Nexteer Automotive Group Limited (1316) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good day, and welcome to the Nexteer Automotive Group Limited 2023 Interim Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note, this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Tony Wang, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Jason. Welcome, everyone, to our 2023 interim earnings call. We made the announcement of our interim results this evening, Hong Kong time. Presentation materials for today's call were posted on the Investors section of the company website earlier this evening. During today's call, we have Executive Board Director, President, CTO and Chief Strategy Officer, Robin Milavec; Senior Vice President and CFO, Michael Bierlein; Senior Vice President and Global COO, Herve Boyer. Starting the presentation, we will have Robin to provide an update of company's business overview for the first half of 2023. After that, Mike will lead us diving into the financial details and wrap up with company's considerations about 2023 before we open Q&A session for you. Please be mindful of the safe harbor statement governing today's communication in the second page of the presentation package. Now I hand it over to Robin.

Okay. Thank you, Tony, and thanks, everyone, for joining our 2023 interim results announcement call. I'm going to start off with Slide 3 to lead off and just reemphasize our vision statement that we are the leading motion control technology company that accelerates mobility to be safe, green and exciting. And when we talk about motion control technology, we're referring to that technology that efficiently manages chassis forces to create a safe and exciting driving experience. Motion Control also captures the current and future potential of our product lines, including electric power steering, columns, driveline, steer-by-wire and software. We also discussed a lot internally about what it means to be a leader. As a leader in motion control, we strive to have a leading position in 3 specific areas. The first is technology; the second is market position; and third, profitability. Finally, we accelerate mobility to be safe, green and exciting. Our products are safety critical and safety is in the DNA of everything we do at Nexteer. Our products also support the EV transition and help support a sustainable and environmentally friendly future. And finally, our products are creating excitement in the industry, especially with our leading Steer-by-Wire technology, which will enable a host of new features and functionality for driving enthusiasts in autonomous vehicles of the future. This is our vision and the priorities that is driving within our company. On Slide 4, using the same approach as we've done in previous meetings with you, I'll provide a brief business overview of the first half, and then Mike will dive into the financial assessment as well as some perspective for the rest of the year. So we'll move to Slide #5. These bullet points demonstrates Nexteer's laser focus on delivering long-term profitable growth. We're pleased to achieve record half year revenue of $2.1 billion, 17.4% higher than the first half of 2022, driven by higher EV exposure and heavy program launches in APAC. Our global team achieved strong launch performance with 32 major new program launches, pulling adjusted revenue growth over market by 9.2%. When I say adjusted, meaning that fits to revenue growth, excluding foreign exchange and commodity recoveries. We also successfully secured $2.8 billion in new business bookings during the first half of the year. This is a result of our second Steer-by-Wire booking win from a leading global OEM as well as a North America electric vehicle truck program volume increase and ongoing success with business contracts from Chinese New Energy Vehicle customers. We continued our commitment to technology leadership and megatrend alignment for future growth, including Steer-by-Wire, software and electrification. In addition, we're aggressively optimizing our global engineering resources and footprint to accelerate the support of our technology development regionally and in alignment with our customers' innovation needs. Lastly, operational efficiency and execution is the foundation of our company. The team relentlessly pursue sustainable profitable growth by making continuous day-to-day improvements and breakthrough achievements utilizing the latest technology and tools to drive efficiency and effectiveness. We are dedicated to enhance our profitability through global customer and supply chain management, reducing our fixed costs and optimizing our footprint to better serve our customers and create value. We'll move now to Slide #6. For the first half, we successfully launched 32 new major programs across multiple product lines, regions and customers, with 11 of those in North America, 1 in EMEASA and 20 in Asia Pacific. This has been yet another period of strong program launches. 30 of the 32 new launches are Conquest business coming from current and new customers. Those Conquest wins are shown in red fonts on this chart. And 19 represented electric vehicle launches marked with the green charging symbol also occurred during the first half. We're seeing the Hummer SUV and electric version of the Silverado pickup adopted with a full array of our technology. In fact, these vehicles contain all of our products, electric power steering, column and I-shaft and halfshafts. We are expecting further production ramp-up in the second half of this year. The all-new Conquest midsize pickup truck program, the Chevy Colorado and GMC Canyon, were successfully launched in North America with our Rack EPS system. Next, I'd highlight the latest launch progress in APAC. The region has delivered another strong launch period in the first half of this year, benefited from EV megatrends led by local customers and growing export business within Asia. In addition to our diversified customer mix in APAC, we started to supply another Chinese NEV customer [ HiFi ], a premium EV brand with Rack EPS for the first time in our history. We believe that the current strong launch pipeline will continue into the second half and beyond. Moving to Slide 7. This slide shows the new business award for the first half, which totaled $2.8 billion, with significant progress, especially in the second quarter with $2.7 billion compared to only $100 million in Q1. We successfully secured our second Steer-by-Wire production program with a leading global OEM. This award includes both the roadwheel actuator and handwheel actuator, along with the software integration and provides a full system solution for this OEM. The roadwheel actuator for this program is based on our industry-leading Rack EPS product and will continue to support our leading position in this market with this technology. In this quarter, we've also been contracted for a significant volume increase on our high-output Rack EPS product for battery electric vehicle truck platforms in North America that we secured previously. We also continue to win new bookings with new Chinese NEV OEMs, aligning with the strong EV product pipeline cycle of these local customers. I'm very confident we will see additional bookings with this customer segment in the second half due to the timing of booking nominations. Overall, 89% of Nexteer's bookings were with electric power steering, 98% of the bookings will be on electric vehicles and 37% of these bookings represent new and Conquest business. Compared to our $5.5 billion full year booking target provided in our Q1 business update, we have now increased our target to $6 billion after considering some significant new battery electric vehicle-related opportunities we have in the second half. The new business bookings success demonstrates how Nexteer's advanced motion control technology continues to solve the challenges across all the megatrends shaping our industry, and our technology is becoming the product of choice by many OEMs. I'm very excited about our second half booking potential. We have some great opportunities to grow our market share and expand our customer base with some very key wins that are currently in the pipeline. Next, we'll move to Slide #8. This slide shows how we capitalize on Steer-by-Wire and software-defined vehicles by leveraging our global leadership in electric power steering, Steer-by-Wire, steering software and vehicle integration expertise. Steer-by-Wire unlocks potential for new software-defined features and functions. As a technology-leading Steer-by-Wire company, Nexteer is uniquely positioned to capture a significant portion of this expanding market. In 2022, we successfully won the industry's first high-volume Steer-by-Wire program with a leading global OEM. This win included the Steer-by-Wire handwheel actuator. Additionally, we are now looking to secure the roadwheel actuator opportunity with this same customer as the value for Nexteer's full system integration capabilities are being recognized by the industry. In the first half of this year, we secured our second Steer-by-Wire program. This is encompassing a fully integrated solution, both the handwheel actuator and roadwheel actuator. Also, we've achieved Steer-by-Wire development contracts with several additional global OEMs and leading Chinese OEMs to prepare the system architecture for future production programs. In addition to OEM's interest in Steer-by-Wire, we have also experienced their interest in software needs and requirements as they work towards software-defined vehicles. This evolution gives Nexteer an opportunity capitalize on our proven software expertise and system integration and advanced steering feature developments. As we anticipate the OEMs Steer-by-Wire and software needs, we have reallocated resources in support of these shifting business priorities. A couple of examples to share with you. We discontinued our eDrive product line activities in March of this year. And in February of this year, we dissolved the joint venture we had with Continental. Our agility and ability to proactively shift resources will help us keep pace with this rapidly evolving market and fully maximize the growing demand for Steer-by-Wire and software-defined vehicles. Moving to Slide #9. We continued our commitment to megatrend alignment for future growth in our Asia Pacific division. These 3 charts provide the progression of our regional customer portfolio from 2021 into this year. Local customers contributed about 40% of our revenue in 2021, but have rapidly expanded their contribution to our revenue during the past 2 years. This very impressive range of local customer growth is shown on the right side of this slide. As we know, global customers played a dominant role in APAC over the past decade as some of the major programs were carried over from North America and Europe into this region. This was also a natural progression given our legacy business with these global OEMs. As the automotive landscape has evolved in APAC, we have strategically targeted opportunities to capture new growth momentum among local Chinese OEMs and to further capitalize on the electrification megatrend. The results of this strategic approach is reflected in the diversification among customers as well as the rebalancing between global and local OEMs. Last March, I mentioned that China's rapid EV adoption accelerated and expanded our regional business with local leading customers. In 2023 and beyond, we anticipate even more new models by local customers featuring Nexteer technology. So we are well on track to maintain and grow this momentum in APAC. The incremental revenue from new local customers will be a new phase of growth for our Asia Pacific division. These new local customers, especially in China, are bringing in massive new wave of battery electric vehicles to the market. These vehicles often require premium steering systems with advanced software enabled and ADAS functionality, which is also driving an increased content per vehicle with our steering products. On Slide #10, over the past 10 years, we have continuously focused our efforts to globalize our engineering activities. The goal has been to maximize our engineering efficiency and its effectiveness. We know that doing our engineering work close to our customers, close to our supply base and near our manufacturing locations creates the greatest opportunity to drive efficiencies and customer responsiveness. This has been an evolution over the years, focused, first, on production support; followed by application engineering, which is the development of new customer projects; and finally, our product architecture, which is aligned with our product line business structure. Today, nearly 90% of our engineering activities that are required by our division is accomplished locally by the divisional technical centers. The next step in our evolution is to expand our R&D process to our global technical centers. As an advanced development function, R&D is focused on new products as well as significant advancements to our existing ones. The scope of this work is focused on long-term new business opportunities 5 to 10 years into the future. We know that each local market of the world has unique opportunities and challenges. The demands of the market in China are different than those in Europe and North America and so on. Therefore, it's critical that our advanced R&D activities are guided by local market trends so that we can anticipate customers' future needs and differentiate Nexteer and our solutions and fully maximize our growth opportunities. We have established skills, competencies and the infrastructure across the world so that local teams can now conduct advanced R&D activities. These efforts will continue to be globally coordinated to ensure alignment with Nexteer's overall strategy, but remain linked to the megatrends such as electrification, software, connectivity and autonomous vehicles. Think global and act local sums up our approach that benefits our customers with strong local engineering support that's capable of full development, robust problem-solving and quick decision-making. Turning to Slide 11. In addition to growing revenue above market levels, we continue to take proactive actions to enhance our resiliency, profitability and competitiveness across the 4 categories that are shown on this chart. In terms of customer recovery, we continue to work with our customers to recover input cost increases with both contractual escalation agreements and other noncontractual negotiations. In the 2 categories of reducing fixed cost and optimizing footprint, these help us to ensure a competitive cost structure. I'll give you some examples of focus on our U.S. operations. Under reducing fixed costs, in the first half of 2023, we announced an early retirement incentive program for eligible U.S. salaried employees. This voluntary program will help improve Nexteer's resiliency by reducing our fixed cost. The program cost savings will be realized second half of 2023. In the same period, we partnered with a leading clean energy company to bring a sustainable energy solution to Nexteer's Saginaw, Michigan, U.S. site. The planned 25-acre solar field will reduce the site's operational costs through a renewable clean energy source. Construction of a solar field will begin in the second half of 2023 and be completed in 2024. It requires no upfront capital investment by Nexteer. Under optimizing footprint, we're finalizing the footprint consolidation and optimization at our Saginaw, Michigan, U.S. driveline operations to improve our efficiency, quality and cost competitiveness. We plan to complete the consolidation of the driveline operation from 2 plants into 1 by the end of this year. Also, we'll be relocating production of our steering column business from our U.S. site in Saginaw, Michigan, to our Mexico site in Juarez over the next few years. We target completion of this activity by the end of 2026. While the benefits of this transition will occur over several years, we expect this transition to help us enhance our profit margins with larger scale and a more competitive production and supply chain cost structure. And lastly, our global supply chain. We have a strong network of suppliers to provide unique capabilities and expertise to us. In May of this year, we hosted our Annual Global Supplier Conference for the first time outside of the United States. This year, the conference was held in Queretaro, Mexico, and we hosted more than 200 suppliers from around the world. The event focused on strengthening our collaboration and strategic alignment with our suppliers such as continuing to accelerate innovation, strengthening the supply chain resiliency and delivering quality and value for our OEM customers. With that, I'll hand it over to Mike.

Thanks, Robin, and good day, everyone. Nexteer achieved a record $2.1 billion of revenue in the first half of the year. Revenue grew by 17.4% year-over-year, and we continue to outperform. We grew above the market by 920 basis points due to executing on our significant launches of new and Conquest programs. EBITDA grew in line with the revenue increase. Although margins continue to be constrained by macro factors, including elevated input cost due to inflationary pressures on labor, energy and material costs as well as unfavorable foreign exchange impact with the Mexican peso strengthening and the RMB and euro weakening against the U.S. dollar. Free cash flow was positive, generating $60 million of cash during the first half of 2023, and our balance sheet remained strong. We achieved customer program bookings totaling $2.8 billion during the first half of 2023, which is 33% higher than our first half 2023 revenue. These strong bookings will enable our continued revenue growth above margin. This slide highlights our key financial metrics for revenue, EBITDA, net profit and free cash flow. Nexteer posted revenue of $2.1 billion, an increase of $311 million or 17.4% compared with last year, driven by strong global OEM production volume increases and new and Conquest program launches. We posted EBITDA of $186 million in the first half of 2023, 17.7% higher than our 2022 performance. EBITDA margin of 8.9% was slightly higher than last year as unfavorable foreign exchange and inflationary pressures persisted this year. I will provide more detail on the margin drivers of our year-over-year EBITDA performance in the coming slide. Net profit of $34 million or $45 million higher compared with the loss position last year. This increase is driven by improved EBITDA as well as $21 million of lower income tax expense, including $13 million due to reduced net U.S. tax expense relative to the ongoing unrecognized tax benefit position, and an $11 million tax benefit recorded in our Brazil operations. Free cash flow for the first half of 2023 was positive $60 million compared to a reduction last year. We continue to deliver positive free cash flow by focusing on effective working capital management and a disciplined approach to capital spending. Revenue of $2.1 billion in the first half of 2023 was $311 million or 17.4% higher than the first half of 2022. Unfavorable foreign currency reduced revenue by $42 million, reflecting a weaker Chinese yuan and euro against the U.S. dollar. As expected, the largest driver of the year-over-year increase in revenue was represented by volume, mix, pricing and other with an increase of $365 million, which was largely driven by higher production volumes and new and Conquest program launches in each of our segments. Finally, commodity recoveries provided a year-over-year decrease of $12 million due to a reduction in commodity prices. On the top of this slide, we have highlighted our regional adjusted revenue growth rate compared with the first half of 2022, excluding foreign exchange and commodity recovery. The growth over market is reflected in the lower part of the circles. All 3 segments posted strong revenue growth. North America revenue increased by 10%, slightly below market by 2%. EMEASA increased by 16%, above market by 1%, and Asia Pacific increased by 54%, above market by 44%, driven by significant new and Conquest program launches, especially from Chinese domestic OEMs. On the bottom of this slide, adjusted revenue in the first half represented growth of 20.4% year-over-year, outperforming the market by 9.2% or 920 basis points. We achieved record half year revenue with significant growth in the first half of 2023 and expect continued above-market revenue growth moving forward. This slide shows our revenue performance by region. On the left of this slide, the regional distribution of our revenue for the first half of 2023 and 2022 is provided. Our North American segment is the largest, and in the first half of 2023 comprised of 57% of our total revenue, followed by Asia Pacific, and EMEASA of 26% and 17%, respectively. Compared to 2022, the regional revenue distribution is approximately 500 basis points higher in Asia Pacific due to the significant revenue growth in region. North America revenue of $1.195 billion is $100 million or 9.1% higher than last year. Asia Pacific revenue of $544 million is $166 million or 43.7% higher than last year despite unfavorable foreign exchange of $38 million due to the U.S. dollar strengthening against the Chinese yuan. This region significantly outperformed the market, driven by program launches with local Chinese OEMs as we continue to build on our leading position. EMEASA revenue of $361 million is $45 million or 14.2% higher than last year, driven by higher production volumes. Turning to our earnings performance. EBITDA for the first half of 2023 was $186 million providing a margin of 8.9%, compared with $158 million or 8.8% margin for the same period in 2022. Unfavorable foreign exchange caused a $25 million negative impact related to the Mexican peso strengthening and RMB and euro weakening against the U.S. dollar. Revenue growth drove a favorable $65 million flow through to earnings, netting of volume, mix and pricing. Inflationary cost increases on labor, energy and material were not fully offset by performance, driving a net negative impact of $12 million compared to the first half of 2022. As Robin discussed, we have actions underway to continue to improve our margins through the operational efficiency and execution initiatives he outlined. This slide highlights the EBITDA and margin profile for each of our regions. North America posted EBITDA of $98 million, which is $17 million or 22% higher than the same period last year. EBITDA margin improved by 100 basis points to 8.2%. Increased volumes drove the profit improvement. However, margins remain constrained due to foreign exchange headwinds related to the Mexican peso strengthening and ongoing inflationary pressures. Asia Pacific posted EBITDA of $82 million, which is $13 million or 19% higher than the same period in 2022, driven by year-over-year revenue growth. EBITDA margins remained strong at 15%. Our Asia Pacific team continues to execute well driving significant revenue growth with strong profit margins. EMEASA EBITDA performance deteriorated both in absolute dollars as well as margin, with EBITDA lower $8 million or 31% to $18 million compared with the same period in 2022. The reduction in EBITDA is driven by inflationary pressures and FX. We continue to invest to position the company for further profitable growth with additional investments in both engineering and capital. In the first half of 2023, our engineering investment of $151 million was an increase of $14 million compared to the same period last year. The main driver for this increase is related to engineering investments for the Steer-by-Wire product. Our strategy is to be the Steer-by-Wire market leader, and we are already well positioned considering the 2 bookings that we secured with global OEMs earlier in 2022 and the first half of 2023. Capital expenditures were $58 million during the first half of 2023 or 2.8% of revenue. This was an increase of $10 million compared to 2022. We expect capital spending to increase in the second half to support our business growth. This slide provides our EBITDA to net profit walk. I would like to highlight just a couple of items. Depreciation and amortization expense of $139 million increased by $3 million on a year-over-year basis, reflecting an increase in intangible asset amortization of engineering product development costs as we continued to launch new programs. Income tax expense was $8 million, representing 18.3% of the group's profit before taxes, a decrease of $21 million compared to the same period last year, including $13 million due to reduced net U.S. tax expense relative to the ongoing unrecognized tax benefit position and an $11 million tax benefit recorded in our Brazil operation as we were able to release a reserve on our deferred tax assets. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow. On the left of this slide is our cash flow performance. Cash from operating activities of $231 million in the current period rose by $109 million compared with a year ago, principally a result of improved earnings, favorable working capital and a $35 million income tax refund received during the first half of 2023. Cash used in investing activities of $171 million in the first half of 2023 was higher than last year due to timing of capital spending payments. We generated significant free cash flow of $60 million in the current period, which turned from a use of $7 million compared with the first half of 2022. Our debt level is low, with only $48 million of debt and $58 million of finance leases. Our balance sheet remains strong with $290 million of cash and available credit facilities of $372 million, totaling $662 million of liquidity for the 6 months ending June 30, 2023. Looking forward in the second half of the year, we expect the industry environment to continue to improve, albeit with certain risk factors in the near term, including ongoing inflationary pressures remaining elevated, impacting our input costs as well as our suppliers. Central Bank interest rate increases could lead to a recession impacting consumer demand. UAW negotiations with our customers could result in a strike impacting our North American revenue. Despite these risks, we continue to remain optimistic as we are well on track to deliver record-setting revenue with over $4 billion for the year. In addition, we have actions underway to enhance operational efficiencies and our profit margins. And we are on track to meet our $6 billion bookings goal, which will continue to secure ongoing above-market revenue growth. In summary, Nexteer is well positioned to succeed in the second half of 2023 and beyond as we continue to execute on our strategy for profitable growth. I appreciate your attendance today. We will now move to Q&A session of the call. Operator, Jason, please compile the questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Tim Hsiao from Morgan Stanley.

Actually, I've got 2 quick questions. The first one is about the margin because on the first half, the EBITDA margins might be adversely affected by some one-off factors, as Mike just mentioned. But even we're adding back those nonrecurring factors, probably the margin per se would be around 10.6%. So should we reckon that as a more reasonable or sustainable margin level? Is there still much lower than like meeting EBITDA margin in previous cycle? So in the meantime, will there be any down targets because I think you also mentioned we're going to see rising mix from APAC and EV model, which could be increasingly margin dilutive in following years. So just wanted to get better sales about the margin trend. That's my first question.

Thanks, Tim. I appreciate the question. So our EBITDA margin, we did show an improvement, say, half over half to 8.9%, but certainly, we are not happy with this margin level, and we have kicked off these operational efficiency and execution initiatives to continue to build on this base of our margin profile. And one of the big impacts that we saw in the first half of the year was related to the Mexican peso strengthening. When you think about our Mexican operations, we're paying our employees in peso, have some costs in peso, but all of our contracts are in U.S. dollars. So depending on how the foreign exchange rates progress, that could certainly be a tailwind as we move forward into the second half of the year. As far as Asia Pacific, you'll note our margins did deteriorate slightly here half versus half. However, our Asia Pacific team is executing very well. I would expect to continue to improve upon our margins that we see here of 15% and even higher in the second half of the year.

Got it. So second question, I just got a [indiscernible] Steer-by-Wire since the market was getting more excited about Steer-by-Wire. But what's the key taking factors that divestment adoption is at the moment? And when do you expect that to be removed? And even historically adopted, who do you think that's going to own the [indiscernible]? Is this going to be steering company like Nexteer or chassis makers or the OEM with inventory on the [indiscernible]?

Yes. Tim, thanks for the question. We are really seeing a wave of interest really globally for Steer-by-Wire technology. And it's evolving as these OEMs begin to explore the implementation of the Steer-by-Wire system. Initially, many OEMs wanted to own a lot of the software that completes the integration of the handwheel actuator and the roadwheel actuator. But actually, it's very complex and requires years of experience in order to perform that integration and make the steering system feel like the OEMs want it to feel. So as -- our experience has been as the OEMs begin working on these programs, they soon begin searching for a partner that will support them with not only the mechanical systems, the handwheel and roadwheel actuators, but actually, the system integration and the software support to be able to create the steering feel that they want for the vehicle. So we're seeing really this trend of OEMs looking for steering partners such as Nexteer that can bring these years and decades of steering expertise and create the steering system with the right steering feel that they want. They're also looking for very mature companies. I think many people advertise Steer-by-Wire systems in the market today, but there's only a very few that can actually make the steering system perform as expected that's needed for the industrialization of the product. And that is something that Nexteer, we're finding we are -- we have a leading position in being able to partner with OEMs to deliver the steering system, to deliver the software and the algorithms to make it function and perform as expected. And that's why we're beginning to see a lot of interest in -- beyond just the 2 production contracts that we have, we have a larger number of development contracts to create the architecture of working in partnership with these OEMs that will ultimately lead to future production programs. So we see this technology launching in 2026 kind of time frame and then rapidly accelerating by the time we get to 2030 and beyond.

Our next question comes from Rebecca Wen from JPMorgan.

My first question is also related to the Steer-by-Wire. So you talked about seeing the OEMs launching this program by 2026 and accelerating it through 2030. So what's your best guess of like market penetration or adoption rates by 2030? If you have any color that you could share with us? And then the second question also related to Steer-by-Wire is who do you think are our strongest peer in this product globally and also locally from China? We do see a few Chinese local peers coming up, jumping into the Steer-by-Wire market. Do you think any of them may be able to take away some of the Chinese customer business in the future?

Rebecca, thanks for the question. It's hard to get a good perspective on the market penetration of Steer-by-Wire within this decade. I think what -- our experience is working with the OEMs that we are working with is they are identifying a platform that will bring the technology into production, but a lot of the benefits of the Steer-by-Wire system is that it can decrease the proliferation of the steering system across multiple platforms. As an example, the handwheel actuator, because it's not vehicle dependent, and what I mean by that, it doesn't depend on how heavy the vehicle is, the handwheel actuator is just a force feedback system for driver. So the handle actuator can be used as a common part across multiple platforms. So I see the trend of OEMs launching with a single platform, but with the mindset of being able to leverage that first launch across a larger number of their platforms in the future. I think yet this decade we might be looking at a 5% or so penetration of this technology. But I think once it's in place and the OEMs have a platform in production, they will look to rapidly expand that by leveraging these common parts that can be proliferated across their platforms without a lot of additional engineering. As I mentioned, there are many steering companies and other companies that are advertising Steer-by-Wire. Our experience, as we produce demonstration vehicles and we go into competitions against our competitors at OEMs, is there's really a very small number that can actually deliver a high-functioning Steer-by-Wire system. So I would say Bosch, ZFTRW and Mando would be kind of the 3 competitors that we see most frequently with our OEMs. And I would say given that those are very good suppliers, very capable suppliers, but I feel good about our technology and about our cost profile and our ability to compete even against, in some cases, very much larger steering suppliers than Nexteer. We are having very good success with our technology and our cost profile in leading this market so far.

Any local Chinese steering company that you think could be competitive?

I am aware of some local Chinese companies that are developing Steer-by-Wire. We don't see those companies being a global player at this point in time. And even a lot of the local China OEMs are turning to Nexteer for a lot of the development work that we're doing now for those vehicle platforms. So I wouldn't rule it out in the future, but I think the first entry into Steer-by-Wire for major OEMs will be with a more mature steering supplier that has a proven track record of safety and quality.

The next question comes from Jessie Lo from Bank of America.

Rob and Mike, so my first question was related to the North America operation. So in the past few half years, our operation in North America continues to pose a higher-than-market growth. Thanks to share gain and order gain. But then in this first half this year, our North America sales is actually slower than the industry volume growth. So could you elaborate more into the reason behind? And second will be also again on the North America operations. So lastly -- on your last slide, you've mentioned that we are seeing this risk related to UAW. So we noticed that UAW is voting next week for authorization to the leaders for pulling a strike. So it's contract with -- I mean, our clients' contract with UAW will expire in a month or so. So of course, this is not something we can control, but we can maybe get more mentally prepared if such strike happens. So do we do any estimate related to like potential production loss if it goes on for a week, few weeks to a month or potential cost hike related to any potential rate hike, benefits or their career security, et cetera?

Thanks for the question, Jessie, I appreciate it. On the first question, North America revenue performance versus market, we're tracking just slightly below market, so nothing significant going on there. I would expect and anticipate in the near term that our North America revenue will continue to grow, say, in line with market. What we're really seeing the outperformance is in our Asia Pacific region. In terms of the UAW strike -- potential strike, those negotiations are with our customers. So hard to predict where the negotiations will land. We're certainly not part of those negotiations. And typically, that we've seen in the industry that before the deadline approaches, the UAW will typically ask their membership for permission to strike. So I'd say that particular point is not, say, unusual in the negotiation cycle. However, we continue to closely watch this. As you can imagine that our North America business is heavily reliant on the OEMs that are participating in this labor negotiation. So also, I want to highlight that our Saginaw operations are a UAW workforce, but we do have our contract valid through March of 2026. So we do not anticipate any work stoppages associated with the union negotiations. But certainly, if our customers have a work stoppage, that will certainly impact our revenue as well.

I guess, Jessie, this is Robin. I can add a little bit more to the first part of your question about North America growth. I mean that market is fairly mature, and our customer profile is really anchored by the Detroit Big 3, so General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. And that's the majority of our business today, and it's been fairly stable over the years. So we are looking to expand our customer base in the North American market. We have a launch that's upcoming yet this year with a motor sports company that makes the sport utility vehicles. So that will be new business that will launch in North America later this year. And in our bookings pipeline, we have another new major customer that we're very excited for the second half of this year that will create an additional customer for us in North America. So for our ability to grow in the North America market, we need to add new customers to our portfolio because we have a very mature high market share with the Detroit Big 3. So we need to expand beyond that, and we're taking steps to do that.

The next question comes from Jia Lou from BOCI Research.

I have 2 questions. The first one is regarding the subsequent event. As a result announcement said one of our suppliers cannot meet the price contract to us. So could the management share with us more details about this supplier and any financial impact on us? The second question is about your margin recovery trends. Just now, actually, management mentioned 2 things: accelerated commercialization of Steer-by-Wire and also several measures to improve our operational efficiency, so both of which should bode well for our margins. So just wondering how can we expect the margin recovery trend and upside room over the short term and the middle to long term? What time horizon could our margins recover to the peak level during the 2017 and 2018? Yes, that's all for my 2 questions.

Okay. Thank you, Jia. This is Robin. I'll take the first part of your question, and I'll pass the second part off to Mike. But in terms of this disruption that was mentioned, there's really not more we can say today than what was disclosed already. This is an emerging supply chain issue with a single supplier that's not able to make the contracted supply of parts. And it's very -- too early for us to understand the full impact of it. Certainly, all of our resources, we are pulling resources together to mitigate any potential significant losses, but it's too early for us to quantify it or provide any additional guidance at this point in time.

And the second question relative to... Go ahead.

Sorry. Sorry, just wonder, so where the supplier is based, any region? In Asia Pacific or North America?

We really disclosed all we can at this point in time. Like I said, this is a developing situation that we're monitoring very closely. We're actively engaged at managing and minimizing the impact of this and that's all we can say about it at this point in time.

Okay. Got it.

This is Mike. I'll take the second part of your question relative to the margins. So you can see our margins have been stabilizing. We do have some level here of year-over-year performance relative to EBITDA. I'd expect to continue to build on that momentum. We have these operational efficiency and execution initiatives that we're kicking off. Those will largely start here in the second half of the year and then continue to build momentum into next year. The other side of our margin enhancement will come from this continued revenue growth as we continue to book significant new business. The top line revenue will further leverage our cost structure and continue to improve margins. I think, though, in terms of returning to, say, prepandemic levels, this is going to take some time as we work through these inflationary pressures. But once the new technology with Steer-by-Wire starts to launch, I think that would be -- as our margins continue to ramp up through that period would be the time that we're targeting for returning to those prepandemic levels.

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