded US$2.8 billion for the second time in our history.
This was approximately US$19 million higher than in the prior year, primarily driven by a positive currency translation effect of US$62 million. This benefit was partly offset by approximately US$5 million of lower tariff-related compensations mainly due to an IIPA-related refund of 9.6 million. During the quarter, excluding currencies, our organic sales grew US$27 million or by 1% including negative tariff cost compensation. Based on the latest light vehicle production data from S&P Global, we outperformed the market by over 1 percentage point.
Globally, our outperformance was significant in Asia. In Asia, including China, we outperformed the market by 6 percentage points driven by continued strong sales growth in India where we outperformed by around 20 percentage points. Japan and South Korea also contributed to the outperformance. In China, we delivered outperformance of more than 7 percentage points, supported by strong sales growth with Chinese OEMs whose production grew over 40 percentage points faster than light vehicle production.
As a result, the Chinese OEMs accounted for 55% of our sales in China in the quarter compared to 40% last year. The negative performance in the Americas can partly be attributed to lower tariff compensation following the IIPA refund as well as an unfavorable mix driven by strong liquidity production growth in lower content South American markets. Globally, sharing Suzuki Niyo were the largest drivers of sales growth during the quarter. Despite the light vehicle production decline in China, China accounted for 90% of sales.
Asia excluding China also accounted for 19%, Americas for 32%, and EMEA for 30%. The second quarter of 2026 saw a high number of new launches primarily in China with both Chinese and other wins. These new China launches reflect strong momentum for Autoliv in this important market. Higher CPV is driven by front center airbags on many of these new vehicles. In terms of Autoliv's sales potential, the Nio ES9 is the most significant in the quarter. For the rest of 2026, we expect a high number of new product launches mainly driven by Chinese OEMs, offsetting fewer launches in the Americas and Europe.
Let's continue with the next slide. I will now hand over to Monika.
Monika Nanderez
Thank you, Michael. I will talk about the financials more in detail on the next slide. Turning to the next slide, this slide highlights our key figures for the second quarter of 2026 compared to the same quarter of 2025. Our net sales were 2.8 billion, representing a 3% increase. Gross profit increased by 8 million, and gross margin decreased by 30 basis points. The drivers behind the gross profit improvement were mainly positive FX effects and lower cost for materials.
This was partly offset by 13 million in costs for a supplier compensation reversal and 9 million in asset impairments related to the restructuring facility. The adjusted operating income increased from 251 million to 200, and the adjusted operating margin increased from 9.3% to 9.6%. The reported operating income of 192 million was 78 million lower than the adjusted operating income, mainly due to higher capacity alignment activities. The adjusted earnings per share diluted increased by 20 through 23 cents to $2.43.
The main drivers were 18 cents from higher operating income, 10 cents from a lower number of outstanding shares diluted, partly offset by 7 cents from higher taxes. Our adjusted return on capital employed and adjusted return on equity were solid at 25% and 28% respectively. We repurchased shares of 200 million and paid a dividend of $0.87 per share. Looking now at the adjusted operating income bridge on the next slide, in the second quarter of 2026, our adjusted operating income increased by 18 million.
Operations contributed 61 million, primarily driven by higher organic sales and cost reductions supported by better call-off stability. This was partly offset by 15 million in costs for a supplier compensation reversal, excluding 6 million of FX translation effects and the supplier compensation reversal. R&D net and HGA increased by 6 million, partly driven by 5 million lower R&D reimbursement. During the quarter, we recovered approximately 83% of our US tariffs costs, excluding IPA-related recoveries, bringing our year-to-date recovery rate to 78%.
The combination of unrecovered tariffs and the dilutive effect of the recovered portion was around 20 basis points negative. However, compared to last year, it was a positive impact of around 15 basis points as the negative effect of last year was around 35 basis points. Looking now at cash flow on the next slide, operating cash flow for the second quarter was 434 million, an increase of 157 million. This change was primarily driven by a positive working capital impact of $240 million.
The working capital contribution reflects a normalization following the first quarter increase, which was largely driven by the high sales level in March 2026 and several adverse one-time impacts. The improvement was primarily attributable to changes in accounts payable of 120 million, net receivables of 35 million, and accrued severance and restructuring costs of 48 million. Free operating cash flow improved by 177 million to 340 million year-to-date, operating cash flow increased by 4 million to 359 million, and free operating cash flow improved by 31 million to 178 million.
Compared to the prior year, capital expenditures net for the quarter decreased by 19 million. Capital expenditures net in relation to sales was 3.4% versus 4.2% a year earlier. The lower level of capital expenditures net is mainly related to lower footprint optimization and less capacity expansion. The cash conversion for the last 12 months was 119%, exceeding our target of at least 80%. Now looking at our debt leverage on the next slide, Autoliv's balanced leverage strategy reflects our prudent financial management, enabling resilience, innovation, and sustained stakeholder value over time.
Our leverage ratio improved from 1.3 to 1.2 times during the quarter despite shareholder returns totaling 264 million. Our net debt decreased by around 75 million in the quarter, while the 12-month trailing adjusted EBITDA increased by 33 million. On to the next slide. I will now hand it back to Mikael.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Thank you, Monika. I will talk about the outlook for 2026 more in detail on the next few slides. Turning to the next slide, overall, S&P Global expects global light vehicle production to decline by 2.3% in 2026, representing an almost 2 percentage point downward revision from its January forecast. The downgrade is primarily driven by lower production expectations in China and the Middle East, while many other markets continue to demonstrate notable demand resilience.
In Europe, light vehicle production is expected to decline by nearly 1%, reflecting growing affordability challenges and increasing competition from Chinese imports. For North America, S&P Global has revised its outlook upward and now expects production to decline by only 1% in 2026. The market continues to display resilience despite uncertainty related to the conflict in the Middle East and the higher fuel prices. S&P Global has lowered its outlook for China light vehicle production by 4 percentage points since January and now expects a 5% decline in 2026.
The weaker outlook reflects a challenging demand environment driven by reduced government incentives, ongoing macroeconomic headwinds, and increasingly cautious consumer sentiment. Despite continued strength in vehicle exports, S&P Global has revised its light vehicle production outlook upward for both Japan and South Korea and now expects production to decline by only 1% and 2% respectively. The improved outlook reflects strengthening exports to the US and Europe, supported by robust demand for fuel-efficient hybrid electric vehicles.
India's light vehicle production is expected to increase by 9%, driven by a reduction in purchase taxes on new vehicles, which benefit smaller and lower-priced models. However, escalating geopolitical tension in the Persian Gulf continues to increase risks across the automotive value chain, with potential implications for energy prices, consumer sentiment, supply chain stability, raw material availability, and overall industry volumes. Now looking at the second half-year development on the next slide, as we look ahead to the second half of the year, we remain focused on managing a dynamic external environment.
We are closely monitoring the potential impact of geopolitical developments in and around the Persian Gulf, which could affect supply chains, raw material costs, and overall vehicle demand. Our 2026 guidance currently assumes a gross raw material headwind of approximately 110 million US dollars, and we continue to evaluate multiple scenarios as the situation evolves. Despite these challenges, we expect margin expansions to be supported by FX, engineering income, and customer compensations for the third quarter.
We expect the adjusted operating margin to be similar to the first half-year level. Importantly, customer compensation, engineering income, and other mitigation initiatives are expected to be weighted toward the fourth quarter, resulting in a significant step-up in profitability in the fourth quarter. Therefore, the earnings trajectory in 2026 is expected to be similar to that of 2023 and 2024, reflecting both the timing of anticipated compensations and a typical seasonal ramp-up in profitability and operating leverage.
Now looking at the updated full-year guidance on the next slide, this slide shows our full-year guidance, which excludes effects from capacity alignment and antitrust-related matters. It is based on no material changes to tariffs or trade restrictions that are in effect as of July 9, 2026, as well as no significant changes in the macroeconomic environment or changes in customer call-off volatility or significant supply chain disruptions. We expect to outperform light vehicle production by around 2.5 percentage points, as our organic sales are expected to be flat while global light vehicle production is expected to decline by 2.5%.
The net currency translation effect on sales is expected to be around 2.3% positive. The guidance for adjusted operating margin is around 10.5% to 11%. Operating cash flow is expected to be around US$1.2 billion, and we expect capex to be below 5% of sales. Our positive cash flow and strong balance sheet support our continued commitment to a high level of shareholder returns. We expect a tax rate of around 30%. This concludes our formal comments for today's earnings call, and we would like to open the line for questions from analysts and investors. I now hand it back to our operator.
OPERATOR
Sandra, thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, please press star 11 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press 1 and 1 again. We will now take the first question from the line of Colleen Langan from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.
Colleen Langan, Analyst at Wells Fargo
Oh, great. Thanks for taking my questions. You know, if I look at your comments about the cadence of margins, I think you had previously said it'd be more linear. Now it sounds, I think the math is something like you need a 15% margin in Q4 to kind of get to the midpoint of your full-year guidance. What changed and how should we think about raw material costs? I think year-to-date you had 26 million. Is that a similar number in Q3? And is all of that recovered in Q4?
And is that why we have this? Is that a big driver of the Q4 spike, the recovery of all that raw material in Q4?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Thank you for the question there. I mean, as you said, when we started this year, our expectation was that we should see more of a, let's say, normal traditional sequence of how the quarters played out in the year. And now we're talking about it being more back-end loaded. The reason why it's more back-end loaded is because we see the inflationary pressure here in the value chain as a result of the Persian Gulf situation. So I think what has changed is really that upward pressure on the cost side.
For us, as you know, we don't buy raw material directly, so it's through our supply chain and we have a timeline there. But we also have, I should say, a diluting effect of the hype of it as well. But we need to get that through and then enter into the negotiations with our customers here on the price adjustments. The way of working is very similar to what we saw during the inflationary years, then 23, 24 as we refer to here. So that is really the change compared to when we talked about it before.
Let me just say that also, I mean, I feel very comfortable in how this trajectory looks like, because first of all, we have done it before. Secondly, we are very focused around the different activities to secure the outcome here. Meaning that it's a combination, of course, of our internal work here to drive efficiency and cost improvement in general. And here we also, as we state in the report, have a good momentum in what we do there. That's why we feel comfortable here to retain and maintain the full-year guidance, and then in combination with discussions where you have daily time with our customers.
Also here, I would say we have well-established routines to manage that. So yeah, I mean, we have clear activities here to do and have confidence in our ability to work on that.
Colleen Langan, Analyst at Wells Fargo
And we should expect almost 100% of the raw materials recovered. Just to clarify, or is there still some exposure net for the year because of timing?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
No, I mean it's a combination of, let's call it self-help, meaning that we need of course to do our bit here with making sure that we don't let through everything from our suppliers here. So we're working with our suppliers to make sure that we are as efficient as possible in this environment there. And then we have also cost-out activities internally in the company. And then the third leg is the price adjustments with our customers here. So as you know, the price negotiations with the customers is also very detailed.
It's not a general percentage adjustment. It is really down to the component level here to see how the different components have been impacted by customers. So hence the lead time also. But there are several levers to work with how to offset the inflation.
Colleen Langan, Analyst at Wells Fargo
Got it. Just last question. You lowered production from one to down two and a half. What is the offset? Is that better growth over market and where are you seeing that sort of better than expected growth that's offsetting the production weakness? Is that maybe a geographic mix help?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
No, I think, I mean what we see here is of course is that we have a positive mix with how the market is developing and we also have good growth with our Chinese customers here. India is also contributing here. So I think we are in the right places here to capture the growth that actually is out there.
Colleen Langan, Analyst at Wells Fargo
Got it. All right, thanks for taking my questions.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Emmanuel Roessner from Wolfe. Please go ahead.
Emmanuel Roessner, Analyst at Wolfe
Great. Thank you so much. One follow-up on the cadence please. Are you expecting, just to be clear, are you expecting most of the mitigating impact from the recoveries and from your own self-help to happen in the fourth quarter? I'm just trying to understand the delta between what you're saying for Q3 margins and then what maybe consensus expectations were. That's probably like $35 million Delta. Like just curious, if are these unmitigated headwinds in Q3 and then you get it all back in Q4?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
No, I mean the majority is in Q4. I think that's how you should read it. I mean, of course we are managing part of it in the third quarter, but as a natural progression. Also if you look at the engineering income, it's mainly in the, in the fourth quarter rather than in the third quarter. So I think that's quite naturally. So it's really engineering income. It is also the higher customer compensation that we talk about here for the inflation. And I think also if you look at the sales position, it's, it's also for remainder of the year also geared towards the fourth quarter. So that's really the reason for that.
Emmanuel Roessner, Analyst at Wolfe
Understood. And then can you give us a little bit more color on the IPA refund dynamics? I wasn't able to follow exactly to what extent it helped your EBIT in the quarter and what you expect on a full year basis.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
So right now in the quarter we got back around $12 million from the government which we largely passed on to our customers, around 9 million. So we retain a positive impact of 3 million in the net result. And as mentioned previously, our aim is to recover the tariffs or the net impact of the tariffs on year to date to a large extent on year to go and to reach a similar recovery rate that we had in the prior year which was around 5%.
Emmanuel Roessner, Analyst at Wolfe
Understood. Thank you very much.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Tom Narayan from RVC. Please go ahead.
Tom Narayan, Analyst at RVC
Yeah, hi. Thanks for taking the question. I have a follow-up to Colin's question on the growth over market. I remember at the investor day in Sweden we heard a story about how we're going to see good growth over market coming from increasing content per vehicle, especially from emerging markets. You are calling for 2.5% growth over market this year. I know there are some offsets. Notably Americas in this past quarter was down 5%. So I just wanted to understand that a little bit more.
I know in the report there was a call out of South America which had I guess lower content per vehicle and then on replacement vehicles. But does this mean that the growth in South America were happening in vehicles with no safety content? It's just wondering why it would be down 5%. I know that's versus a very strong market level in South America. But you know, if you have any safety content, I would think it would be up. I just want to understand that better and then I will follow up.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Yeah, I mean, let me start to recap here because I mean when we talk about the growth and the capital markets that you mentioned here, I mean it was really three significant buckets we talked about one was LVP 1 to 2% it was then the content that's 1 to 2. So I mean if you imagine a flat LVP, you had a content growth there of 1 to 2% on top of that. And what we're talking about now here is really that we, we see a market that is down with 2 1/2 percent, the LVP portion of it.
And then of course we have mix effect here connected to the content very much. And what we talk about here is when South America is growing and us, if we stay in America, so to speak, as to simplify a little bit, which is the high content is flat or even would go down, of course you have, even if you have growth in South America content, it's not enough to offset what's going down in the high content markets. So there, of course you get a negative mix effect on the content side.
So long story short, we definitely see that the content growth is there and we see also how, you know, both, let's call it, the low content markets are growing in the content as well as the high content over time here. And when we talk about India specifically, it's very much so that it's a content driven growth that we see. I mean the last two years the content have grown sequentially with 20% two years in a row. So strong growth there. So what we try to convey there, capital market definitely still holds here, but unfortunately you have a mix effect here that is not giving you the full potential here.
Tom Narayan, Analyst at RVC
Okay, understood. And then my follow up, I guess what was, I guess the rationale to move production from Turkey to EMEA? Was it cost saves coming from a plant? Maybe that wasn't as automated. Was it labor? I guess what was driving that decision?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Thanks. No, I think, I mean we constantly review our global footprint and here we talk about EMEA where we have over the last couple of years taken significant steps to, you know, consolidate our activities and optimize them as we move forward. And that's something we have done and we continue to do going forward also to make sure that we have the most competitive setup. And we saw here now that with the opportunity to continue to consolidate capacity into other sites in Europe, we have a strong business case to do so.
And you have seen the numbers and you know the numbers here. And that's of course a tough decision to take and painful for our colleagues in Turkey that have done a great job over the years. But we need of course to make sure that we maintain our competitiveness. So we are moving some to our Tunisian operations that has been a growing plant over the last couple of years here. And we're also moving into other sites in Europe and Romania, for example.
So it's to continue to sharpen our position.
Tom Narayan, Analyst at RVC
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Winnie Dong from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Winnie Dong, Analyst at Deutsche Bank
Hi. Thanks so much for taking my question. I just wanted to follow up on your production assumption for the full year a little bit more. So now you're assuming 2.5% decline. Previously you were at 1%. I think lately IHS actually improved algo a little bit. So I just wanted to understand if there's a mixed situation that's going on and if you can help us triangulate, you know, what you're seeing and if you're just, you know, truing up to what the market is trending towards. Thank you.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Yeah, thank you for your question. I think, I mean, S and P Now is at minus 2.3. We are 2.5. I would say that's about the same level. It's more than difference here. And I mean, the big move you could say here is that we have seen a more weakening, deeper weakening in China than expected here to some extent, also the Middle East, but Middle East is still a very small part of the total picture. I think it's less than 2% when you talk about Middle East, Africa here.
So I mean, it's really about the weaker weakening in China, domestic sales there and domestic corporations. That is the change since we talked last time.
Winnie Dong, Analyst at Deutsche Bank
Okay, okay, gotcha. Thanks, that's helpful. And you do have very good momentum happening in China. And I know it's kind of difficult to delineate the strength between domestic, which is seeing a lot of weakness right now, but export is actually very, very. But is there like a general framework on how we can think about how much the exports is actually contributing to your outgrowth in China?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
I think it's. I mean, it's not really. I mean, for us it's all domestic. You could say that we're delivering in there because we don't have separate value chains or separate setups if it's an export vehicle or it's a domestic. So we don't really see that split from our perspective. So. So for us, it's all domestic sales to domestic plants. But I mean, you're absolutely correct here that the production level is holding up better than what the sales, domestic sales to the end consumer would indicate.
So our China operation is definitely supported by the export here. And yeah, I think we will see going forward here. But when we talk about the adjustments we just mentioned here to the minus 2.5, it's the net effect of that.
Winnie Dong, Analyst at Deutsche Bank
Of course. Gotcha. Thank you so much.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Hampus and Galaof Mohandels Vanken. Please go ahead.
Hampus and Galaof Mohandels Vanken
Thank you very much. One question for me. It's relegating to the Turkey production closure, but also going back to your capacity line and programs in Europe. I'm sorry, set clap that about that initially was about 8,000 people and this is additional 2,200 people. I'm just trying to understand where you are now in terms of headcount and where you see demand trending in. Is this a part of the optimization program that you have been running since 2019 or is it also that you say that you need less capacity or have had too much capacity? Interesting to hear your thoughts on these different parameters. Thank you.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Thank you. Ampos, I think as I alluded to before, I mean it's a constant review of how to optimize your production facilities and when it's not like we had overcapacity necessary in Turkey, but we had an overcapacity in the whole system here where we saw opportunities to consolidate even further. And I mean, you're correct in the way to say that the optimization definitely contributes to our opportunity to, to put more into the existing plants somewhere else.
And when you drive the optimization, you can also, you know, create the flexibility we have talked about before. And we can also see that with an efficient, optimized and flexible setup, you need less square meter to produce the same amount. So, so when you harvest that, so to speak, you come to this kind of decisions every now and then where you're actually looking at the complete site and by then consolidating it in. So it's a way of harvesting the continuous improvement or also the step changes that we've seen as a result of new technologies.
Hampus and Galaof Mohandels Vanken
Thank you.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Itai Michaeli from TD Cohen. Please go ahead.
Itai Michaeli, Analyst at TD Cohen
Great. Thank you everybody. Just two follow-ups for me. Just first, back to the margin guidance. Just given the updated cadence for the year, is there any bias at this point towards the lower half or upper half of your full year margin range?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
No, as you see here, we haven't expressed an upper or lower end or any more precision than what we have here, which is within the range of around 10 and a half to 11. And I think, I mean, if you ask me, which I think you do, why we are not more precise here, it is really that we see with everything going on here that there is difficult to be more precise than what we are with the interval here. And I think the interval here reflects the volatility in the market, so to say, and uncertainty when it comes to the market in whole and also the inflation pressure here, if it's a long-term thing or if it's more of a short-term thing.
So, but with what we see right now, this is the best judgment we can do now that we should be within that range.
Dan Levy, Analyst at Barclays
That's helpful, thank you. And as a quick follow-up, can you maybe comment on order intake trends in the quarter if you've seen any improvement there and maybe how just like order intake the last couple of years just maybe impacts how we should think about your growth over market in Americas and Europe, say over the next 12 to 24?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Yeah, I mean, we don't disclose any details around current order intake. More than I can say that I feel comfortable that we have activities in that area that support depending on market share here, which is around 45%. I would say, as always, you start out the year where you have a lot of indications that it will be at a certain level. And then as the year plays out, some things are then being pushed out to the next year, meaning that the OEMs decide to delay the decisions and so on.
And in this circumstances that we have right now, with a lot of questions around the sentiment in the market, the driveline issues and so on that we saw taking place maybe a year, year and a half ago when some reshuffling in the model programs took place. I would say to some extent that is partly still going on, but it is a reasonable activity level here when it comes to tenders that are out there. So all in all, I think we are in good shape here to defend our market share.
And I would say also activity level wise, it's a decent year from an OEM perspective in terms of activities.
Dan Levy, Analyst at Barclays
Great, that's very helpful. Thank you.
OPERATOR
Thank you. We will now take the next question from the line of Agnieszka Villela from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Monika Nanderez
Thank you. And hi Michael. Monica Nanderez. I have two questions starting with your growth of the Chinese OEMs. I mean you have been very successful increasing your sales towards them. And you announced also the new cooperation with Xpeng and Great Wall. Overall, do you expect that the growing China mix in your sales will have neutral, positive or negative impact on your group content per vehicle and on your profitability.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
As you know, the profitability part I can't go into any details here and as I normally say it's more platform program by a platform program than anything else. But in terms of our growth opportunities here, I definitely see this is very important and great opportunity to secure our future growth here. As you see in here, I mean we have grown from 22% of our China sales in 22 to 55% of our China sales now in Q2 at the same time as the China OEMs have taken their share of the light vehicle production from roughly 43% in 22 to 72% now in the second quarter of this year.
So the combination here of us increasing with them as well as they increasing their share of Latin production contributes very positively opposed to the growth but also to securing our position in China here as the market leader and also with the opportunities that may be in the future here also when the Chinese OEM so moving out their footprint to support local, more locally integrated in the different regions. But right now you could say it's mainly an export driven activity which also support us of course here in this and in the quarter here.
Four out of the eight fastest growing customers are Chinese OEMs. So it's very helpful. Absolutely. And important. And I think also yes, coming back to the agreements you referred to here, it's of course also very interesting opportunities for us also when it comes to driving innovation here because many of these customers are very innovative in terms of their expectations on the future interiors and I would say more advanced products to solve more challenging seating positions.
So very interesting from innovation point of view as well.
Monika Nanderez
Perfect, thank you for the caller. And the second question, coming back to growth, looking at your performance in H1, you outperformed the market by 2 percentage point. But just looking at what you guide for the full year, it looks like the outperformance needs to accelerate to 3 percentage point. Can you just give us any kind of reasons why and drivers behind this acceleration in outperformance and growth?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Yeah, I think FX is one part of it as well. And I think we have also talked here about before a slightly positive effect coming from the mix here because before we talked about more of a flat neutral region mix for 26 and now we're looking at, you know, say 40 basis points contribution coming from that as well. And then of course also you have some compensation activities here with our customers contributing slightly as well.
OPERATOR
Thank you, thank you, thank you. We will now take our final question from the line of Dan Levy from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Dan Levy, Analyst at Barclays
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking the question. Wanted to go back to the question or the point of recovery payments. Can you maybe just put this in context of, you know, how the recovery payments that you're getting or that you're planning to get on raw materials, how that's at all related to the other recovery payments you'd have on other inflationary measures, whether the two are linked. And you know, with automakers, you know, you've had a very good track record in the past of getting recoveries, but with automakers, especially in North America, tighter on pricing, is that at all playing any role in the types of conversations you're having, you know, the magnitude of recoveries?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Yeah, I wouldn't say that there is any difference in the dialogues today compared to what was, you know, in 25, 24, 23. Here it's never easy and it has never been. But once again, I think here, when it comes to, you know, the different buckets you're referring to here, I mean, tariffs is fairly straightforward, I would say, because that's something you have to pay when you cross the border and it's very easily connected to the value flows you have towards the customer.
Now with the 232, I mean, because we are mainly talking about the tariffs between Mexico and the US here, with the 232, it will be almost automized to a large extent when that is fully in effect. Engineering income is also something we talk about here as a part of the second half. That's also something that is part of ordinary course of business that we have been for years. So nothing strange there. And when it comes to the efficient compensation here, we see then the combination here of course that we need to do our part here together with our suppliers and our internal efficiency and then come to the customer.
So it's a mix of the three here and once again, it's a very detailed description down to the component level. And also here we are all hands on deck and established routines there. So I would almost call it business as usual, but maybe that's to describe it a little bit too simple. But we have a good way to deal with that part as well. And we are progressing as we speak here and no change either improved or deteriorated in terms of ability to do it.
Dan Levy, Analyst at Barclays
Thank you. And as a follow-up, I wanted to ask about the strategic cooperation frameworks you signed with Great Wall and Xiaopang. Could you just help us understand if you're aiming to set up additional agreements with other automakers and to what extent does this position you? Well, as you start to look at potential sourcing opportunities for these automakers in Europe, does that position you to the front as they start to, you know, give out awards?
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
No, of course. It's something that we constantly work with together with our customers. And we have had these type of agreements in the past also with others, I think communicated not that long ago. So they are important, I would say connected very much also to first of all the innovation opportunities here. Because it really means that we get very close to our customers here by working well in advance with new joint challenges here. As I said before, here, this different seating positions.
That is not traditional, but may come when you see autonomous vehicle increase eventually over time. But already today comfort is a key factor for many OEMs. Meaning that you should be able to sit more relaxed, lean back more than what the current setups allow you to do. So we call it the zero gravity seat. I think we are spoken about that here also in a few times. It's an opportunity. But before route you go, you could say with ambitions that some of the OEMs have here in terms of creating new interesting vehicles here you have to have more challenging solutions at the end of the day, which drives also content, I would say.
And it puts us up to be in the forefront on developing this new type of technologies that is needed in the future. So very, very interesting and great opportunity to support our customers in a good way.
OPERATOR
Great, thank you, thank you, thank you all the time. We have for questions today. I will now like to turn the conference back to Mikael Bratt for closing remarks.
Mikael Bratt, President and CEO
Thank you, Sandra. Let's look on the next slide here. Before we conclude today's call, I would like to highlight our new Innovation center in Volgoda, Sweden, which was inaugurated in June and represents an important investment in our future growth and technology. By bringing research, testing, prototyping and pilot production together in one location, the center will help accelerate innovation and shorten development cycles. The centre also expands collaboration with industry, academia and society, creating a strong platform for future innovation.
We believe this investment will support long-term growth, enhance our competitive position and help us save even more lives in the years ahead. Finally, the third quarter call is scheduled for Friday, October 23, 2026. Thank you for your attention and until next time, stay safe.
OPERATOR
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.
Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.
Login to comment