Aptiv PLC

Good day and welcome to the Aptiv fourth quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Today's conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Chris Tillis, Director of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Kevin. Good morning and thank you for joining Aptiv's fourth quarter and full year 2021 earnings conference call. The press release and related tables, along with the slide presentation, can be found on the investor relations portion of our website at Aptiv.com. Today's review of our financials exclude restructuring and other special items and will address the continuing operations of Aptiv. Reconciliations between gap and non-gap measures for our Q4 and full-year financials, as well as for our full-year 2022 outlook, are included at the back of the slide presentation and the earnings press release. During today's call, we will be providing certain forward-looking information which reflects Aptiv's current view of future financial performance. and may be materially different from our actual performance for reasons that we cite in our Form 10-K and other SEC filings, including uncertainties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the difficulty in predicting its future course and impact on the supply chain and global economy. Joining us today will be Kevin Clark, APTA's President and CEO, and Joe Massaro, CFO and Senior Vice President of Business Operations. Kevin will provide a strategic update on the business, and Joe will cover the financial results and 2022 outlook in more detail before we open the call to Q&A. With that, I'd like to turn the call over to Kevin Clark.

Thank you, Chris, and thank you everyone for joining us this morning. Beginning on slide three, during 2021, we experienced record growth over market and record new business bookings, driven by our industry-leading portfolio of advanced technologies aligned to the safe, green, and connected megatrends, as well as our success keeping our customers running through the ongoing supply chain disruptions. Despite the increased efforts to keep our customers connected, our financial results validate the strength of our competitive position and the resiliency of our business model. Focusing on the highlights for the full year, new business bookings reached $24 billion and revenues totaled $15.6 billion, representing 15% growth, 15 points over underlying vehicle production. Operating income and earnings per share totaled $1.2 billion and $261 billion, respectively. reflecting the benefit of strong revenue growth, partially offset by increased operating expenses related to supply chain disruptions and material cost inflation, which Joe will cover in greater detail in a few minutes. Lastly, we continue to invest in organic growth initiatives, and as you know, recently announced an agreement to acquire Wind River, a leading provider of intelligent head software solutions, representing one more step in accelerating the intelligent transformation of Aptiv and positioning us to enable the software-defined future. This transaction uniquely positions Aptiv to provide comprehensive solutions that enable software to be developed faster, deployed more seamlessly, and optimized throughout the vehicle lifecycle. Setting the supply chain challenges aside, the Aptiv team is executing exceptionally well, continuing to proactively position the company for the future, increasing the efficiency of our underlying cost structure, while investing in high-growth, high-margin advanced technologies that increase the resiliency of our business model, which will lead to a stronger competitive position and increase value for our shareholders. Turn to slide four. As I already mentioned, we remain laser focused on executing our strategy and further enhancing our industry-leading capabilities. The macro headwinds we've faced over the past two years have validated the resiliency of our business model. showcased by the flawless execution of new program launches, as well as the record new business bookings and record revenue growth over market. Looking ahead, Aptiv will be in an even better position to capitalize on the safe, green, and connected megatrends, just as a path to the software-defined vehicles accelerating. Our scalable, advanced ADAS and in-cabin sensing solutions increase system performance while lowering costs, enabling the democratization of Aptiv's safety features. Our extensive portfolio of both low voltage and high voltage electrification solutions allows us to develop optimized vehicle architectures that significantly reduce vehicle weight and mass and lower overall vehicle cost. And our vehicle connectivity solutions provide our OEMs with the data analytics and insights that allow for continuous enhancements through the vehicle lifecycle and our fleet customers with the vehicle health data to minimize vehicle downtime. Collectively, Each of these offerings is a key foundational element for our smart vehicle architecture solution, and 2021 was a proof point for the market relevancy of our industry-leading portfolio of advanced technologies, which gives us the confidence to increase our framework for revenue growth to 8 to 10 points over vehicle production. As shown on slide 5, 2021 new business bookings total a record $24 billion. a $6 billion increase over the COVID-impacted 2020 amount, and a $2 billion increase over the previous record of $22 billion. Our unique portfolio of safe, green, and connected technologies, combined with our FOSS operating execution, continues to position Aptiv as a partner of choice for our customers. Advanced safety and user experience segment bookings totaled $6 billion for the year, including $2.8 billion in active safety awards. Bookings for our signal and power solution segment reached $18 billion, including a record $3.5 billion of high-voltage electrification awards. The cumulative amount of our new business bookings over the last few years across our portfolio of advanced technologies gives us confidence in our ability to sustain strong above-market growth across both of our business segments, further validating the resiliency of our business models. Turning to the highlights from our advanced safety and user experience segment on slide six. Revenues for the fourth quarter declined 1%, 15 points better than the reduction in global vehicle production. For the full year, revenues increased 13%, 13 points over vehicle production, reflecting the benefit of new program launches and increased penetration rates, which resulted in strong growth over market in our active safety product line. and continues strong growth in our user experience and connectivity and security product lines, driven by the launch of infotainment programs in Europe and in-cabin sensing programs in both North America and Europe. As the demand increases for more advanced active safety and user experience features, the need for more advanced software development, integration, and compute capabilities is required, and our industry-leading capabilities presents us with additional market share opportunities as evidenced by a new business award from Stellantis for our ADAS satellite architecture solution on the Ram pickup truck, building off of our earlier success launching a similar scalable active safety solution on the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Wagoneer. Several new business awards from Ford for the extension of our ADAS satellite architecture solutions across additional new vehicle platforms. Awards from Volvo for the extension of the first-of-its-kind Android infotainment solution powered by native Google Automotive Services with real-time OTA, onto new additional vehicle platforms. And lastly, further commercial validation of our smart vehicle architecture solution in China, with a new business award from Baidu for the development of a central vehicle controller. This high-performance compute platform will launch in 2023 on a vehicle produced by the Geely-Baidu joint venture, Jidoo, and will up-integrate central body functions and control the flow of data in and out of the vehicles. Moving to slide seven, fourth quarter revenues in our signal and power solution segment declined 6%, 10 points better than the decline in global vehicle production. For the full year, revenues increased 16%, 16 points over vehicle production, reflecting the increased production of high-voltage electrified vehicles, resulting in increased demand for both our low-voltage and high-voltage architecture solutions from traditional and emerging electric vehicle OEMs, and continued strong demand from engineer components for both automotive and non-automotive applications. We're perfectly positioned to support our customers globally with an industry-leading portfolio of high-voltage distribution, connection, and cable management solutions. which has translated into a significant increase in new business awards for high-voltage solutions, including an award for Rivian for low-voltage content on the electrified R1S and R1T models, an extension of our 2019 award on these vehicles, an award for high-voltage vehicle architecture covering several next-generation Stellantis vehicles, an important win as more European platforms migrate to full-battery electric vehicles, High voltage architecture awards with VW for additional ID models on their MEB platform, building off several high voltage bookings on the MEB platform in 2020. And lastly, an award from a major North American OEM for a wireless charging solution that will launch on several of their vehicle platforms. These new business awards validate our leadership position in optimizing high voltage power distribution for new vehicle architectures that deliver value for our customers. We continue to see an acceleration of powertrain electrification driven by both more stringent CO2 regulation and the increasing momentum for consumer acceptance. The fact that we have content on more than 50% of the battery electric vehicles launching over the next few years, we're confident that we will continue to experience very strong revenue growth from our high voltage electrification product line. Turning to slide eight, As I mentioned, in early January, we announced the agreement to acquire Wind River, a global leader in intelligent edge-connected systems. This acquisition reflects our commitment to accelerating Aptiv's software strategy. Together, we'll be able to provide a comprehensive edge-to-cloud software solution spanning the full intelligent system lifecycle across multiple industries. Our complementary software offerings will create new growth and value creation opportunities for Aptiv and our customers through a cloud-native platform that enables the development, deployment, and operation of software across the full vehicle lifecycle. As smart vehicle architecture enables the evolution of vehicle architecture and advanced feature adoption across domains, Wind River's proven solutions for mission-critical applications will play a key role in enabling the software-defined vehicle. Slide 9 provides an overview of our software strategy. We're at a tipping point in the automotive industry's transition to the software-defined vehicle. Consumers are demanding more advanced features for vehicle safety, comfort and convenience. 5G and the cloud are creating opportunities to deliver vehicles that leverage connectivity. And lower battery costs are accelerating the penetration of high-voltage electrification, all of which is enabled through a significant increase in the amount of software content in the vehicle, growing from $30 billion today to $90 billion by 2030. OEMs are beginning to separate software from the underlying hardware, both technically as they transition to smart vehicle architectures and in how they're sourcing new programs. Aptiv is enabling OEMs to accelerate their transition to an electrified, software-defined vehicle by employing a more holistic engineering and development approach to optimize the hardware, the software, and the system solution that spans the full vehicle stack. Our industry-leading position in the development of high-performance, cost-optimized, automotive-grade hardware and deep software development capabilities deployed across millions of vehicles with multiple OEMs across the globe gives us confidence in our unique competitive position. The combined expertise and complementary technologies of Aptiv and Wind River further augmented with TT Tech's deterministic framework that enhances active safety software applications are uniquely positioned to assist OEMs in cost-effectively accelerating the development and the deployment of the software-defined vehicle. APTA's smart vehicle architecture solution optimizes the vehicle infrastructure while providing the necessary network redundancy and resiliency. Wind River's Studio Cloud native platform allows for the development, deployment, operation, and servicing of the vehicle software stack shortening development cycles, speeding time to market, and enabling full lifecycle management. And an open development environment allows for feature adoption and development from multiple sources, including Aptiv's active safety and user experience software, as well as OEM-developed software. In short, our strategy continues to be focused on accelerating the transition to the software-defined vehicle by offering a complete stack from high-performance hardware to cloud connectivity that enables value-added services, a software architecture that is open, that's scalable and containerized, easily upgradable and providing OEMs with the flexibility to efficiently integrate their own as well as other software and feature development, and that can be continuously certified for safety-critical applications, and providing full lifecycle management capabilities that enable attractive new business models. Moving to slide 10, some of the advanced technologies we've discussed were on display at this year's CES event in Las Vegas. Outside the pavilion, we showed a number of feature-rich vehicles with Aptis vehicle architecture, active safety, and user experience content already on board. Inside the pavilion, we featured a fully functioning smart vehicle architecture and continuous delivery platform. We hosted over 400 customers, both in person and virtually, from over 50 companies, including 25 OEMs. This year's CES event provided our customers with the opportunity to validate APTA's full system portfolio, generating significant interest in the future-defining products that we continue to develop and deliver to OEMs. Moving to slide 11, before I turn the call over to Joe, I wanted to comment on our outlook for 2022. As we've already discussed, we continue to face headwinds related to supply chain disruptions and material cost inflation. However, as we manage through these day-to-day challenges, we remain laser focused on executing our strategy to build a more sustainable business and deliver lasting value creation, which is translated into market share gains, accelerated revenue growth, and increased underlying profitability. driven by the development of advanced technologies that are accelerating the transition to electrified software-defined vehicles. As I mentioned earlier, as a result of the confidence we have in our competitive position, we've increased our outlook for growth over market to 8 to 10 points, further validated by recent strong revenue growth and new program awards. And our advanced technologies focused on the safe, green, and connected megatrends are enabling market share and content gains, which will translate into margin expansion, and earnings growth. Unfortunately, we expect supply chains to remain tight and disruptions to continue, but begin improving in the back half of this year. And inflationary effects, including rising material costs, are likely to be around for some time. But we're managing our cost structure and working to recover the increase in material costs through various pricing, product redesign, sourcing, and footprint strategies. Our strategic focus and operating execution, as well as the current headwinds, are reflected in the full year 2022 guidance that Joe will review with you shortly, which anticipates the continued expansion of our competitive moat, which will leverage into increased new business bookings, accelerated revenue growth, and increased margins in cash flow generation. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Joe to talk through the numbers.

Thanks, Kevin, and good morning, everyone. Starting with a recap of the fourth quarter financials on slide 12. As Kevin highlighted earlier, the business drove strong growth over market while supporting our customers despite ongoing disruptions in the supply chain. Revenues of $4.1 billion were down 4%, with 12 points of growth above underlying production. Adjusted EBTA and operating income were $461 million and $273 million respectively, reflecting flow through on lower volume as we lap the rapid second half recovery in 2020, partially offset by strong growth in our key product lines with new program launches in high voltage, active safety, and user experience. COVID and supply chain disruption costs of $85 million, a $15 million increase over Q4 2020, and a net negative impact of approximately $80 million for material inflation and foreign exchange. Earnings per share in the quarter were $0.56, with the lower operating income levels being partially offset by favorable tax expense, including the tax benefits related to the supply chain disruption costs. The equity income loss at Motional had a $0.21 negative impact. Lastly, operating cash flow was $669 million, including a positive contribution from working capital, partially offsetting the lower earnings level. Capital expenditures increased $86 million year-over-year to $181 million for the quarter, reflecting the timing of investments ahead of major 2022 program launches. Looking at the fourth quarter revenues in more detail on slide 13, we saw strong double-digit growth over market in all regions and across both segments, reflecting the continued strength of our product lines, despite lower vehicle production in the quarter and continued supply chain disruptions. FX and commodity movements were also a net favorable revenue as compared to the prior period, largely due to copper price escalations. From a regional perspective, North American revenues were down 2%, representing 11 points of growth over market. Driven by favorable model mix, as truck and SUV production continued to outperform passenger cars, as well as active safety and high voltage. In Europe, we saw strong double-digit outgrowth of 11% as user experience launches offset the steep market decline from continued supply chain disruptions in the region. Lastly, in China, revenues reflecting 17 points of growth over market resulted from new program launches in our active safety, high voltage, and user experience businesses. The continued strong growth above market in the fourth quarter closed out a record year for Aptiv, as strong revenue outperformance and record bookings, highlighted by Kevin, continues to demonstrate the relevance of our core technologies. Moving to the segments on the next slide. Advanced safety and user experience revenues fell 1% in the quarter, which translates to 15 points of growth over underlying vehicle production. This includes growth in active safety, where revenues were up 7 percent despite the semiconductor supply shortages driven by program ramps in North America and Europe. User experience growth was down for the quarter due to the timing of program launches, but up 5 percent in the full year. Segment EVTA was down $82 million due to higher input costs. Inflation in semiconductors and other inputs accounted for roughly $50 million of that decrease. Signal and power solutions revenues were down 6%, representing 10% growth over market. The market outperformance was driven by continued strength in our high-voltage product line, as well as strong performance in the engineered components product lines. Commercial vehicle and industrial revenue growth of 7% for the quarter, including strength in commercial vehicle despite a flat market. EBITDA in the segment was down $135 million in the quarter on lower sales volume and higher supply chain disruption and material costs. Together, those two drivers accounted for roughly $70 million of the decrease. For 2021, our high-voltage product lines reported revenues of approximately $1 billion and achieved bookings of $3.5 billion, records on both fronts. In addition, high-voltage Margins exceeded the segment average for the year. Turning now to slide 15 in our 2022 macro environment. For 2022, we are expecting global vehicle production to increase 6% to approximately 83 million units on an active weighted production basis. We expect 2022 to start slowly as supply chain and COVID constraints continue to impact the industry. Accordingly, we see vehicle production as being roughly flat in the first half of the year. We see supply chain constraints easing as we move through the year, and we expect vehicle production to increase 15% in the second half. Looking at the regions, in North America, we expect overall production growth of 9% with continued favorable truck and SUV mix. In Europe, we anticipate 10% overall production growth, A STRONG RECOVERY GIVEN A RELATIVELY GREATER EUROPEAN PRODUCTION DISRUPTION LAST YEAR. CHINA IS EXPECTED TO BE DOWN 1% FOR THE YEAR AT APPROXIMATELY 25 MILLION UNITS. ON SLIDE 16, YOU'LL FIND OUR 2022 OUTLOOK FOR APTIS. THIS CURRENT OUTLOOK EXCLUDES WIND RIVER AS THE TRANSACTION IS NOT EXPECTED TO CLOSE UNTIL THE THIRD QUARTER OF THE YEAR. AS WAS THE CASE IN 2021, we will only be providing full year 2022 guidance as supply chain disruptions continue to result in production scheduled volatility at our customers. We expect revenue in the range of $17.75 to $18.15 billion, up 15% at the midpoint compared to 2021. With global vehicle production expected to grow 6% for the full year, this translates into nine points of growth above market, in line with our updated 8% to 10% growth over market range. Consistent with prior forecasts, this range is multi-year and covers 2022 and 2023. ASUX growth over market of 19% is driven by the continued ramp of active safety and user experience programs in Europe and North America, while SPS growth over market of 6% is driven by further penetration in our high voltage and engineered components businesses. EVTA and operating income are expected to be approximately $2.6 billion and $1.9 billion at the midpoint, with margin expansion across both segments. Consistent with 2021, although our core product line profitability continues to be in line with our expectations, we will incur meaningful costs related to COVID safety protocols, supply chain disruptions, and material inflation. COVID and supply chain disruption costs are estimated at $230 million, an improvement of $100 million over 2021. We expect the improvement to come in the second half of the year as supply chain disruptions lessen and we last the heavily disrupted third quarter of 2021. We expect materials inflation to increase approximately $200 million in 2022. While we continue to make progress on mitigating these costs, We expect these efforts to take until 2023, as we have noted in prior quarters. And FVACs and commodities will have a negative impact of $60 million versus 2021, driven by copper pricing at $4.40 and a euro rate of $1.14. As we discussed in our January 12th Wind River Acquisition Call, beginning in 2022, we will change our definition of adjusted EPS to exclude amortization. Annual amortization in 2022 is estimated to be $150 million. The appendix to this presentation includes a reconciliation highlighting the change, including the prior year. For 2022, we estimate adjusted earnings per share to be $4.35, an increase of 42% over the comparable adjusted 2021 totals. We expect 2022 operating cash flow of just over $2 billion, driven by the earnings increase and favorable working capital of roughly $400 million. Lastly, we estimate total CapEx to be approximately 5% of sales. Slide 17 includes the puts and takes for our 2022 revenue and EVDA guidance as compared to 2021. Starting with revenue on the left, we've already discussed our expected industry recovery of approximately 6% for the full year. And our new growth over market framework of 8% to 10% adds approximately $1.75 billion of additional revenues. We expect a slight headwind from FX and commodities and assume price downs of 2%. For adjusted EBITDA on the right-hand side of the slide, we expect to see the benefit of our flexible and scalable cost structure driving strong volume flow through on higher revenues, partially offset by the impact of price downs. As noted, while COVID and supply chain disruption costs remain in 2022, we are expecting a year-over-year improvement of $100 million. And FX and material inflation costs are a net headwind of approximately $265 million for the year, driven by rising semiconductor and resin prices and unfavorable FX rates year-over-year. EBITDA totals $2.6 billion at the midpoint. an increase of approximately 28% over 2021. Turning to slide 18. We wanted to provide a few more details around Wind River, noting again that we expect the transaction to close later this year and the Wind River financials are not included in the 2022 guide. As we talked about in January, the Wind River product portfolio of Intelligent Edge operating systems and middleware has been a long-established leader in edge devices requiring robust compute performance. In early 2021, the company introduced Wind River Studio, a software subscription offering that incorporates their core products as well as cloud-enabled tools for the development, deployment, and full lifecycle management of Intelligent Edge software solutions. Targeted in multiple industries, including telecom, aerospace defense, as well as automotive, Studio has grown quickly and represented over 10% of revenues in 2021. In 2022, revenue will continue to accelerate with top line growth of 12 to 15%. Wind River Studio is expected to represent 40 to 50% of the revenues by the 2024-2025 timeframe. The growth in Studio driven by further penetration in key industries, including automotive, will help Wind River achieve approximately a billion dollars of revenue by 2026. As noted during a January call, the Wind River acquisition also brings financial benefits to Aptiv, including acceleration of ASUX revenues and reduced spending on third-party software. By year four following the transaction, these benefits will equal an incremental $125 million of run rate earnings for Aptiv. With that, I'd like to hand the call back to Kevin for his closing remarks.

Thanks, Joe. I'll now wrap up on slide 19 before we open it up for questions. As we reflect on 2021 and our outlook for 2022, it's clear that our constant focus on innovation and flawless execution has positioned us to better support our customers and is resulting in a stronger competitive position, which we've converted into record new business bookings and revenue growth over market. While we expect near-term headwinds to persist through the better part of 2022, We remain confident in our operating execution and our product portfolio aligned to the safe, green, and connected megatrends. I'm proud of the OPTIV team and all we accomplished during a challenging 2021, but I'm even more excited about what we'll deliver during 2022. We're well-positioned to continue to outperform as a purpose-driven company with a track record and strategy to deliver significant value for our customers, our employees, and our shareholders. Operator, let's open up the line for questions.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star 1 on your telephone keypad. Please ensure that your mute button has been switched off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. And in the interest of time, we ask that you limit yourselves to one question and one follow-up. Again, it's star 1 to ask a question. And the first question today comes from Adam Jones of Morgan Stanley.

Thanks, everybody, and great details on the presentation. Kevin, I asked you this a few weeks ago, but I'll ask you again. Of your order book, your record order book, are you able to give us a sense of how much of it is coming from pure play EV customers, customers that really have no – that have never sold internal combustion cars versus, let's say, the legacy group that's making the transition? That's my first question. I've got to follow up.

Yeah, I think when you look at our mix on battery electric vehicles or high-voltage electrification, and we look at the mix between legacy and the traditional OEMs, and you include some of those battery electric vehicle companies that have been around for a while, I'd say net-net about a third is with the newer battery electric vehicle companies. and two-thirds with the legacy, let's call them the traditional OEMs. And, Adam, I would say as we move forward and as you look at growth, it's probably that mix stays roughly the same, maybe improves slightly as it relates to some of the traditional OEMs as they bring on their battery electric vehicle models.

Great. And just to follow up on China, I would love a little color, what you're seeing there. It seems like on the low end, the domestic Chinese players are making some pretty damn good cars, Kevin. Like, you know, really, really good quality, more competitive in every way. And then on the higher end, on the EV side, the domestics are getting a lot more capable on the EVs and maybe to the extent, you know, that might correlate with premium. And so I'm wondering if that's consistent with what you're seeing. Do you see the China... What would be the trends in terms of domestic competency versus that kind of incumbency of the foreign players? Do you see that kind of change and becoming a little more in play over the next few years? Are you seeing any evidence of that in real time? Thanks, Kevin.

Yeah, I would say on the OEM side, domestic competency has certainly strengthened and improved over the last five plus years. I think we'd say, Adam, you'd see it in two areas. You talk about electrification, so we've certainly seen an acceleration there. When you look at our mix of bookings, and our current revenues related to battery electric vehicles. Largest market we're serving today is Europe. The second largest is China, but China is certainly accelerating. The second area is in and around software and software-defined vehicles. We're seeing a tremendous acceleration in demand for what we're doing as it relates to smart vehicle architecture, both on the hardware side and software side. And I mentioned in my prepared remarks, you know, the award that we received from Baidu related to a CVC on a vehicle that they're, you know, that they're building with their joint venture partner that will launch in 2023. We also were awarded a CVC with Great Wall Motors last year as well. So we're seeing tremendous acceleration in the overall China market when you consider what you think about technology.

Appreciate it, Kevin. Thanks.

Thanks.

We can now go to Chris McNally of Evercore.

Thanks so much, guys. If I could ask maybe just specifically around the secular drivers within the good GOM guide of ADOT and EV high voltage specifically, you've sometimes given some broad ranges what you're expecting. Could you talk about 22 growth for both EV and ADAS?

Yeah, Chris, I mean, we'll continue to see, you know, we've talked about high voltage at that sort of 40% growth rate. KGAR over the next couple of years continue to see that. Obviously, we're getting, you know, it's coming down a bit just given larger numbers and continue to see strong sort of high teens growth in active safety as well. Again, it's starting to get Not necessarily as high as it's historically been, but, you know, starting to get to, you know, rather big product lines there.

And then, Joe, on the EV specifically, is it fair, you know, because some of the guidance you've given is pre some of the market growth that we've seen would be better than expected. You know, is that 40% sort of in line with market growth? So if market growth is better, we can kind of use as a broad proxy that EV growth would be better.

Yeah, I think if EV growth is stronger, that number should be stronger as well, right? I mean, whereas Kevin mentioned we're on 50% of the launches, you know, we've obviously got some take rate assumptions in there built on initial estimates. So, you know, we've seen, and I think you see that to some extent in the bookings numbers as well. Bookings came in at $3.5 billion, obviously stronger than we were initially thinking. So I think that's a fair way to think about it.

And then the last one, because it's related to the 8% to 10% multi-year outlook. It's great to hear that up from the old 6% to 8%. Is it fair that a lot of the growth is ADOS and EV? The numbers have been coming in better than expected. The orders have been better than expected. But that's all pre-Wind River, right? I mean, if we start, we'll get more multi-year outlooks. But your growth over market, including sort of the acquisition, we could actually get maybe a point above that just looking at the Wind River sort of high-level growth over the next three to four years?

Yeah, they're completely separate at this point, right, just given we haven't closed the deal yet. So the Wind River numbers are separate. As we talked about on the January 12th call, there's good growth coming from that new subscription studio product. We see that continuing and really being the growth driver there. And that would obviously be incremental to what we've talked about in the 8% to 10%. That does not include Wind River.

OK. Great. Thanks so much, guys.

Our next question comes from Rod Lash of Wolf Research. Hi, everybody.

Good morning. Hey, Rod. You know, Kevin, during your prepared remarks, you mentioned strong underlying profitability improvement. I'm looking at the midpoint of your 2022 guidance with an EBIT margin of 10.5%. And obviously, between 2014 and 2018, you were doing 12%, 13% margins pretty routinely. And I get that inefficiencies and premium freight and input costs have been, I think, maybe even 400 basis points of drag here between 2021 and 2022. But could you talk a little bit about what you're targeting over the next couple of years? and how you kind of get there? Because I don't see much difference on the pricing side, at least in your near-term forecast.

Yeah, Rod, that's a great question. Listen, I think as you think about the environment that we've been operating in over the last two years and continue to operate in as it relates to COVID, COVID safety protocols, more recently, the level of supply chain disruption that is has resulted in inefficiency in the supply chain, just as you mentioned, increased freight, both inbound as well as outbound. When you look at manufacturing inefficiencies, when you look at material cost inflation, the numbers are significant, just as you said. They're massive, and that's something that we're working, where we continue to work through, we've made progress on during 2021, we'll continue to make more progress on 2022, but we're chiseling away. Underneath that, when you look at how we're operating from a manufacturing performance standpoint, separating those periods where we're dealing with TLO or volatility in production, when you look at what we're doing from an engineering productivity standpoint, when you look at what we're doing from a footprint standpoint, SG&A productivity standpoint, we continue to make significant progress. So we continue to make significant progress. And then overlay on top of that the places where we operate in the mix of our product portfolio as it relates to ADAS, as it relates to high voltage electrification, as it relates to both engineered components within the automotive and non-automotive space, and then software, the reality is those are much higher margin product areas. And as they continue to ramp, as we normalize the supply chain, as hopefully there's reduced pressure as it relates to COVID and some of the safety protocols that we have in place, all that drops to the bottom line. Now, having said that, over the last couple of years, we've also made the decision to invest incremental dollars in advanced development programs in and around principally smart vehicle architecture, both hardware and software. That's translated into a significant competitive position, which gives us tremendous opportunities as we look out in the future, both hardware as well as software. You know, over the last 12 to 18 months, as we said before, I think we've done 10 advanced development programs. We've been awarded four or five programs commercially as it relates to CBCs and PDCs from an SEA standpoint. We have line of sight to over 20 additional programs that relate to SVA, the transition to SVA software and hardware. And we're well positioned to win a significant amount of that business. So it was smart investment. So as we look out into the future in terms of growth, obviously we've increased our outlook for growth over market given the investments we've made. As we work through the challenges related to supply chain and COVID, you'll see obviously significant margin enhancement as a result of reduction in those costs. And then the nature of our product portfolio and where we sit, we think you ultimately end up with a much higher margin, much more cash-generative business out in the future.

Can you just remind us what mid-decade margin targets look like? And just my second question is, nice to see the bookings. I was hoping you can maybe drill down into active safety targets That $2.8 billion of bookings, how does that compare versus the past couple of years? And are you seeing any changes to the nature of what you're winning? Are automakers or even your partner, Mobileye, are they taking on different responsibility and you taking on different responsibilities? Is that something that we should be cognizant of in any way?

Sure. So the bookings this year are $2.88 billion. It's not our highest year from an overall active safety booking year. I think our record year was close to $4 billion, reflecting the wins on our initial satellite architecture programs across five OEMs that are currently rolling out across those OEMs. There's a whole next generation of advanced ADAS solutions that we'll be pursuing during 2022 and 2023 as we continue to enhance our active safety platform. As it relates to our competitive position, our perspective is it's actually strengthening. Active safety, as you know, is an important feature for our OEM customers. The market today, 60% of the vehicles being put on the road today have active safety systems. That leaves a significant portion that will be adopting active safety over the next several years, so significant market growth opportunity and penetration opportunity. The fastest growth area is in and around L2 and L2+, which is actually where we're most strongly positioned from a competency standpoint. given our overall platform and our capabilities. As it relates to OEMs, I would say, Rod, it's all over the map. We have OEMs where we're doing the full platform for the OEMs, all the feature development, the hardware, the software, the sensor fusion, the integration. We have other OEMs where we're integrating their solution into our platform. And we want to provide our OEM customers with the flexibility to do that. As it relates to other competitors, listen, it's a huge, fast-growing market, right? Any market where you have players like ourselves growing north of 20% per year, it attracts attention. And there are a number of players who are trying to enter the market. I think it's a challenge if you haven't been in it in a long period of time. We have business with over 20 OEMs across the globe, so our ability to develop, deliver cost-effective solutions, I would argue, is better than anyone else out there, including OEMs who may decide to do more on their own. But we're about enabling OEMs to to go down the path that they would like to go down, you know, the path that they want to go down. And while we do that, obviously generate revenue and profitable revenue growth. But having said that, big opportunity, we, you know, we have a strong competitive position in this area that we're certainly focused on.

Rod, it's Joe. Just on the mid-decade margin targets, obviously, you know, we're Still very much focused on the targets we laid out in 2019. There's obviously, as Kevin laid out, challenges with the disruption and the inflation costs. So it's a question of how long to work back to those. And we will have a capital markets day in the second half of this year and be updating the long-term view then.

Thank you. Yep. We can go to Joe Spack of RBC Capital Markets.

Thanks. Good morning. Joe, just to go back to sort of maybe some of the puts and takes in the 22 outlook, the 200 million performance you're talking about, that seems to mostly offset the 2% price downs you're seeing. I think throughout 21, you talked about all these inefficiencies in the plan from choppy schedules and higher logistics. So I guess I'm a little bit surprised that maybe that performance number is not a little bit higher. Are you assuming that some of that schedule volatility remains, or is some of that getting into that supply chain cost bucket? Maybe you could just help a little bit with that.

Yeah, that's in that $100 million, Joe. The bulk of that was the disruption costs, shutting down plants. So we've assumed, obviously, some of that stays. I'd say schedules in the first half of the year, you start with smooth schedules, right? Nobody plans the lumpiness. We actually had a little bit of disruption in January at the end of the month that we sort of knew was coming. But that performance, the improvement is really included in that $100 million. We took that out of performance just to be able to keep the two buckets that we've outlined, sort of the COVID and supply chain disruption bucket and the inflation buckets. We wanted to sort of maintain those into 2022 just to give people a line of sight with what was happening with them.

And then just on the pricing, can you talk about the conversations you're having with automakers and the ability to either recover or price for some of those inflationary headwinds?

Yeah, we're in conversations with several OEMs. I would say we're making actually very good progress, but it's something that we continue to work through. I think by and large, the OEM community recognizes the challenges in the supply chain and the costs suppliers have incurred in keeping them connected. You know, we made the decision, Joe, and we've talked about this, that we were going to do everything we could to make sure that our OEM customers are building cars. And that's resulted in incremental costs. And I would say most of the OEMs that we've been negotiating with have appreciated that, have supported us have supported what we've done and, you know, effectively we've reached satisfactory resolution in terms of the sharing of some or all that cost.

Okay. Thank you. Maybe just one quick one. You know, I noticed in the guidance the emotional loss ticks up. That makes sense as I think you're getting closer or they're getting closer to, you know, commercialization or launch. Can you just update us on the capitalization and funding there? Because I think when Hyundai put in $1.6 billion, so based on this run rate, it seems like maybe, you know, around 23 or 24, there could be capital requirements. But maybe you could just give us an update there on your thinking.

Yep. Yeah. You know, thinking from a, I'll call it a four-year perspective, Joe, it really hasn't changed. When we did the deal, you know, we had cash through 2024. They still have cash through 2024. Obviously, this may pull them up a couple of quarters. But, you know, sort of that multi-year level of funding is still intact that we talked about in March of 2020. So next couple of years are fully funded, and we'll obviously, you know, over the coming quarters be working with Hyundai and the Motional team on next steps there. But you're right. I mean, they are making really good progress. They're starting to commercialize or get ready for commercialization. So the activity is ticking up.

Thank you.

Our next question comes from John Murphy of Bank of America.

Good morning, guys. I just wanted to follow up on this question around pricing. I mean, you know, the reality is you guys are bringing a lot of technology to the table and helping the automakers do advanced products, stuff they can price for. But at the same time, you're getting jams on cost inflation, you know, on RAS and labor and everything else. You know, and they're able to pass this through and offset it through, you know, the pricing at the retail level, but they're not really helping you guys out here. So I'm just curious, you know, as these discussions move forward, even just outside of what's going on at the moment and the extreme pressure the industry and sort of the supply chain is facing, I mean, is anything changing sort of in the dynamic of the relationship here on pricing or RAS or sort of collaboration? Because it just seems like they need you more than ever, but right now they're making out pretty well from passing pricing through, but you're getting stuck in the sandwich here.

Yeah, John, it's a good question. Listen, periodically we've been asked questions about the pricing environment in the automotive industry, and I think our standard answer, and it's true today, is, It's a challenging industry as it relates to pricing, and our OEM customers are always looking for price. However, I would say in this particular case, there actually is a fair amount of recognition, cooperation, and collaboration between most OEMs and the supply base. There are some it's a bit more challenging and we're working through. There are various levers that we have in terms of ensuring that we get compensated as it relates to incremental costs that are above and beyond an overextended period of time, the costs that we would normally incur. But, you know, I would say, by and large, the environment hasn't changed from a pricing standpoint. And we just need to work through, you know, the various cost levers, both on the supply side as well as on the customer side, to offset that. And it will take a little bit of time to do that. I'd say there's an element of the costs we're incurring, as I mentioned. We're doing it consciously. We're supporting the OEMs as they launch some of these key programs. And we think, you know, over the medium to long term, that will create a lot of benefit. You know, as it relates to your point on dependency, listen, I know there's this increased narrative. I think it's a great question because there's this increased narrative about OEMs doing more. But the reality, I can tell you there is virtually no OEM that we are launching programs that have a high software content level where OEMs are actually coming back to us and asking us to do more of the software development application activity than what was originally in the program. And, you know... After we announced the Wind River acquisition, one of the great things about it is we got calls from several OEMs with respect to can we schedule meetings to sit down to talk about what we in Wind River can bring to help them as they wrestle through the challenges associated with the growth of software in the vehicle and those areas that, you know, they have an interest in developing the software, as well as those areas where they have other suppliers that are struggling in delivering the software solution. So, again, understand there's a lot of narrative about insourcing and vertically integrating, especially in areas like software. I think a lot of that is driven by, you know, impression related to a a West Coast-based battery electric vehicle company, but I would say, or automotive OEM, but I would say with the exception of that automotive OEM, virtually all the OEMs that we are doing business with are struggling with software development.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Just to housekeeping real quick, the bookings of $24 billion, What kind of volume assumptions are going into that? I mean, it could be $85 million or $100 million. I mean, we're in a weird time on how you think about sort of the backdrop of volumes to feed into that booking number. I mean, how do you think about that, Joe?

Yeah, John, so we – although for our revenue forecast, we obviously use our customer schedules and stuff, but for bookings, we always use IHS when the bookings are struck. So there's no, you know, we always have a reference point to go back to. So, you know, Q4 bookings would have been based on IHS outlooks for those years going out, you know, as, you know, once we get into start production stuff, we always use IHS for bookings.

So if anything, the long-term value of those might be undercut by some of the near-term pressures. Is that a fair statement?

Yeah, they'll flex with vehicle production. I mean, I think we've over time have, You know, gotten to a point where we're comfortable. What I'll say sort of washes out from a bookings perspective as it gets time for revenue. It's close enough. But we never wanted to introduce sort of, you know, momentary sort of subjectivity into quantification of the bookings. We always use IHS. And then just one other thought.

I'm sorry. At CES, Kevin, you mentioned you had 50 companies run through the booth. Twenty-five were automakers or OEMs. Who were the other 25? Were they supplier partners, tech companies? I mean, there's a lot of big fish looking to make acquisitions here. I'm just curious, you know, who else came through the booth from those other 25 companies?

You know, supplier partners. So I would say, you know, 50 companies, you know, 50 parties came through the booth, 25 OEMs, some of them physically, some of them virtually. So I want to make sure I'm clear on that. Actually, a lot of them virtually. But as you can imagine, A lot of OEM interest across both our SPS as well as our ASUX business, so people in and around vehicle architecture as well as advanced safety and user experience, and then a number of our supplier partners or potential supplier partners.

Okay, great. Thank you very much, guys.

Thanks, John. We can go to Brian Johnson of Fact, please.

Thank you. Just want to follow up on your comments on Wind River and the opportunities in the software stack that it opens. I guess two questions. First, Wind River under Intel doubled in value, but a paltry amount compared to what TPG eventually sold it to you for. Some of the feedback from the semi-community was that Wind River was kind of lackluster. Some people point the figures at Intel. Intel fans point the figure at management. I know TPG brought in new management, but first question is, can you give us a sense of their momentum coming into the acquisition? And then the second question is, RTOS definitely needed in some ADAS applications, but some of the questions we've been getting is, is that so far down the stack that it really doesn't get you much in terms of discussions around application software? So can you talk about that?

Yeah. Yeah, no, it's a great question. As it relates to Wind River, listen, I think there was an element of history of Wind River where it was a sleepy company at one point in time. And you highlighted the fact that, you know, under TPG ownership, they came in and they significantly refreshed the management team and put in a very strong president and CEO who's brought in very, very strong with, you know, I'd say contemporary software capabilities. And, Brian, we had the opportunity, you know, well in advance of deciding that we should evaluate a more strategic, you know, relationship. We had the ability to work with the team as it relates to, you know, designing, developing a tech roadmap that we could take from industries like telecommunications, aerospace and defense, that had or have some of the same challenges that we're experiencing in automotive today, but solutions were developed and delivered by Wind River where they've had a tremendous amount of success. And, you know, we had the chance to effectively test drive as a part of our commercial negotiations. So a tremendous amount of time spent with the management team, a company with a very, very strong management team. As you look at automotive and you look at the broad portfolio, listen, it's not just about RTOS. You know, the benefit is the company that's familiar with automotive, you know, automotive vehicle architecture and middleware. They have experience as it relates to, you know, in-device software, both with VXWorks as well as Linux OX with hypervisors. So they know what legacy approaches were. but they come with the benefit of having developed more contemporary approaches for the telco and aerospace and defense industries. And when you look at it, it's not just about in-device software in the operating system, right? It's really about the off-device software platform that really provides or will provide customers or users with the ability to Again, we look at it from a development, deploy, operate, and service the overall vehicle over the life of the vehicle versus, you know, and you're certainly familiar with this, the current model where you layer in middleware on the vehicle once and you're done. So it's not just about RTOS. It's not just about the in-device software. It's also about the tool chain infrastructure and the off-device software and platform that makes software development much more efficient, much more effective.

Brian and Cheryl, I'll just... Sorry, just on the numbers. Listen, I think, and that's why we provided some of the information in the deck. I mean, clearly the business, I think, languished under Intel. Don't know why it wasn't there, obviously, but it went down to about $300 million in revenue, so I think it actually contracted and... you know, was at that level for a number of years. And as you can see, it's growing now. It's grown over the last couple of years and that growth is accelerating. The studio product, which is what Kevin's referring to, which is this containerized RTOS and middleware, you know, was launched in Q1 of 2021 and already represents over 10% of the business. So that's really where the growth is. And, you know, I think your statement, is true as of today, right? There are several middleware RTOS solutions that you can technically put into a vehicle. What we're really talking about is the containerized full lifecycle management type. And Wind River is the only containerized RTOS out there at this point. The others used in automotive are not. And so there's a little bit of sort of where the puck's going versus where it is today when we talk about their capabilities.

Okay, and just as a follow-up, is this, you know, you mentioned the calls that you're getting. It's, you know, as you mentioned earlier, a lot of OEMs are building up big software organizations, often recruiting leaders from outside automotive to run those. Are you getting into those kind of senior management levels? You know, you don't have to say the names, but I'm thinking of someone like a Doug Fields over at Ford level of person leading the software groups.

Yeah, our engagements are at very, very senior levels within the OEMs.

Okay, thanks. We look forward to continuing this in a few weeks at our conference. Thanks, Brian.

Now we can now go to David Kelly of Jefferies. Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for squeezing in. The next-gen driver monitoring platform launches, you noted, Are you finding that you're winning the active safety platforms attached to DMS as well? We're just curious if there's correlation and some OEM bias to consolidate there. And is there a way to think about DMS content per vehicle opportunity for you?

Yeah, it's – listen, traditionally when you think about EMS, it's historically fallen in a category that was in and around user experience versus active safety. But as you've seen more advanced active safety programs introduced to the market, so when you think about L2+, L3, the need for – You know, driver monitoring, we refer to it really as in-cabin sensing, a much broader application than just driver monitoring. You've seen an uptick of demand and more discussion or more integration in and around the active safety system or active safety platform, which we think, you know, given our position in ADAS, especially in the L2, L2 plus space, Given our experience with DMS as well as is now increasingly in-cabin sensing, it puts us in a great opportunity. As it relates to market, the market's decent size today is one of the fastest-growing markets that we operate in. I don't have the numbers, Joe. I don't know if you have market size numbers or content per vehicle, but it's certainly meaningful.

Yeah. No, and, David, one of the interesting things, the content per vehicle, per vehicle for this type of stuff varies a lot. As Kevin said, it sort of depends on where it's going in and what it's replacing, but what's interesting is a lot of it's incremental, right? So if you're talking about $10 or $12 for DSM software per vehicle, that's really incremental, right? It's going in on top of what's in there now. So it really depends on what part of it you're referring to, but you tend to see a lot of You know, a lot of incremental content going into existing either user experience systems, if it's still within the cockpit, like gesture recognition, those types of things, or some of the perception systems that are being used, augmenting the active safety.

Okay, got it. Thank you. And then maybe one follow-up, the wireless charging conquest win. Can you just give us a sense, high level, of your role there? What... what you'll be providing, and is that on-vehicle only, or is there an infrastructure aspect to it as well?

That particular program is on-vehicle. It's both hardware as well as software. As I think you know, we obviously do provide charge couplers and other things that are off-vehicle for OEMs, but not in this particular case.

Okay, got it. Thank you.

And we can go to Itay Micheli of Citibank.

Great, thanks. Good morning. Just two quick follow-ups for me on the new 8 to 10 points GOM target. First, can you maybe articulate what sort of annual bookings number you would target to achieve the 8 to 10 points? And then maybe what portion of the 8 to 10 point is coming from non-auto? Thank you.

I'm not sure. As you know, bookings can be lumpy. So from an annual standpoint, I think it's tough to give you a direct or an exact number. I guess one where when you look at our current ratio between revenue and bookings, it would be something consistent. Last year, as we mentioned, we did $24 billion. This year, we'd expect to do $24 billion or more on our baseline of revenues. So I would say on an annual basis, somewhere in that sort of a zip code. Joe, I don't know about non-automotive.

Yeah, I'd call it about a point. ETI generally adds to that growth over market, the commercial vehicle and the industrial vehicle.

Got it. Great. That's all I had. Thank you.

Our next question comes from Dan Levy of Credit Suisse.

Hi. Good morning. Thank you for squeezing me in. First, I want to go to the end market guidance. You're assuming production up six globally. That's below some of the third-party forecasts. More recently, we heard GM talk about 25% to 30% volume growth, which is a sizable customer of

so for you so maybe you could just help reconcile your assumption versus uh some of the other views in the market was it just uh conservatism more than anything else no at this point it's schedules dan so we're we're looking at customer schedules um and and have those have those layered in obviously for the first you know four or five months they're fairly detailed schedules and then obviously they're they're longer term production forecasts so there's there's no sort of overlay at this point, particularly in the near term, because we have to obviously be ordering inventory and getting the plants ready to produce. I'd say the biggest difference, I think IHS is eight. I'd tell you the biggest difference when we look at some of the third party is probably the ramp in the year. You know, as we look at customer schedules, it's a slow start to the year. I referenced that in my prepared remarks. You know, we think the first half's flat-ish, flat, flat-ish. and then ramping in the back half of the year. And I think that's just where we are relative to supply chain constraints and sort of ability to ramp up. So we do look, obviously, and calibrate our schedules off what others are saying. That tended to be the biggest difference that we saw.

Got it. Thank you. And then my follow-up, sorry, I want to go back to the insourcing question, but I want to sort of assets in a different way um you know in the quarter we saw um a large automaker form a jv with one of the chip companies and you know one of the things we're talking about is not only you know just how they're sourcing chips for for you know components but also maybe taking more of a proactive design on uh a more more proactive approach on uh on on inputting that the design of those components and specifically on the electronic side. So whereas in the past, maybe they would just buy a box from you or name another supplier that is, you know, you control all the sourcing and the design. Now they want to take a more proactive approach. So how much of that is a, is a trend. And if there is a more proactive approach from the OEMs on dictating design of what they're getting from you, you know, what, How does that affect, you know, what you're providing them?

Yeah, listen, Dan, I think your specific question as it relates to OEMs and OEMs interacting with semiconductor players, that's actually gone on for a number of years. Of years. And on certain applications, whether it be within the user experience or infotainment space or the ADAS space, there are OEM preferences as it relates to certain semiconductor players. More often than not, that relates to economics and volumes versus technology. As it relates to the OEM being more involved in chip design or technology or software going on the chip, I think it depends on what activity the OEM is considering or bringing to the table for what particular application. So I would need more specifics on that. I would say a lot of Again, going back to my initial point, software in the vehicle is tripling over the next eight years, so there's a lot of software going into the vehicle. So a big opportunity. Obviously, OEMs want to be involved in a part of that, just like they have in the past. So I would say that's two. I think as it relates to that, the interactions with semiconductor players, that's been going on for years. I think it's probably heightened a bit from a supply chain standpoint, just given what we've all gone through the last year or so. And I'd say you'd see a bit of a mixed bag. There are some OEMs who are trying to get closer to the semiconductor players. There are other OEMs that really the business model has not changed, but certainly want more visibility, more transparency, more understanding of the supply chain.

And are you seeing your customers dictating more to you, you know, which chips you need to use? Or is that just a trend that's always been going on, that sometimes you'll have some customers say you have to use, you know, chips from such and such companies?

Yeah, I wouldn't say at this point in time we're seeing any more or less than what we have historically. I think we've seen more announcements.

Got it. Thank you.

And our final question today comes from Stephen Fox of Fox Advisors.

Hi. Thanks for squeezing me in. Good morning. Just one question from me. When you look to the full year guidance and sort of the back half improvements, we were sitting here a year ago talking about back half improvements that didn't happen for various reasons, not necessarily of your fault. So I'm just trying to gauge the confidence level that we've sort of reached a period here where you could sort of start to see some improvements in supply chain and inflation and any kind of risk you're gauging going forward? Thanks.

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, listen, it's obviously where, you know, we put out a guide. We're confident in the guide for the full year. Supply chain disruptions are getting better. There are still constraints. But if you look at, and some of this, particularly in the back half, is going to be just lapping what was very, very disruptive production schedules. If you look at August, September, into October. So things, flow's getting better. We've got, you know, line of sight on the supply we need for the balance of the year from the chip guys. Things are still tight. It's expensive to operate. The chips are costing more. There's still going to be some premium freight. That's really reflected in those disruption costs. But, again, we do see it getting better, and we do see sort of line of sight to things, product flow improving as the year goes on.

And the risk to the forecast on all the supply chain and inflation issues?

The way we've thought about it, it's really within the range, Stephen. So at the lower end of the range, we've obviously got, you know, our view would be that would bring in more costs. So we've tried to sort of manage that within the full-year range, which, again, one of the reasons it's hard to call that, obviously, by quarter, but I'd really think of it at this point. The risk is really within the range to the downside, and, you know, to some extent, if things were to get better faster from a material flow perspective, that's reflective in the higher end of the range.

Great. That's really helpful. Thank you. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that is all the time we have for today's fourth quarter Aptiv 2021 earnings call. We thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.