Faurecia grows sales in face of tough auto market

Nanterre, France — Faurecia sales grew 3.3% overall in 2018 to EUR 17.5bn, the company said, while operating income across the group increased by 10% to EUR 1.27bn.

In the company's seating business, sales were up 4.3% year-on-year at EUR 7.4bn and, mirroring the business as a whole, operating income was up 10% to EUR 448m.

These increases came in the face of a 1.1% decline in automotive production between 2017 and 2018. However, the fall in automotive production was greater in the second half of the year.

Production fell by 4.4% overall. In Europe, it fell by 5.3%, and there was a 5.6% decline in Asian car production. There was growth of 1.7% in North America, according to data from consultants IHS.

In 2018 VW, PSA, Ford, Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi, accounted for 61.3% of sales overall. During the year,VW's share grew by 10.9%; sales to Ford were down 9.4%; and sales to PSA were up 5.7% on 2017.

Faurecia is assuming that there will be a further 1% fall in car production in 2019. In addition to this, it is assuming that the first half of 2019 will be difficult, and that business will improve in the second half of the year. Despite this, the company expects sales in 2019 to be between 1.5% and 3.5% greater than the industry average. It also expects that the operating margin will increase to at least 7% by the end of the year.

'We will outperform the market and maintain strong profitability and cash generation. At the same time, we will continue to deploy our “Cockpit of the Future” and “Sustainable Mobility” strategy,' said CEO Patrick Koller.