Report
Press release
Margin guidance met on 2% organic sales growth
(Stockholm, Oct. 23, 2012) – – – For the three-month period ended September 30, 2012, Autoliv Inc. (NYSE: ALV and SSE: ALIV.Sdb) – the worldwide leader in automotive safety systems – reported an operating margin, excluding costs for capacity alignments and antitrust investigations, of 10.1% and an operating profit of $197 million, which was in line with its guidance despite organic sales growth of 2% instead of the expected “nearly 4%”. This lower than expected growth was primarily due to the accelerating decline in the European market and a customer labor strike in South Korea.
Consolidated sales declined by slightly more than 3% to $1,947 million due to negative currency effects of 5%. Operating income amounted to $187 million with an operating margin of 9.6%. Income before taxes amounted to $175 million, net income to $118 million and earnings per share assuming dilution to $1.23.
Cash flow from operations amounted to $131 million and to $32 million before financing.
For the fourth quarter, we expect an organic sales growth in the range of 0-2% and flat consolidated sales with an operating margin of around 9%, excluding costs for capacity alignments and the antitrust investigations. The expected organic sales growth is lower than indicated in July primarily due to the accelerated deterioration in European LVP and the tension between Japan and China affecting the Japanese vehicle manufacturers in China.
In response to the accelerating drop in European LVP, we expect our capacity alignment costs for the full year 2012 to reach the higher end of the $60-80 million range we communicated in July.
An earnings conference call will be held at 3:00 p.m. (CET) today, October 23. 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.