Increasing auto industry take-up of advanced tech and safety features has helped Autoliv book record revenues in the third quarter (at $2,706m net sales, up 5.9%).

Third quarter operating income increased by 18% to $267 million and adjusted operating income increased by 14% to $271 million. Operating margin was 9.9% and adjusted operating margin was posted at 10.0%.

Mikael Bratt, President & CEO, said:

"I am pleased to, once again, report a record breaking quarter. This quarter is the best third quarter so far, for sales, operating income and EPS. The performance was driven by better than expected sales, especially in Americas and Europe, and successful actions to reduce costs and achieve tariff compensation. I am pleased that we had a solid outperformance with the domestic Chinese OEMs. The ramp-up of certain models started slower than expected, but improved gradually during the quarter. We expect increased outperformance in China in Q4.

“Driven by increased penetration of automotive safety, our high growth in India continued, accounting for around one third of our global organic growth in the third quarter.

“We invest for continued success in China. We started building a second R&D Center in China to support our growing business with Chinese OEMs both in China and globally. In addition, in October we signed a strategic agreement with CATARC, the leading research institution setting standards in China's automotive sector, to jointly advance automotive safety standards and innovation. Furthermore, we recently announced our plans to form a joint venture with HSAE, a leading Chinese automotive electronics developer, to develop and manufacture advanced safety electronics to increase vertical integration of our current product portfolio.

“We recovered around 75% of tariff costs in the third quarter, and expect to recover most of what remains in Q4. We continue to closely monitor the situation, and remain adaptive and agile.”