HELLA begins new fiscal year better than expected

Automotive segment affected by drop in light vehicle production while aftermarket remains strong with workshop business

HELLA begins new fiscal year better than expected

Global automotive supplier, HELLA has reported better than originally expected results for the first three months of fiscal year 2020/2021.

The currency and portfolio-adjusted consolidated sales in the first quarter (1 June to 31 August 2020) dropped by 10.6 per cent to €1.4 billion.

The adjusted EBIT dropped to €56 million.

The adjusted EBIT margin amounted to 4.2 per cent.

Due to provisions amounting to €169 million, taken into account in the first quarter for the long-term programme to increase competitiveness in Germany, the reported EBIT for this period is minus €115 million.

The reported EBIT margin stands at minus 8.6 per cent.

HELLA CEO Dr. Rolf Breidenbach said: “As before, the environment for the entire automotive industry remains very challenging.

“Global light vehicle production continued to fall in the first three months of the new fiscal year, although not as significantly as first assumed.

“This is also reflected in our financial figures.

“In fact, we have performed better than we expected at the beginning of the fiscal year.

“It is particularly encouraging that we remained operationally profitable in the first quarter despite the challenging market environment.

“This is not least due to our consistent cost management.”

Due to the lower passenger vehicle and light commercial vehicle production figures, sales in the Automotive segment fell by 12.6 per cent to €1.2 billion.

Aftermarket performance

In the first quarter of fiscal year 2020/2021, sales in the Aftermarket segment decreased by 6.7 per cent to €110 million.

The key factor behind the drop in sales within the segment was, in particular, the lower demand in the independent aftermarket business caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

In contrast to this, business involving advanced workshop equipment has developed positively, as workshops have recently begun to increase their investments again.

The EBIT of this segment, at €11 million, is at the same level as the prior year.

The EBIT margin, due to the increased proportion of workshop products, has increased to 9.6 per cent.

Sales in the ‘special applications’ segment only saw a small drop in the first three months of the current fiscal year of 2.8 per cent to €75 million.

While the market weakness continued to have a negative impact due to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the bus and construction machinery business, increasing demand has been seen in the field of agricultural machinery equipment in particular.

HELLA has confirmed the company outlook for the current fiscal year to be in the range of €5.6 billion to €6.1 billion, and an adjusted EBIT margin in the range of four to six per cent.

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