Schaeffler has posted second-quarter revenue marginally down 1% to EUR3.6bn (US$4bn), with EBIT falling to EUR253m from EUR382m.
“The market environment for the rest of the year continues to be characterised by uncertainty,” said Schaeffler CEO, Klaus Rosenfeld. “At the start of the year, we were anticipating a market decline of 1% for the automotive business. Today, we are expecting a market decline of 4%.
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“This means we need to adjust our growth and earnings guidance. Nevertheless, we will strive to achieve the upper end of the new margin guidance at group level. Despite the challenging market environment with lower than expected sales, we have improved our EBIT-margin compared to the previous quarter.
“Moreover, the positive second quarter free cash flow and the reduction in capex to sales ratio show our measures to optimise capital efficiency are beginning to have an impact.”
Despite the challenging market environment, the Automotive OEM division outperformed the global automotive production market by 3.3% in the second quarter. This was due mainly to the division’s positive performance in the Americas region.
The second quarter also saw the group’s E-Mobility business division secure a contract valued at EUR 1.1bn from an unnamed global premium manufacturer related to the production of electric motors.
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By GlobalDataIn addition, the division’s Race efficiency programme, launched at the start of the year, is currently in its first phase of implementation.
“We are moving ahead with the transformation of our Automotive OEM business,” added Rosenfeld. “As part of that, we are updating our product and service offering to make it more future-focused.
“The new billion-Euro order secured by our E-Mobility business division shows we are on the right track here. At the same time, we continue to address structural challenges within the division.”
