NTXVF (NTXVF) Q2 2026 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Nexteer Automotive Group Limited 2026 Interim Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Investor Relations Director, Mr. Tony Wang. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Betsy. Welcome, everyone, to our 2026 interim earnings call. We made the announcement of our interim results this evening, Hong Kong time. Before we begin today's call, I would like to remind you that this presentation contains the safe harbor statement. For additional information, please refer to the content on the second page. The presentation accompanying today's call are available on our company's website. Please visit nexteer.com to download slides if you have not done yet. Joining us today are Robin Milavec, Executive Board Director, President and Chief Operating Officer; Mike Bierlein, Senior Vice President and CFO. Starting the presentation, Robin and Mike will provide business and financial highlights, respectively. Then we will open the line for your questions. With that, let me turn the call over to our President, Robin.

Thank you, Tony. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining our 2026 interim results announcement. The first half was another period of strong progress for Nexteer despite a market environment characterized by geopolitical uncertainty, a lot of evolving trade dynamics, shifting customer production schedules and I would say, continued volatility within the global automotive industry in general, we delivered record first half revenue, improved profitability, strong free cash flow generation, and continued above-market growth. We also secured significant new business awards, providing additional confidence in our future growth trajectory. Now these results reflect the disciplined execution of our global team, the strength of our customer relationships, and the continued competitiveness of our product and technology portfolio. Over the last several years, we have focused on transitioning Nexteer into a stronger, more resilient company, and we're seeing the benefits of those efforts through improving margins, stronger cash generation and sustained revenue growth. Equally important, we continue to advance our long-term strategic priorities. We achieved significant milestones in the commercialization of Steer-by-Wire, expanded our Motion-by-Wire portfolio, delivered strong launch execution across multiple regions and continued building momentum with both global and Chinese OEM customers. We believe these capabilities position Nexteer well to capitalize on some of the most important technology trends shaping the future of mobility. While we're pleased with our first half performance, we remain realistic about the challenges that lie ahead. The industry continues to face uncertainty related to tariffs, customer product forecasts, EV market dynamics, commodity costs, and broader macroeconomic conditions. However, we believe our strong balance sheet, diversified customer base, our growing technology portfolio and ongoing operational improvements position us very well to navigate these challenges and continue creating value for our shareholders. As we look to the second half of the year and beyond, our priorities remain clear: to grow above market, continue improving operational performance, accelerate commercialization of our Motion-by-Wire technologies, invest in digital transformation and automation, and maintain a disciplined capital allocation in support of profitable long-term growth. With that, let me begin with an overview of our business performance and strategic progress, and then I'll hand it over to Mike for a detailed review of our financial results and outlook. Starting on Slide 4, I'd like to begin with 5 highlights that demonstrate Nexteer's continued progress in delivering profitable growth, advancing our technology road map and strong cash generation. First is revenue. We achieved a record first half revenue of $2.3 billion. This reflects our continued above-market growth and successful conversion of new and Conquest business into production revenue streams. Our growth was supported by strong global execution, particularly in EMEASA. Second is program launches. During the first half, we successfully launched 28 customer programs with particularly strong activity in Asia-Pacific. These launches included important milestones such as the first 2 Steer-by-Wire production programs, our first high-output column EPS launch in China, and the first customer program launch at our new facility in Thailand. Third is bookings. We secured $3.3 billion of new business contracts in the first half, including our first Rack EPS win in Europe and another Steer-by-Wire award with a Chinese OEM. These bookings reinforce the strength of our product portfolio and provide a solid foundation for future growth. We are particularly pleased with the first half bookings as it shows accelerating momentum in our quest to grow the top line, and it sets us on a good trajectory to finish the year above our $6 billion booking target. Fourth is profitability. Adjusted EBITDA reached $263 million, with this first half year profit achieving its highest level in more than 6 years. The results reflect disciplined operational execution, improving efficiency, and our continued focus on profitable growth. And finally, cash generation. We delivered $109 million of free cash flow during the first half. That's nearly 3x the level achieved in the prior year's period. This reflects again the strength of our operating performance along with disciplined capital allocation and inventory management, resulting in a strong conversion of earnings into cash. Overall, these achievements highlight Nexteer's ability to grow above market, strengthen profitability, advance Motion-by-Wire strategy, and maintain a very strong financial position. On Slide #5, as I mentioned earlier, we successfully launched 28 customer programs during the first half across multiple product lines, customers and vehicle segments. Importantly, 26 of these launches were associated with new or Conquest business. That demonstrates our ability to convert bookings into revenue growth. Now rather than reviewing every launch individually, this slide highlights several key programs that showcase the breadth of our portfolio and the progress we're making across both traditional and next-generation motion control technologies. Most notably, 2026 marks an important milestone for our Steer-by-Wire commercialization. During the first half, we launched 2 Steer-by-Wire productions -- programs into production, including the Li Auto L9 in China and the Level 4 Robotaxi application in North America. These 2 launches represent the successful transition of our Steer-by-Wire strategy from business awards into launch and revenue generation, thereby validating our position as a leader in next-generation steering technology. We also achieved the first high-output column EPS launch in China with Chery Jetour, further expanding our EPS portfolio and strengthening our position with leading Chinese OEMs. Another important milestone was the first production launch from our Thailand manufacturing facility. This supports our strategy to enhance regional flexibility and better serve our customers across all of Asia. From a regional perspective, APAC remained the key growth engine for Nexteer. The majority of our launches during the first half supported both Chinese and global OEMs, reinforcing our strategy of participating in the fastest-growing vehicle platforms and market segments. Overall, these launches demonstrate the increasing diversity of our customer base, the strength of our product portfolio and the ability to successfully convert new business awards into profitable revenue growth. On Slide 6, we'll move from launches to bookings. So let's turn to our commercial momentum in the first half of this year. So we secured $3.3 billion in new business awards during this first half, putting us well on track towards our full year objective of $6 billion. These awards reflect a healthy mix across products, customers, and regions while continuing to strengthen our position in key growth areas. One highlight was another Steer-by-Wire award with a leading Chinese OEM, including both hand-wheel actuator and road-wheel actuator applications. This represents our third Chinese customer to adopt Nexteer's full Steer-by-Wire system architecture and further validates growing market demand for integrated Motion-by-Wire technologies. We also secured our first rack-based EPS program in EMEASA. This represents an important expansion of our premium steering portfolio with global customers. Combined with additional dual-pinion EPS as well as rear-wheel steering opportunities, we continue to expand the breadth of our steering solutions and strengthen our position across multiple vehicle segments. Another important achievement was winning significant truck and SUV program extensions in North America, including Rack EPS and power column business that further strengthens our scale, competitiveness and long-term customer relationships in that region. We also secured a significant breakthrough with a new Chinese OEM customer through a column-based EPS award. Winning these new customer platforms remains a key priority for us, and this Conquest business demonstrates our ability to gain market share in a highly competitive market. Looking at the mix of bookings, 72% of awards were within our EPS steering portfolio, highlighting the continued strength of our core business. Regionally, North America represented 46% of bookings, while APAC contributed 34%. This demonstrates balanced growth across our major markets. New and Conquest business represented 43% of total bookings, reflecting our ability to win new platforms and expand our customer base. Chinese OEMs represented approximately 30% of total bookings, reinforcing our strong participation in one of the industry's fastest-growing segments. As we showcased at the Beijing Auto Show earlier this year, Nexteer's Motion-by-Wire portfolio now spans Steer-by-Wire, Rear-Wheel Steering, Brake-by-Wire and the enabling software technologies. We're very encouraged by the increasing level of customer engagement and believe these technologies will become a growing and significant contributor to future bookings as well as revenue as adoption accelerates over the coming years. Overall, this diversified and technology-rich booking portfolio provides strong visibility into future growth and further demonstrates that Nexteer remains a trusted partner for both global and Chinese OEMs. On the next slide, Steer-by-Wire continues to be one of the most important strategic growth opportunities for Nexteer. And this year marks a significant milestone for our Steer-by-Wire strategy as it advances from customer awards into commercial production. Over the past several years, we built a strong foundation of Steer-by-Wire business across North America, Europe, and APAC. Today, that foundation includes 8 customers, 7 secured production programs, and active development projects across 3 regions, providing broad validation of both our technology and execution capabilities. Most importantly, we are now seeing the successful conversion of these awards into production revenue. In North America, our Level 4 Robotaxi program featuring Nexteer's first Pinion EPS dual actuator gear has successfully entered production, representing an important proof point for highly automated vehicle applications. We also continue to advance development activities with additional customers supporting future growth. In APAC, we achieved another major milestone during the first half with the launch of our first passenger vehicle Steer-by-Wire production program. That launch represents the world's first ASIL D certified full Steer-by-Wire system in production, demonstrating our ability to bring next-generation steering technologies from concept and development into commercial scale manufacturing. A second customer launch remains on track for the second half of this year. And in Europe, we previously secured our first business award, and are now progressing towards future program launches with a defined production plan. What's particularly encouraging is that we are seeing momentum across every stage of the Steer-by-Wire life cycle. Some programs now are already in production, others are approaching launch, and several customers remain in development. This progression provides increasing confidence that Steer-by-Wire adoption is moving beyond early validation towards broader market deployment. As adoption expands, we believe Nexteer is exceptionally well positioned to benefit given our growing production experience, global customer base, and expanding portfolio of secured programs. The successful launches this year are not only an important operational achievement, but are also strong validation of our long-term Motion-by-Wire strategy and our leadership in next-generation steering systems. And finally, I'd highlight that we are very pleased that our High-Mount Direct Drive Steer-by-Wire hand-wheel actuator was recently recognized as a 2026 Automotive News PACE Pilot Award finalist. This recognition highlights Nexteer's commitment to relentlessly advancing Steer-by-Wire technologies that enable greater vehicle design freedom and next-generation driver experiences while enhancing steering feel, modern airbag integration, flexible steering placement, packaging flexibility, and new driver display possibilities. On Slide #8, that same instinct to keep advancing the technology that moves our industry forward is still what guides us across all of our functions. Just as we evolve our steering technologies, we continue to evolve the way we work. As part of our broader digital transformation strategy, we're embedding AI across the enterprise to improve efficiency, increase our speed and build more agile, scalable organizations. Within manufacturing, we're deploying next-generation digital manufacturing standards and automation that can be constantly scaled across our global operations. By combining AI, manufacturing intelligence, and advanced analytics, we're improving productivity. We're enhancing product quality, increasing operational visibility, and giving our teams greater flexibility to respond to our customers' needs. We're also creating a closed-loop digital ecosystem that connects engineering, manufacturing, quality and operations, allowing us to accelerate product launches and continuously improve our process. And we're also expanding AI-enabled planning capabilities that better connect customer demands with production scheduling and inventory management, helping us become more responsive and efficient across our global manufacturing network. This next slide highlights an important milestone for Nexteer as we celebrate 120 years of steering innovation. Over the past century, we continuously evolved alongside the automotive industry, progressing from mechanical steering systems to today's advanced motion control technologies. That evolution has been written in numbers. As examples, nearly 550 million steering columns have been produced by Nexteer to-date, also around 400 million hydraulic steering units, and almost 200 million electric power steering and Steer-by-Wire systems to-date. In total, this equates to more than 1 billion units delivered across our steering portfolio, putting our innovation in the hands of real drivers on real roads. That same innovative spirit continues to drive our strategy today. Building on this legacy, we launched our Accelerate with Purpose initiative in January to sharpen our organizational focus, improve execution speed, and align resources behind the priorities that support long-term profitable growth. As we demonstrated through our recent Steer-by-Wire launches and strong commercial momentum, Nexteer is successfully translating innovation into customer adoption, production programs, and profitable growth. And our 120-year story is also more about than just what we build. It's about the communities that made it all possible. In honor of our anniversary, Nexteer employees around the world came together in July for a global service month, giving back to the communities that have supported us throughout our journey. Every one of our divisions far exceeded its goal of volunteer hours with employees contributing more than 3,400 hours in total to organizations and causes around the world. Those hours reflect the passion, generosity and commitment of our teams, the same qualities that has carried us through 120 years and will carry us into the future. And now I'll hand it over to Mike for the financial update. Mike?

Thanks, Robin, and good day, everyone. I'll begin with a few key observations from our first half financial performance. Nexteer delivered a record first half revenue of $2.3 billion, representing growth of approximately 4% year-over-year. On an adjusted basis, we outperformed global vehicle production by approximately 180 basis points. Profitability also continued to improve. Adjusted EBITDA increased 14.1% year-over-year to $263 million, with margin expanding 100 basis points to 11.3%. These results were driven by continued operating performance improvements and favorable foreign exchange due to the U.S. dollar weakening compared to the renminbi and euro. We generated $109 million of free cash flow during the first half, demonstrating our focus on cash conversion of earnings and disciplined investments. Combined with our strong liquidity position, this provides financial flexibility to support future growth initiatives and shareholder returns. Finally, we secured $3.3 billion of customer program bookings during the first 6 months of the year, including important wins in Steer-by-Wire and premium EPS applications. These awards support our long-term growth outlook and give us confidence in the continued strength of our business pipeline. With that, let's take a closer look at our financial performance. This slide highlights our key financial metrics for the first half of 2026. And as you can see, all 4 metrics improved compared with the prior year period. Revenue reached $2.3 billion, increasing 3.9% year-over-year and establishing another record first half revenue performance for Nexteer. Growth was driven by strong program volumes within EMEASA and North America as well as favorable foreign exchange. Adjusted EBITDA increased 14.1% to $263 million with margin expanding 100 basis points to 11.3%. Net profit attributable to equity holders increased 35.2% year-over-year to $86 million, with net profit margin improving from 2.8% to 3.7%. Free cash flow was particularly strong at $109 million compared to $37 million in the prior year period. The year-over-year improvement was driven primarily by higher earnings, disciplined capital spending, and continued focus on working capital management. Overall, we are seeing improvement across every key financial metric. The combination of revenue growth, stronger earnings, and significantly improved cash generation demonstrates the strength of our operating performance and the benefits of our strategy for profitable growth. This slide provides a bridge from our first half 2025 revenue to our first half 2026 revenue and highlights the key drivers behind the year-over-year increase. Revenue increased by $87 million or 3.9% to a record $2.3 billion in the first half of 2026. Foreign exchange was a positive contributor, increasing revenue by $59 million, reflecting the strengthening of the euro and renminbi relative to the U.S. dollar. Commodity pass-throughs had a favorable impact of $10 million. Volume, pricing, and other operational drivers contributed $18 million of growth, including new program launches and higher production schedules, which were partially offset by customer pricing headwinds, particularly in APAC. This slide shows our adjusted revenue growth relative to the market, excluding the impacts of foreign exchange and commodity price changes. On a global basis, Nexteer delivered 0.8% adjusted revenue growth, outperforming the market by 180 basis points during the first half of 2026. While industry production remained relatively muted, we continue to benefit from recent program launches and the ramp-up of new and Conquest business across our portfolio. Looking at the regions. North America delivered 2% adjusted revenue growth and outperformed the market by 2 percentage points. This performance reflects the strength of our core customer programs, particularly in truck and SUV platforms. EMEASA delivered the strongest growth over market performance with revenue growth of approximately 3% and growth over market of 6%. This outperformance was primarily driven by higher volumes with our European OEM customers. In APAC, revenue was approximately flat on an adjusted basis relative to market performance despite a more challenging operating environment. Strong program launches and customer growth were largely offset by pricing headwinds, particularly with the China market. Even so, APAC continues to be an important contributor to our overall revenue base and remains a key driver of future growth opportunities. This slide summarizes our revenue performance by region and highlights both the composition of our revenue base, and the key drivers of growth during the first half of 2026. Starting on the left, total revenue increased from $2.24 billion in the first half of 2025 to $2.33 billion in the first half of 2026. From a regional mix perspective, North America remains our largest region at 50% of total revenue, followed by APAC at 30%, and EMEASA at 19%. Overall, our revenue base remains well diversified across the regions. Turning to the regional performance on the right. North America revenue increased 2.7% year-over-year to $1.17 billion. Growth was driven by favorable production schedules and the continued contribution from key customer programs, particularly in the truck and SUV segments. In APAC, revenue increased to $708 million, representing growth of approximately 3.2% year-over-year. Favorable foreign exchange drove the increase. EMEASA delivered the strongest regional growth with revenue increasing 11.6% year-over-year to $447 million. The improvement was also primarily driven by favorable foreign exchange. Turning to earnings performance. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $263 million in the first half of 2026, up 14.1% year-over-year, with EBITDA margin expanding 100 basis points to 11.3%. This marks another period of improving profitability and continued margin expansion. Looking at the drivers on the right of the slide, production volumes had a favorable impact of $4 million. Favorable foreign exchange contributed $11 million, driven by $18 million relative to the strengthening of the euro and renminbi to the U.S. dollar, and partially offset by $7 million due to the strengthening of the Mexican peso against the U.S. dollar. We also realized $8 million year-over-year benefit from customer tariff recoveries. This includes customer recoveries of tariffs related to costs incurred in 2025. All other factors contributed $15 million with material and manufacturing performance outpacing customer pricing and economics. Partially offsetting these favorable items was a $5 million unfavorable impact from a temporary electrical outage in 2 of our Mexico plants, causing production disruptions, premium freight, and other costs. We are currently working with our insurance provider and expect recovery in the second half. This slide highlights EBITDA and margin performance across our 3 regions during the first half of 2026. Starting with North America, EBITDA was $86 million, consistent with the prior year. Margin was 7.3% compared with 7.6% in the first half of 2025. North America profitability was impacted by the electrical outage and unfavorable foreign exchange. Moving to APAC. EBITDA increased to $120 million compared with $116 million in the prior year. EBITDA margin remained strong at 16.9%, demonstrating the resilience of the business despite a challenging market environment, including customer pricing pressure and elevated commodity costs. Continued operational discipline, strong execution and the benefits of scale helped offset these headwinds and supported another period of strong earnings performance. In EMEASA, EBITDA increased significantly to $55 million, up from $35 million in the first half of 2025. EBITDA margin expanded from 8.8% to 12.2%, reflecting continued operating efficiency improvements, favorable revenue growth, and successful execution of our margin enhancement initiatives across the region. This slide provides a bridge from EBITDA to net profit for the first half of 2026. Overall, the $33 million increase in EBITDA was the primary driver behind the $23 million improvement in net profit, which increased from $63 million in the first half of 2025 to $86 million in the first half of 2026. Let me highlight a few key items. Depreciation and amortization totaled $147 million compared with $137 million in the prior year period. The increase was driven by $3 million foreign exchange impact, $3 million from a customer recovery received in 2025, and $4 million due to ongoing investments supporting future growth, particularly in APAC. As a result of the stronger EBITDA performance, operating profit increased to $116 million compared with $93 million in the first half of 2025. Income tax expense decreased from $27 million to $25 million. The effective tax rate for the first half of 2026 was 21.6% compared to 27.9% in the first half of 2025. The reduction in effective tax rate was primarily driven by improved profitability in the U.S. entity related to stronger operating performance and tax planning initiatives. Our U.S. entity remains in a full tax valuation allowance position. We now expect our full year effective tax rate to be slightly below 25%, and our long-term effective tax rate remains in the high teens. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow. On the left of the slide, you can see our cash flow performance for the first half of 2026 compared with the first half of 2025, while on the right side summarizes our balance sheet and liquidity position. We generated $109 million of free cash flow during the first half of 2026 compared with $37 million in the prior year period. Cash from operating activities totaled $262 million, an increase of $120 million compared with the first half of 2025. This improvement reflects stronger earnings performance, customer recovery, and favorable working capital. Cash used in investing activities was $153 million compared with $106 million in the prior year period. The increase was primarily driven by higher capital expenditures and engineering investments supporting future growth opportunities. Turning to the balance sheet. We ended the first half with $597 million of cash and only $51 million of gross debt, resulting in a net cash position of $516 million, an increase from $414 million at the end of 2025. Our liquidity position remains very strong. Total liquidity increased to $968 million, consisting of $598 million of cash and $372 million of committed credit facilities, providing substantial financial flexibility to support both strategic investments and shareholder returns. Before concluding the financial section, I'd like to step back and highlight what we have accomplished since 2023. As this slide illustrates, Nexteer has delivered 3 consecutive years of revenue and EBITDA growth, demonstrating our ability to achieve profitable growth through disciplined execution and strategic transformation. Since 2023, revenue has increased from $4.2 billion to $4.6 billion in 2025. And we have continued that momentum in the first half of 2026 with another record revenue performance. Over the same period, EBITDA grew from $347 million to $472 million, while EBITDA margin expanded from 8.2% in 2023 to 10.3% in 2025, reaching 11.3% in the first half of 2026. This progress is a result of several strategic initiatives working together. First, we successfully converted strong bookings into revenue growth through consistent execution of new and Conquest program launches across all regions. We leaned into growth in our APAC division, and secured the #1 market share position with the China OEMs. Second, we have focused on operational excellence through restructuring initiatives, footprint optimization, manufacturing productivity improvements, and focused cost management, driving improving profit margins. Third, we have continued to strengthen our technology portfolio, expanding beyond traditional steering systems into Steer-by-Wire, Rear-Wheel Steering and Brake-by-Wire as well as expanding mass production of Rack EPS and Dual Pinion EPS for the China OEMs. Taken together, we have expanded margins by over 300 basis points, strengthened cash generation, improving returns, and building a more resilient business with a diversified customer base and a differentiated technology portfolio. We continue to see strong momentum in the business with further opportunity to continue to grow revenue above market levels and to further expand profit margins. Turning to our 2026 considerations. Despite expectations for a relatively soft global production environment, we remain on track to achieve another year of record revenue and continued above-market growth. We are also seeing continued momentum in operating performance. Over the past several years, we have taken meaningful actions to improve the profitability of the business through restructuring initiatives, manufacturing productivity improvements, supply chain optimization, and disciplined cost management. The benefits of these actions are evident in our margin expansion and earnings growth, and we expect that momentum to continue in the second half. At the same time, we remain actively engaged with customers regarding tariff reimbursement, North America EV program recoveries, and commodity cost impacts. We have made good progress recovering tariff-related costs during the first half, and we'll continue working closely with customers and suppliers to mitigate external cost pressures and protect profitability. From a technology perspective, 2026 is shaping up to be a milestone year for Steer-by-Wire following the successful production launches achieved during the first half. We expect additional Steer-by-Wire program launches later this year. These launches further validate our ability to successfully transition from awards and development activities into commercial production and revenue generation. Finally, our first half bookings performance provides a solid path toward achieving our full year bookings target of $6 billion. We continue to see healthy customer engagement across our core steering portfolio as well as growing interest in our Motion-by-Wire technologies. Overall, we remain confident in our outlook, supported by continued above-market growth, improving operating performance, increasing commercialization of Steer-by-Wire, and a strong pipeline of future business opportunities. Thank you for your attention during the call. Betsy, please open the line for questions.

[Operator Instructions] The first question today comes from Joey Yang with Bank of America Securities.

Congratulations on the solid results despite the weakness in the global auto production market. My first question is, could you give us some outlook on the growth momentum by region in the second half of this year and also 2027, and to exclude other FX impact?

Yes. So thanks, Joey, for the question. Certainly, we're excited with the results that we achieved in the first half and look forward again to a strong second half of the year. We are seeing on a year-over-year basis, production volumes are lower. They were lower in the first half year-over-year by about 1%, and we're seeing production volumes as well looking to be lower about 3% on a year-over-year basis with all regions being lower. That said, we gave guidance back when we were with you for the -- for our March Investor Call of 200 to 300 basis points of growth over market. We fell slightly below that in the first half of the year with this 180 basis points growth over market. The majority of the miss in the first half -- or slight miss in the first half was related to the lower production volume environment within China. However, we do still see that our growth momentum will start to pick up again in the second half of the year with these additional program launches, and we still expect to outperform the market growth by 300 -- 200 to 300 basis points for the full year. In terms of 2027, it's a little bit early for us to talk about guidance for 2027 as we're just now going through our budget and financial planning process. What I can say, though, is that we are focused on continuing to grow our revenue over market and see quite a lot of opportunity to continue with this momentum that we have over the past few years.

That's very clear. And my second question is on your first half new bookings. I noticed that the contribution from APAC customers declined to 34% versus 45% in 2025 full year. Would you think this contribution from APAC customers will remain as low as this 33.33%? And if you look at half year or half year pattern, so in 2025, around 70% of new bookings happened in first half versus only 30% in the second half. Would you think we should use this as a reference for 2026, meaning that there could be much lower new bookings in the second half of this year?

Yes. So our booking cadence really depends on how our customers roll out their sourcing schedule. So I'd say for the first half, we had a $3.3 billion of bookings. We're still forecasting to meet our goal of $6 billion for the full year. And within the -- within our bookings for the first half, we did have strong bookings in APAC, about $1 billion of bookings in the first half for APAC. We just had also strong bookings within North America and EMEASA that overall slightly reduced the total. But I would expect to have about 1/3 or around $2 billion of bookings for our APAC division for the whole year.

The next question comes from Shelley Wang with Morgan Stanley.

Congratulations on the very good results. I have 2 questions here. The first one is on the revenue growth. So it was 0.8% for the first half. Can management share more color on the volume versus the price and the growth breakdown? Because we know the ASP trend for the APAC was negative. I'm not sure for the overall, the ASP trend. And because we are migrating to the more advanced products like the REPS, dual-pinion, like, Steer-by-Wire, I assume like the ASP is higher. So do we expect to see the higher ASP growth in the future, and therefore, the higher revenue growth in the future? That's my first question.

Okay. So the revenue growth -- and first, thanks for the questions, Shelley. Appreciate it. If you look at our presentation on Slide 13, we have a bridge for the revenue growth. So FX was a large driver for us. We did have $10 million for commodity recovery and then $18 million in the volume mix other category. And that includes pricing. And we're running and we've historically run pricing of about 1% to 2% per year. And we're seeing certainly pricing pressures within APAC. And that pricing pressure is pushing us up to closer to the 2% pricing level in the first half. Now you can see with the strong margins that we delivered in APAC, we were able to offset these pricing reductions as well with -- also with cost reductions, both on material costs as well as efficiencies in our manufacturing costs.

And I guess, Shelley, I'll add to what Mike just said in terms of our product mix. Certainly, as we transition into more premium steering products like Rack EPS, like Steer-by-Wire, and other Motion-by-Wire products, we would expect higher content in the vehicle with those products. I would point to the business award we had in Europe with Rack EPS that this would be our first introduction of Rack EPS by next year into the European market. So we're very optimistic about the opportunity of expanding that premium product into the European market. So the trend tends to be skewed towards more premium products driven by heavier electric vehicles in one aspect, but just our portfolio in general is really now trending more towards the by-wire technologies, which have higher content.

My second question is on the margin. So we have received some recoveries in the first half. May I ask if that's all? Or can we expect to receive more recoveries in the second half, either, like, related to the tariff, commodity price or like the customer reimbursements related to the previous project cancellations?

Yes. So the recoveries that we received in the first half were largely related to tariff recoveries for costs on tariffs that we incurred in 2025 that we had yet recovered from the customer. So that improved our profitability by $8 million in the first half of '26 compared to 2025. In terms of recoveries related to the North America EV cancellations, we did not record any recoveries in the first half of the year and continue to negotiate with a couple of our customers for recoveries. And we look to achieve those in the second half of the year.

The next question comes from Yiming Liu with Guotai Haitong Securities.

First, congratulations for your strong first half results. So I've just got one question on Steer-by-Wire. So with the development of global L4 autonomous driving, so do you see any driver of your products? So are they going to be more utilized on those like Robotaxi, [ robo-truck ] or similar products? And could you provide an expectation on the penetration level of those products in the next couple of years?

Yes. Thank you for the questions. So I think the Steer-by-Wire product brings a lot of flexibility to OEMs. So it's made up of really 2 systems, a road-wheel actuator, which is the mechanical system that turns the wheels of the vehicle and then a hand-wheel actuator, which provides the steering input and provides driver feedback. So in a, like, fully autonomous vehicle, an L4 vehicle or a Robotaxi-type vehicle with no steering wheel in the vehicle, they're only using the road-wheel actuator and the vehicle is driven autonomously. So that is one application of Steer-by-Wire. Another application is where you would have the full system, so the road-wheel actuator in addition to the hand-wheel actuator as well. And those can be used in vehicles all the way up to L4, L5 in terms of autonomous driving, but they also provide the capability of drivers to control the vehicle as well. So we see the technology applicable to all levels of autonomous driving, and we have customers that are looking to apply that in multiple different ways. But it's clear that there is becoming more momentum around this technology. We're starting to see our first launches as we have talked about. We have a major program in Europe that will launch towards 2030-type of a time frame at a much higher volume. So I think over the next few years, we're going to see a gradual ramp-up. And then after 2030, I think the Steer-by-Wire systems will become more meaningful in terms of our total revenue.

Due to the time limit, we will take the last question from Elizabelle Pang from DBS.

Congratulations on a strong set of results. This is Elizabelle from DBS. I have 2 questions. Firstly, I'd like to congrats Nexteer management in obtaining the $8 million tariff-related recovery, and understand that the team is still continuing to negotiate for the EV cost recovery. Just like to ask, could management guide a potential magnitude of this EV cost recovery in the second half? Should we expect close to full recovery like what we've witnessed for tariff costs or perhaps around half of this $24 million cost that we saw in '25? Some guidance in the magnitude of EV cost recovery would be helpful. That is my first question.

Yes. So we continue to -- thanks for the question. We continue to discuss with our customers on various aspects. We did have for the second half of 2025, we had a net impact of $24 million, and that included some customer recovery of $5 million related to these North America EV programs. So of course, we do aim to work to offset the write-offs that we had to take. Also, we have significant challenges throughout our supply base related to these program cancellations. So still working through the negotiations, a bit early to forecast what the net impact would be on the second half. But I'd say between dealing with recoveries with the customers as well as with our supply chain partners, I wouldn't expect a significant upside in the second half.

That's very clear. And my second question is with regards to raw material costs. Should we expect a softening in gross margins and EBITDA margins going forward given the increases in raw material costs that we've seen? And I'd also like to clarify that we've seen that the raw material cost as a percentage of revenue also declined in the first half of this year compared to last year. So perhaps management could share the reason for this improvement, even though we've seen raw material costs continue to rise? And is this improvement durable for the second half of this year?

We're certainly facing increased commodity prices as increases in oil, aluminum, steel, copper are impacting our business. Now in terms of copper and aluminum and steel, we do have commodity escalation contracts secured with most of our customers. Now where we do have challenges is in -- particularly in China with the China OEMs. Most of the China OEMs, we do not have escalation clauses with. So that will be a headwind for us as the prices are increasing. And you're right, our material cost percent of revenue has reduced in the first half of this year versus last year. And I'd attribute that to our strategy around purchasing. We have instituted dual supply for most of our -- majority of our parts, and that's helped us to drive our more efficient cost reductions across our supply chain as well as we are continuing to partner with our supply base and our customers for design changes, which has also reduced our cost through removing costs from our bill of materials.

Thank you so much for all the questions and today's participation. If there are any further queries, please contact us at investors@nexteer.com. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.