Veoneer said its third quarter results were better than expectations with the exception of net sales which declined 12% to $462m.
Active Safety net sales declined 11%.
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Jan Carlson, chairman, president and CEO said: "During the quarter our market adjustment initiatives announced at the beginning of the year started to take effect. Driven by these operational improvements our operating loss was reduced by $15m sequentially despite lower organic sales.
"The reduction came primarily through lower RD&E costs achieved through prudent resource management and to a lesser extent by partnering in some engineering related activities in Active Safety. We were also successful in working capital management, particularly in managing accounts receivables and inventories. We will continue to drive our improvement initiatives, including partnering and outsourcing opportunities, as we adapt to the market realities, and drive our own continued development."
In September, he noted, Veoneer signed its seventh customer for its in-house developed vision technology.
"This shows that our core development combined with the software developed in Zenuity delivers powerful solutions, creating leading ADAS and collaborative driving functionality for the years to come. In addition, we are currently preparing to introduce our fourth-generation vision technology, as part of a number of our customer launches in 2020 and into 2021.
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By GlobalData"The automotive industry faced a volatile and challenging quarter, with light vehicle production being weaker than anticipated in July across most of our major markets. Veoneer saw a sharper sales decline than the overall market, as we faced some model phase-outs of certain customer programmes and a negative product mix. In addition, positive effects on sales growth from launches of new customer programmes are only anticipated to start in 2020.
"We see this challenging environment in our industry, to continue for some time."
This relates both to an increased volatility in light vehicle production (LVP) forecasts as well as customer launch schedules and take rates, particularly in China, for products sold as optional features by the OEMs.
"Specifically, for Veoneer we are proactively managing the inherent risks that come from launching several new customer programmes and technologies in a short time span in the quarters to come.
"For the next several quarters, our focus is on successful customer launches heading into 2020 and 2021, market adjustment initiatives to continue to drive efficiencies and improve cash flow, and to continue to win profitable new business."
