Félicie Burelle
Good morning. Welcome, everybody.
It's my pleasure, alongside Olivier Dabi, our CFO; and Stephanie Laval, in charge of Strategic Planning and Investor Relations, to welcome you here in Levallois and remotely for those who are connected to present you our first half of the year 2026 results. And we are even more pleased to host you that we believe we have a solid set of figures to present to you this morning despite, as you know, a very complex environment we are surrounded with.
And it's always a pleasure for me to see such a video before beginning because you actually realize all the impact that we can have and the strong achievements we have made in the last few months. I will actually start by coming back a bit on this complex market I was referring to because, as you know, last time we met was to present you the 2025 results.
And we entered the 2026 year thinking that the market would be more or less flat, which, as you know, is not the case because today, the forecast for the 2026 year is minus 2.3%. Many reasons for that.
The first one, as you know, we are still in this transformation of the automotive market, led principally by the electrification and technology-driven, but also because there are many other events throughout the world that are impacting the market. You have here the ones that for the last few months have been quite impactful for us, for the whole industry.
The first one is that we are in a fierce competition today in the automotive market, obviously, led by the Chinese market itself. I think you have noticed that for the first half of this year, the domestic Chinese market was minus 20% down in terms of sales.
But despite that, when you look at the export for the first half of this year, they were almost as much as for the whole 2025 year. So strong competition in China, but that is impacting the whole ecosystem and the whole industry globally.
And with this competitiveness topic being a key topic, key challenge for everybody. On top of that, in Europe, we are still pre-COVID level in terms of volumes.
And you have seen the many recent piece of news, a lot of heavy restructuring underway that we are carefully monitoring. As you know, we ourselves have a dynamic approach of restructuring each year, but it is notable to see that some of the news still are hard to assess in terms of what will be the impact in the years to come, but we are closely monitoring that, while at the same time, new entrants are making their way in Europe.
And as you have seen in the video, we are taking advantage of that. In parallel, the North American market, we'll come back to that is stable and for us is a good lever of growth.
But still, there is a lot of low visibility as the USMCA discussion will impact again this year, the market in the months to come. And finally, the Middle East situation, which had very little impact for us on Q1, more impact on Q2 like for the rest of the industry.
We thought we would have some stability in the months to come. But unfortunately, given the situation, we again have to monitor what could be the impact for the second half of the year.
So a market that overall for the first semester decreased by 1%, but with a lot of disparities and the big -- I would say, the big change versus what we anticipate at the beginning of the year is that the Chinese market went down pretty much significantly. In that context, what do we do?
We focus on what we know and what we can influence. The first one is to capitalize on our strengths.
You know we are pretty much local for local. So that's a big help when it comes to mitigating the impact of those events, and we really build up on this proximity with our customer.
At the same time, when it comes to the inflation on some of the costs we have had to incur mainly on the resin side, we keep on using what is in place when we can to mitigate the impacts with the legal framework that we have. We also have a good hedge mechanism in place when it comes to electricity, energy in general, so that we could also limit the impact.
And we also had to make some efforts in terms of monitoring some short-term costs that we have postponed, but nothing impacting, I would say, the overall strategy and the medium- to long-term commitments that we have made to our customers. At the same time, coming back to this topic of competitiveness, it's clearly the key.
It's linked to -- today, there is no growth without being more competitive in our market. So we have launched for some months now, and those are projects that will take several years, different projects to improve structurally our competitiveness, be it on how we have to develop our products.
So that comes to the R&D and the efficiency in terms of program development, and we'll come back to that. But it's also notably on all what is linked to manufacturing using more robotics, digitalization.
And here again, we have launched several initiatives. We will come back to that, that will bear fruit in the years to come and allow us to be more competitive for our customers.
Concretely, what it means for first half of the year. We managed again to show a slight growth in a decrease in market.
So strong resilience again of our business model. And this was mainly driven by the C-Power, the fuel tank activity and the ongoing recovery of our Lighting business.
I'm sure we will have questions on that topic afterwards. So all in all, when you look like-for-like sales, we had a slight increase of our sales of 0.2%, so again, versus a decrease in market of 1% -- this shows, again, I think, the relevance of our strategy, our business model, and we are managing to mitigate short-term and long-term strategy.
That enabled us to deliver a solid operating margin of 4.8% of our revenues, supported again by the core businesses, and that helped us to mitigate again some of the short-term impact that we had and also those transformation initiatives that we have launched recently. We keep on diversification.
It's technology, it's customer, but it's also a lot about being more regional. And while we consolidate still our position in Europe, we accelerate in North America and Asia globally, not only China, but also in the rest of Asia.
And it's actually those 2 regions that have led the growth in the first semester. All in all, we managed to generate a solid free cash flow and that enabled us again to decrease our net debt by EUR 90 million.
Coming back to where the growth and how it has evolved over the first half. So I said it, strong performance mainly in North America and both in U.S.
and Mexico, Canada, which was not the case at the end of the year. So strong growth in all the markets, mainly the fuel tank activity, again, slower electrification that benefited this activity, but not only C-Power, also our Module activity and our Lighting activity.
We told you that we would have a number of new launches over the first half. And indeed, it was the case that led to the growth that you can see on this slide.
Europe is a bit of a different tone, as you can see, but much of that was expected. We knew getting into 2026 that we would have less launch, and that's principally at the Exterior business level.
We only had 4 launch in the first semester, while last year, we had 11 when it comes to Exterior. We also had some small programs that were delayed, but that should recover in the second half of the year.
And when it comes to Asia, again, different trends. You can see in China, I was referring to the tough market situation, strong sales decrease in the market.
Here again, we would have to deep dive a bit more because when it comes to YFPO, which is our main activity in China, it's broadly -- it is in line with the market, minus 5%. So it's more the rest of the activities in China, mainly C-Power that drove this decrease.
While we are benefiting from a very good momentum in Japan, in Korea and in India on all the activities that we are present in those countries. A few highlights when it comes to the 2 big segments.
So the first one, which is all of the exterior solutions composed by Exterior Lighting and Modules. So I referred to the Exterior situation in Europe.
Again, that was expected. But still, we had good momentum in terms of launch and award.
You can see India, China. So again, confirming this pivoting in terms of customer portfolio that we are operating and that is really important to catch the growth to come.
And the return to growth for Lighting that was notably driven by some of the launch that you can see on this slide in our Monterrey plant and has been driving and will keep on driving because it was the case in H1, we had 7 launches, and we will have more in the second half of the year. So that will continue to fuel the recovery of the Lighting top line.
When it comes to Module, I was also referring to the fact that it was a good part of the growth in North America. We have this plant in Austin for this EV American OEM, 2 main programs, one that was launched last year that kept on -- that fueled the growth for the first semester compared to last year and a start of production of the robotaxi.
The start has been a bit lower than expected in terms of volume and in terms of complexity as well. And it will keep on ramping up by the end of this year.
And again, strong momentum in the rest of Asia with Chery and Kia as the main references for S1. Second segment, Powertrain.
So we have this strategy of being in a position to supply any type of storage for any type of energy. Again, here, some of the highlights of this first half of the year.
So strong activity in North America, but not only basically the fuel tank activity has been doing better in region over the first semester. You have here some of the key award, so nice runners that we have with Ford and Kia with, again, an award we are quite proud of this one because it was some years not that we have not succeeded to get an award for them in North America.
And several launches in Asia, also highlighting the strong dynamic in the rest of Asia. Battery pack, here, we entered supplying battery pack system for the heavy mobility.
You have here some references, Alstom, Siemens, Allison, when it comes to buses. But we are also entering now the passenger car market.
We announced this big award in the first half of the year for this Western OEM for North America, and we keep on working on developing this product line. And we have, again, many opportunities to come and ongoing RFQs in discussion with all OEMs in all regions.
And hydrogen -- we keep on rightsizing this activity. As you know, the momentum clearly is different when it comes to the different region.
We have stopped mainly all activities in North America. We have decreased a lot in Europe.
And now we are repositioning most of this activity in Asia, China in particular, where we have a strong activity again, and we have taken some good commercial program in China with some heavy-duty truck manufacturer that we believe will supply the Chinese market, but not only will export in Europe in the years to come. So those were the main highlights in terms of market and development of the commercial activity.
And I will now let Olivier Dabi comment the financial results.
Félicie Burelle
Olivier Dabi
Thank you, Félicie, and a very good morning to all of you in the room and connected remotely. I will comment the financial performance for S1, starting with the key highlights with our main KPIs and then providing more colors in the next few slides.
So overall, as it was commented, our S1 financial performance was extremely solid. This performance was achieved in a difficult market environment with the automotive industry deeply in transformation and with the impact of geopolitical tensions that we all know.
So overall, looking at our main KPIs, our operating margin for the semester stood at EUR 251 million, that's 4.8% of sales. Leveraging the performance of our core business and resistance of the inflation pressure throughout the value chain.
Our net result group share triple digit at EUR 102 million. That's an improvement of EUR 12 million versus last semester.
Our customary free cash flow performance with EUR 167 million of free cash flow for the semester, that's 3% (sic) [ 3.2% ] of sales. That's 3 straight years in which the group generated between EUR 160 million and EUR 170 million of free cash flow in the semester.
And as a result, in line with our strategy and objectives of deleveraging, the net debt of the group stood at EUR 1.3 billion. That's a EUR 90 million reduction versus the end of last year.
So again, results of profitable growth, cash generation, deleveraging and financial discipline in the management of our balance sheet. Let's now deep dive into each of these KPIs, starting with revenues.
So at group level, economic revenues increased by 0.4% in a market that was declining by 1%, again, reflecting the resilience of OPmobility and its strategy of diversification, both geography and technology. Economic revenues amounted to EUR 5.8 billion after taking into account a negative FX impact of 2.7%, mostly relating to the depreciation of the USD that impacted our Q1 sales mostly, but as well depreciation of the Korean won and the Indian rupee.
It also includes a minor perimeter impact since we strengthened the activity of our JV in China, YFPO, and we'll come back to this in a minute, in which both joint venture partners, OPmobility and Yanfeng contributed their modules and decorative lighting for a small scope impact and finally, the consolidated sales increased by 0.2% on a like-for-like basis this semester. Let's now look at the sales breakdown for each segment, starting first by Exterior & Lighting.
Exterior & Lighting in S1 '26 achieved sales of EUR 2.6 billion. That's a decrease of 2.9% on a like-for-like basis.
As Félicie was stating, exterior experienced some delays in product launches, mostly in Europe, while Lighting saw its sales increase in S1. The good order book after the acquisition of '23 and '24 started to flow through the top line with launches in North America and a continuous momentum in the second semester.
Modules sales were EUR 1.9 billion during this semester, again, growing by 2.4% on a like-for-like basis with strong volume in North America linked to the ramp-up of a new program in Austin as well as solid performance from our Korean JV with very good commercial momentum. Finally, Powertrain.
Powertrain was the growth engine of the group this semester with sales growing by close to 5% with very good development, commercial development in North America, in Europe and in the rest of Asia. So again, diversification strategy with each of the segments providing sales boost.
I'll continue with the operating margin, the main performance indicator of the group. Again, the operating margin for the group was 4.8% of revenues, fairly stable in S1 '26 versus S1 '25, thanks to the very good performance of our core business and a very good resistance of the inflation pressures across the value chain.
Félicie mentioned that we put in place all the pass-through clauses. And we also benefited from some of the locking hedging mechanism on energy in order to limit the increase on energy cost.
Looking at each segment profitability, starting by Exterior & Lighting. Exterior & Lighting, as you can see on the slide, increased its profitability from 5.2% to 5.8% with very good performance of Exterior and in line with the increase of the top line, an improvement as well on the Lighting operating margin.
Moving on to Modules. Modules achieved 2.2% operating margin this semester.
We have been saying in the last few results meetings that the operating margin of Modules was consistently increasing. But in this semester, the operating margin was impacted by a couple of launches in North America, Félicie mentioned it, as well as in Europe and product mix.
Finishing with Powertrain, very solid performance of Powertrain at 6.5% of sales. growing by 70 basis points, leveraging on the increase of sales on the operational excellence.
I should add as well that both the Electrification business and the Hydrogen business improved their performance this semester. One last comment on the other operating results, which was slightly negative this semester for 2 reasons.
First reason is start-up costs regarding the deployment of our mutualization initiative, OP as well, like Félicie was saying, investment in the transformation of the group, notably digital and IS. Let's now look at the bottom part of the P&L.
Net income, group share, a very important indicator at the group level, triple digit, EUR 102 million. We strive at not only producing solid operating profit but as well delivering a strong net income group share.
I'll start with the EBITDA. The EBITDA amounted by -- adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 488 million.
That's 9.4% of sales. It was impacted by a lower D&A this semester due to the controlled and disciplined CapEx that we put in place in '24 and '25.
You will see in the next slide that we'll resume investing in S1 '26 and in S2 as well. Operating margin very solid at EUR 251 million.
Other operating income and expenses, our operating principle is to invest around 0.8%, 0.9% in restructuring to adjust the footprint and to pursue our transformation. It was the case this semester as well.
We had restructuring expenses. We also selectively depreciated some assets -- and as well, we benefited from positive FX due to the strengthening of the USD.
As far as financial result is concerned, over the past 2 years, we have refinanced a lot of the debt. I remind you that we raised more than EUR 1 billion to the financial markets at competitive condition.
Our effective rate for interest is 4.3%, competitive again. And we benefited from positive FX as well.
Regarding income tax, our effective tax rate is 35.5% this semester. It is in line with what we achieved last year, 35% and with S1 '24 at 34%.
So overall, net income group share, representing 2% of sales at EUR 102 million. Moving on to free cash flow.
This semester, the group generated EUR 167 million of free cash flow, broadly in line with what we generated last year at EUR 165 million. That's more than 3% of sales.
Looking at each of the main components, starting with gross cash flow with cash from operations after interest and taxes amounting to EUR 325 million, impacted by timing differences regarding cash out of interest and taxes. This will improve in S2.
Regarding CapEx, last year, we invested only 4.2% of sales with the tariff uncertainty. We went back to invest close to 5% of sales this semester, EUR 256 million, mostly industrial CapEx, in line with our capital allocation framework of 5%.
It is to be noted that in S2, we will start investing as well in our Toledo new facility that we announced a couple of weeks ago that shall be in production in the later stage of 2027. We also had a boost from WCR, very strong activity in May and June and significant factoring.
The rest of the WCR, both operations and projects remain constant. And after payments of our EUR 71 million dividend to our shareholders, the net debt stood at EUR 1.3 billion.
So again, strong free cash flow generation, providing a lot of flexibility for the group to pursue its strategy. To wrap up this financial review of S1, let's look at our structure ratios, and you will see again that this semester, the group continue to build the resilience of its balance sheet thanks to financial discipline.
We spoke about the debt at EUR 1.3 billion. The leverage is stable and well controlled at 1.4x the EBITDA.
Regarding the debt maturity, and again, with the EUR 1 billion we raised in '24 and '25, we do not have any major refinancing hurdle that we have to deal with for the next 2 years, giving us a lot of freedom on when and how we want to go to the market. I'll continue with the liquidity.
This semester, the group maintained very strong liquidity, EUR 2.5 billion, in line with last year with EUR 600 million of available cash and EUR 1.9 billion of undrawn lines of credit with a maturity of 3 years. I remind everyone that neither our long-term debt nor our lines of credit do carry any covenants.
Finishing up with gearing and benefiting from a lower debt and an extremely strong equity, the group equity this semester amounted to more than EUR 2.2 billion. Our gearing logically reduced by 12.2 59%.
That concludes my financial presentation for S1. I now hand over for Stephanie that will provide insight on strategy and CSR.
Olivier Dabi
Stephanie Laval
Thank you, Olivier, and good morning, everyone. Let me highlight some strategic initiatives that we had in H1 2026.
So starting with North America, as you know, it's a key region for the group and notably the United States. So we have strong ambition there in order to grow.
That's the reason why we have announced recently that we will expand our industrial capacities in the U.S., starting with Toledo, which will be a new plant that we have started to build. It will be in the Midwest, which is a key region for automotive production.
So it will, of course, let us be very close to our customers. The start of production will be in H2 2027, and it will be for exterior parts for -- starting with a major global player, auto player.
This new plant will be a state-of-the-art plant with the last generation of manufacturing technologies and automation. So it will be a very, very nice plant.
We will also expand our capacities for the battery packs award we just talked before. So we will extend our existing Anderson site that already is producing for fuel tanks and exterior parts, but it will be, of course, extended for the battery packs activity.
In the U.S., we are also leveraging our customer base. And you know that U.S.
remains since 2024, the top contributor to the group's revenue, and we'll expand our customer base. We are already working with BMW, Ford, Stellantis, GM and we have increased our activity with players like the major EV player that everybody knows and also with Hyundai Group and with Rivian.
And all these initiatives will lead us to our ambition of doubling our sales in the U.S. by 2030.
Moving to another key region for the group, which is China. You know in China, we are producing there for almost 20 years now and mainly through our JV YFPO, which is the JV we have with Yanfeng, our partner, Yanfeng.
-- effective June 1, we have expanding the cost -- the scope, sorry, of YFPO, not only to, of course, exterior parts, but also to modules and signature and decorative lighting. It will allow us to offer an integrating offer for all the customers and notably for the local players that really are very keen on that kind of offer.
In China, we are also, thanks to YFPO, shifting all our customer base, and we are today working with all the winners in China. You have some names on the slide.
You have the Chery, the Geely, Nio, Leapmotor, BYD as well as the Chinese tech player like Xiaomi and Huawei. And today, in H1 2026, almost 50% of the revenue made by YFPO was with local players.
I remind you that it was close to 40% in Q1. So the trend is really on the right track.
It's very important to work with those local Chinese winners because we not only work with them in China, but also we leverage on that proximity we have with them to work with them outside China. When you look at that slide, you see all the awards and all the programs that we have already signed with those Chinese OEM abroad.
Let me highlight some of those key programs, starting with Chery. Chery today, we've been awarded for a program that will start in production in a couple of months now to produce bumpers in our existing facilities, both in Brazil and in Spain.
With Chery, we already assemble modules for them in Malaysia. In Europe also, we have announced recently that we've signed a contract with Leapmotor in order also to produce for them exterior parts, so bumpers and tailgates in Spain in our Arevalo facility.
So we use our existing capacities to use them for the Chinese OEM going into Europe. It's also the case for our fuel tanks activity since we have been awarded by BYD in Indonesia for fuel tanks for, of course, PHEV vehicles, and it will start in the coming years.
So you see that we are clearly leveraging on the relationship on the close relation we have with the Chinese OEM to work with them in China, but also outside China. Let's now move to a more technological initiative.
You know that our C-Power business group is really growing into the fuel tanks, but also is now addressing the battery packs activities. I won't come back on the award that we just talked before for the 1 million battery packs that we will produce in the U.S.
in 2028. But we're also developing our expertise, notably with the partnership we had with -- we have with ProLogium, which is a leader in battery and notably in the solid-state batteries.
So with that partnership, we would like to, of course, increase our battery packs expertise and notably on all the cells technologies. For the customers, we will still be cell technology agnostic in the offer and the battery packs.
We will continue to focus more on design and assembling while increasing our expertise on the technologies, especially on the solid-state batteries. Our strategy is also relying on accelerating our competitiveness and transformation in the long term, and I will make some 3 key focuses.
The first one, and Félicie already mentioned it, it's especially on how to boost our program efficiency. So we will use several initiatives we've put in place.
First, we are -- we have the ambition, of course, to reduce the development timing from a program, and it means that reducing the number of hours spent in R&D, but it's also to reallocate and of course, to increase the R&D in best cost countries. For instance, in Pune in India, we have a one-roof tech center that gather all the business groups working on the R&D.
Another initiative is, of course, using digitalization through one PLM that is a common platform we develop with Siemens in order, of course, to have a common platform for all the business groups we have in all the world in order to have the same data sharing by all the business groups for the same product. All in all, it will improve our programs competitiveness, which is key, especially in the automotive market now.
The second focus is on our plant performance and how to optimize the plant performance. We use the Digital Twin Factory, which consists in simulation before implementation.
And I will take example of 2 use cases we have. It's when you would like to have a new plant layout, which will be the case, for instance, in Toledo.
So you use the digital twin tool in order to simulate the layout before implementing it. And the second use case will be for the new line modeling.
For instance, we also use it for the new Anderson site that we'll have for the battery packs. So it's really a tool that will help us to reduce, of course, the implementation cost when building a new plant, for example.
And last but not least, we are testing humanoids in our manufacturing processes. Today, we are testing in China, in Wuhan for tasks like box carrying or deflashing.
And the ambition is really to develop additional use cases and to implement them when it's possible on all our plants and around the world. So we have strong ambition on that also.
And the last focus is really on transport operations in order to optimize all the flows, the transportation flows. We have launched an integrated Transport Management System.
It has kicked off in Mexico a couple of weeks ago. And the ambition is really to optimize the transportation flows between our plants in the 28 countries where we operate.
It will also help us to reduce the transport-related CO2 emissions. And that's a good transition for the next slide.
I will give you some words on the -- on our decarbonization and energy strategy. You know the group is aiming at reducing its energy consumption, which was the case over the last 12 rolling months.
We decreased the energy consumption by 3%, almost 3% compared to 2019, which is the year of reference. We also continue to secure our energy autonomy.
We have signed a PPA with EDP. It was beginning of this year for solar energy.
It will help us to have more visibility on the -- of course, on the conditions to get access to this energy for Spain. It will cover roughly 25% of all our needs in Spain.
So we are signing some PPA with external parties, but we are also optimizing the energy on our sites. And today, almost 40 sites that we have are equipped with solar panels or wind turbines.
So it, of course, give us additional autonomy in producing our own energy. And whole in whole, we continue to have our strong ambitions in decarbonization.
You know that we've been -- we reached the milestone of being neutral in Scope 1 and 2, so our own emissions in 2025 and will continue, of course, and working -- continue to work on Scope 3 emissions, which represent the vast majority of our emissions and to target to have minus 30% of emissions by 2030 compared to 2019, and we are well on track. I will now hand over to Félicie to conclude this presentation.
Stephanie Laval
Félicie Burelle
Thank you, Stephanie. So as you can see, a lot of short-term activity to mitigate the overall situation, but also focusing a lot on the medium- and long-term actions that we need to implement to transform ourselves, but also to go and catch this growth to come in the year ahead of us.
So I think it demonstrates clearly that we have the right strategy. It has enabled us to navigate once again in this challenging market.
Each semester, we say visibility is very low. I think more than ever, it's again the case.
And H2 will be, again, very low in terms of visibility. We are running a lot of different options as to what will be the impact potentially of the conflict in the Middle East.
Obviously, we are monitoring that very, very closely. But again, I think being regional, local, close to our customer, having our core activities that are allowing us to invest in developing those new, more recent activities is the right approach.
Again, competitiveness will be key, and it's a key topic for the group to tackle the growth to come. And we still have this project of acquisition of the Lighting activity of Hyundai Mobis.
We said initially, we would contemplate a signing by the summer. We are still in the summer.
So hopefully, the whole team is very engaged. So hopefully, if everything goes well, we should have some positive outcome in the weeks to come.
So all in all, again, we are confirming our commitment to improve all of our KPIs for 2026 on operating margin, net result group share, free cash flow and reduction of net debt. Obviously, a lot will be on execution and the whole executive committee that is here in the room is really engage in that to anticipate as much as possible what is ahead of us.
We all read the news. There are a lot of announcements when it comes to competition again to the European market, some moves that are taking some of our customers.
We monitor all of that while keeping the focus on execution, ramp-up of new programs, a lot of focus, obviously, on the lighting activity and maintaining this recovery that was initiated in the first half of the year and focusing on maintaining the sound financial structure that makes a difference in today's market. We confirm our ambition in the North American market, whatever else is happening.
And pushing, developing those new activities, battery pack in particular, and moving forward, as I just mentioned, with the potential acquisition of the lighting of Hyundai Mobis. Thank you for your attention, and we will be happy to take questions already too.
Félicie Burelle
Thomas Besson
Kepler Cheuvreux. I have several questions that I can ask them one by one.
I'd like to start with the improvement in Lighting. Can you confirm whether you've reached breakeven in that activity in H1?
And maybe also remind us the evolution of the geographic mix for this business, what it was in '25 and what you think it's going to be in '26, '27 with the North American expansion driving the new contracts? And can you eventually make any more qualitative comment on the expected Mobis deal, whether you believe it would be something closer to 50%, 70%, 80% or not?
I understand if it's not possible to comment more on that. I'll start with that, please.
Thomas Besson
Félicie Burelle
So maybe on the acquisition, as we are hopefully very close to a signing, I prefer not to comment because as you can imagine, there is still a lot at stake and in discussion. But the day we can disclose whatever we can, we will do.
But it's -- as I said, it's developing, I hope, well in the weeks to come. When it comes to our Lighting activity, clearly, North America, so Mexico and Morocco have been the driver for growth in this first half.
We are experiencing like any launch, some difficulties, but we have a nice recovery on the way. It was proven again in the month of June.
So we are on track with what we initially said, which is having a steady recovery throughout the year for the whole of the Lighting activity. But maybe you want to elaborate, Stephanie?
Félicie Burelle
Stephanie Laval
Yes. So the launches will continue in H2.
It will be progressive, as we said, 2025 was the lowest year and continue to improve. But nothing to say on the breakeven, et cetera.
It's just the recovery is ramping up as we were expected.
Stephanie Laval
Thomas Besson
I hope I'll have more chance on the questions to clarify the rest. Can you help us with 2 things?
Your eliminations were largely positive in the second half of '24, and there's a EUR 17 million swing in the half, which I think explains why your margins are just stable, while your key divisions are showing nice margin improvement. Can you guide us for what we should expect for these other eliminations in the EBIT line, please, in H2 and in '27?
Thomas Besson
Félicie Burelle
Generally speaking, it's linked to our own transformation, but I will let...
Félicie Burelle
Olivier Dabi
These lines include corporate, Op'nSoft and the like. And the results should be breakeven, more or less breakeven.
And like I said before, this semester, we invested a little bit more in transformation in Digital & IS. If you look at our financial statements, you'll see as well that our SG&A have increased because deliberately, we decided to choose on selected topics.
But basically, for H2, we should expect this line to be broadly breakeven.
Olivier Dabi
Thomas Besson
For H2. Then on modules, you talked about maybe higher launch cost and the deterioration in product mix in the first half.
Do you believe we should be able to return towards 3% margin in the second half? Or you're still going to suffer from the slow robotaxi ramp-up?
Thomas Besson
Félicie Burelle
We -- I mean, like we said at the end of last year, we are working on all BGs, all activities to contribute to the improvement overall. And specifically on the module activity, we should not forget, so despite this impact -- negative impact in H1 in terms of free cash flow delivery and return on capital, clearly, the module activity keeps on delivering its objectives.
Félicie Burelle
Thomas Besson
Great. Last question for Olivier, maybe.
You increased your factoring by EUR 97 million, while your revenues declined. I mean, historically, it was more linked to one another.
Can you explain that increase and what we should expect in the second half? I mean, typically, it goes down, but is it going to go down to last year levels or remain higher than last year?
Thomas Besson
Olivier Dabi
No, it is the case indeed with May and June having been extremely strong this year versus the first quarter and versus the last 2 months of last year. It should go back to a reasonable level, more or less at the level of last year.
And again, we'll benefit on the gross cash flow from timing impact, mostly on...
Olivier Dabi
Félicie Burelle
Effective date...
Félicie Burelle
Michael Foundoukidis
Michael Foundoukidis from ODDO. A few questions as well.
First, on the European program delays. Can you tell us which quarters the postponed Western programs will be launched in the end?
Or are there some cancellations?
Michael Foundoukidis
Félicie Burelle
No, no cancellation, postponement that should come back within H2. Specifically fourth quarter.
Félicie Burelle
Michael Foundoukidis
No, but H2, let's say. Okay.
Second question on GM, General Motors, which was down significantly in H1. Is there any specific reason for that?
Should it bounce back as well in H2?
Michael Foundoukidis
Félicie Burelle
It was mainly linked to their own electrification decrease impact because of slower electrification and reshuffling basically of their strategy on that topic. So we had to adjust to that.
But we will rebound with them as we go.
Félicie Burelle
Michael Foundoukidis
Okay. Maybe just a clarification on Mobis.
I know you can't say much, but is this acquisition consistent with the full year net debt reduction target that you have, meaning that is it included potentially in the full year net debt reduction?
Michael Foundoukidis
Félicie Burelle
All of the figures that we're disclosing are without anything linked to this project. But as we said, we are taking the objective of that acquisition not to impact our deleveraging strategy.
Félicie Burelle
Michael Foundoukidis
Okay. Excellent.
And maybe last question. I don't know what can you say about that, but on the Industrial Accelerator Act, any specific news, any specific time frame?
Michael Foundoukidis
Félicie Burelle
Unfortunately, not. But I don't know if you have seen that us alongside other European suppliers, French and German, we have reiterated again a few days ago that Europe should take quickly a position on the topic.
Obviously, it doesn't prevent us to work on our own competitiveness topic, but we should have a framework to make sure that we protect the local content. There are -- I think there's a broad alignment that we need such a framework.
But as you can imagine, in between OEMs, in between suppliers, in between countries, the alignment is not full. So we still need to work out something that makes sense and it is not, I would say, a framework that at the end of the day is not bearing its fruit.
So it takes a bit of time, but we are pushing so that it happens quickly. Otherwise, it would be a bit too late.
Félicie Burelle
Ross MacDonald
I had 4 very simple questions. The first one on free cash flow, just following up on Thomas's working capital question.
How should we think, Olivier, here around the working capital contribution to the free cash flow guidance for the full year? Do I understand that the working capital benefits in the first half, close to EUR 100 million should fully reverse for the full year metrics?
My second question is related to the underperformance in Europe in the first half relative to light vehicle production. Should I assume that we move back to outperforming light vehicle production in the second half and therefore, end up around neutral for the full year?
And then another question just on the raw material inflation and your hedging decisions. Obviously, there's been a small window in which the raw material prices came down.
Can you maybe provide an update on whether you've elected to further hedge into 2027 or if maybe a quick update on how you're thinking about those hedging decisions in the current climate? And then the final question just related to Q3.
I know this is only weeks into the Q3, but one of your peers, Autoliv, were talking about a slight deterioration in Q3 around the call-off volatility. Just be interested if you see any evidence of higher volatility in call-offs in the third quarter so far?
Ross MacDonald
Félicie Burelle
Maybe before the free cash flow question, generally speaking, on the activity, what we do not see any impact of material deviation in terms of customer volumes for the second half. So we are entering the second half of the year stable versus our assumptions.
In terms of raw material, what we're hedging today is the energy. It's not the raw material topic.
So this hedging strategy, we have it in place. We will keep on taking position for the years to come.
So that should remain. But for the raw material topic, indeed, we had some relief for a few weeks, months.
But as we can see, it's moving up again. And this is treated very differently.
It's using the legal framework we have with our contracts. And when it's not the case, discussing with our supplier and our customer.
And that, obviously, we will keep on doing that. So for the free cash flow question...
Félicie Burelle
Olivier Dabi
Yes. Regarding free cash flow, again, we did EUR 165 million in S1, and we confirm our guidance to exceed last year's, which was EUR 297 million.
So the -- in S2, the components of performance will be slightly different. We're still going to have a push on WCR with supplier payments initiative that we started.
We're going to have lower factoring, but we will definitely improve the gross cash flow. So all in all, we'll see a transfer between WCR and gross cash flow to meet our objectives.
Olivier Dabi
Jose Asumendi
José from JPMorgan. A couple of questions, please.
Can you comment on your -- the potential you have to carry out price recoveries in the second half of the year? And how much was raw material high inflation cost impacting the first half margins, if possible to get a magnitude or maybe possible to comment whether we should see EBIT expansion and margin expansion in the second half as you carry out price recoveries.
Second question, please, related to seasonality, first half, second half. Can you give us some sense of how the year should sort of evolve as we think about second half versus first half on or an EBIT margin?
Or do you expect more maybe sequential flat trend H2 versus H1? And then final one on China.
And of course, you have deep insights into this market. I would love to hear your view if you think the Chinese market is going to recover in the second half?
Are you starting to see some sequential signals of improvement as we head into the summer break in the light of the incentives that have been implemented recently in the Chinese market?
Jose Asumendi
Félicie Burelle
So on China, I think the situation remains very tough. We -- the market should stay in negative territories for the whole year.
Obviously, we are all working on adapting and making this customer shift because the trend is very different from one OEM to the other. And we believe that exports should continue to fuel also to compensate for this domestic decrease.
So we are not expecting big changes for the second half of the year. In terms of price recovery, we won't comment too much on the amount, but the impact was mainly on Q2.
As we said, Q1 was almost nothing. And when it comes to what will happen on S2, it's really hard to anticipate, and it will all depend on the -- how the situation evolves.
As I said, we keep on running different scenarios and keep on discussing on how we can with all of the ecosystem mitigate this impact throughout the year. But it's sure that the more the conflict last and it impacts the cost of energy and resin, the more it will be difficult for the whole industry to sustain over the long run.
Maybe you want to comment on EBIT margin evolution.
Félicie Burelle
Olivier Dabi
Seasonality, the question was. Typically, the seasonality of OPmobility was with a stronger S1 and a little bit lower S2.
What we see is no impact on the volumes for S2 and the more balanced S1 and S2. This is what we said when we released the '25 numbers.
So we expect the numbers to be broadly in line in H2 versus H1 and less seasonality.
Olivier Dabi
Félicie Burelle
So we have one last question here, Thomas. Or maybe another one after this one.
Félicie Burelle
Thomas Besson
Sorry, I make you end the call after the hour. I mean, looking at the announcements of various European automakers and the lack of support from the European Commission so far, are you anticipating ultimately that you may have to increase your 80 to 90 bps restructuring efforts -- ongoing restructuring efforts over the next 3 to 5 years to reflect a faster transfer of production outside Europe to China, Morocco or anywhere else?
Or do you think you're going to be able to keep on with the ongoing efforts?
Thomas Besson
Félicie Burelle
It will really depend on the magnitude of their own restructuring. So obviously, now we see there are more news on that topic.
So we keep on doing our own, I would say, yearly restructuring, opening and shutting down plants. Obviously, the cost of restructuring in Europe is more expensive than elsewhere.
So if those announcements were to be more and more frequent and obviously impacting us, then over the long run, yes, we would have to do more in terms of restructuring. But today, it's not embedded in our figures.
No more question? So thank you very much, and see you soon.
Félicie Burelle
Olivier Dabi
Thank you.