Volvo Car AB (publ.)

Good morning and a very warm welcome to this Volvo Cars press conference where we will be talking about our first quarter financial results and our strategic direction as a company. My name is Ron and as always this morning I'm joined by President and Chief Executive Håkon Samuelsson, our Chief Financial Officer Frederick Hansen and we're also joined by our Chief Commercial Officer Eric Severinsson. At the start of this press conference, Hakan, Eric and Frederick will walk us through our performance and thereafter we'll throw it open for a question and answer round. You can participate in the Q&A round in two ways. Either you can send in a question via the chat. So then simply type in your question. You should be able to see the chat window at the bottom of your screen, in which case I'll read out the questions on your behalf. you can also have the opportunity to be able to ask a question. Use the link at the bottom of your screen, in which case the operator can help you navigate and we can hear you directly in this room. But I'll come back with more information ahead of the Q&A round. But for now, I'll hand it over to you, Håkan.

Thank you, Ron. And welcome to the presentation of our quarter one result. It has been a mixed bag. I mean, external factors, extremely turbulent geopolitical situation, tariffs, currency also has been negative for us altogether. That has given us a revenue drop of 12 percent, 11 percent volume drop. But we have also seen a very successful internal work with the cost and cash. And that is really the reason why we have closed the quarter despite 11% volume drop. We have a profitability level more or less equal to first quarter last year. And that is thanks to the really good progress on factors we can influence and control. Looking into the quarter a bit closer, in a situation like this, it's really important to concentrate on factors we can control. We have six unique benefits from Volvo. The first one is electrification. And there we see a real opportunity and electrification will be our driver for growth now going into the second half year. We will also remain a strong global brand despite a rather clear movement to a regionalized world. So we need to, in China, for example, work much more with the sort of China for China strategy. We will see much more locally adapted cars to really be competitive on that very tough market. And there, of course, we have a unique opportunity to work together with Geely to really... develop the cars that will really fulfill the demands of that market. China is also a very special market when it comes to supply of mechanical components. I think we can lower our cost structure a lot by using China's suppliers for even cars in Europe as one example. Fourth factor is really when it comes to electrification. We really have developed a car and the technology which is really leading on the market, including a core compute technology, which I think is something you need to really develop a true software defined car. And this is something where all suppliers need to go this way and we are really glad that we have this transition behind us because it's a very tough period to go from a distributed electronics to a central computer architectures five is that we are now entering a phase where we are back to more normal investment levels and also investment levels we defined with an affordable frame and that will of course also be very supportive for cash flow looking forwards And last but not least, we need also to understand this business is not just producing cars. It is also meeting customer expectations in the way we sell and service those vehicles. And we will hear a bit more from Erik about that later on. If you look into electrification, first quarter, BEV growth for Volvo was 12% up, and that was the fastest growth in the premium segment. We reached then a BEV share of 24%, also leading amongst our peers, and even higher percentage if you include chargeable cars, as all cars which can be charged is now very close to half of our production, which is also class leading. So strong momentum from electrification. And on that market also, of course, very important now to have a really top product. EX60 is really a car without compromise. It is developed as an electric car. is introducing some new groundbreaking technologies, cell to body for a longer range, more batteries installed in the car, and mega costing to bring down cost, eliminating more than 100 sheet metal parts into one single casted big body part. We also introduced with this car the HygienCore game-changing core system, the base for software-defined cars, as I said earlier. This is also a system which has been very proud to be recognized by standards and poor as the only established carmaker who are on the Level 5 level when it comes to software readiness. And this is thanks to the HuginnCore technology. We will also sell this car in a very transparent way. It will be a seven-base model. You choose color, you choose interior trim, and you can choose a couple of other options like wheels or tow bars. That's it. So it will be easier than ever to find your favorite Volvo on our new car selector site. Production started successfully. Demand is way above expectations. And also very important to see that the profitability of the orders are also above expectations. So it's really an important car now for the second half year when we, with electrification, will come back to growth. But it's not only this car. It's also important to add other cars to production. really increase addressable markets. For example, our smallest electric cars will be updated with a better interior, but we will also introduce a new entry-level powertrain to really increase the addressable market. In China, we do similarly with the XC70. There will also now be a front-wheel drive. version to addressing a lower price point and really having a china developed car fulfilling the expectation of chinese customers our flagship cars the ex90 and es90 will also be introduced on further markets in in asia Another thing not related to the hardware is the update. We have always said that Volvo will be a car that will be better during its life. And now we do a very big example of that. Two and a half million of our cars already delivered to customers will be updated and get it updated. totally new, improved user experience inside the car. So I think this is also an example of what we will see more of. But there will also come more car news in the future, so stay tuned for that. Let me then stop by looking into really what we are working on, on this very turbulent, tough market. we are increasing our efforts in cost and cash we had a very successful year last year eight billion saved we had an ambition to to do five billion more this year and in quarter one we saw 1.4 of that being materialized so we are well on track to see the 5 billion happening during this year. And as I said, investments will now be on an affordable level to really support our development back into positive cash flows for the company. Synergies, we are increasing our efforts to jointly with Geely, work with procurement to bring down material cost of our cars here in Europe as well. Another example of synergies is we are consolidating the production of the Polestar 3 car, which we contract produce for Polestar, has been earlier done in China and US. Now we concentrate that to Charleston in the US to have a better utilization of the factory. another example is lincoln co which we have introduced volvo will take over the full responsibility and add those car as an addition to the volvo offered products to our customers and this will of course be a very valuable addition for us we have a broader program we can go down in price pricing for certain models and for our partners is also, of course, a very valuable addition, especially as we are going into an electrified future with less service. top line is also something we need to focus on much more we have been successful with the cost focus now we need to focus on the top line and it's of course electrification as driver for growth but it's also operational sales performance what can we do more short term how can we activate our network to to be sharper in selling our cars it's also about bringing out a new way of offering our cars, a more customer-centric offer, and that is where we start with our EX60. So I think that's a good transition to leave the world over to you, Erik, to talk a bit more about what we do on the commercial side.

Thank you, Oke.

Thank you.

So, hello. So I want to start talking a little bit around what does the world look like on the macro. If you look at the three main regions in the world, it's a quite different basket that you see. You see a very tough market in both US and China, whereas Europe remains resilient for us. I'll talk a little bit more in detail about Europe on the next page. Looking at Europe as a whole, we see that the premium segment is up, but of course there is a pricing pressure in Europe as well. So it's very important for us, as Håkan mentioned, to secure the pricing quality in the market. We have a stable market share and we have a very strong increase in Europe on the order pace, which I will talk more on on the next slide. The growth in Europe is happening through electrification. That's very clear. We see it clearly now in the last three weeks, four weeks since the energy crisis started. It is very much electrified cars that drive to growth in Europe. If you move to US, it's a much tougher market. It's a tougher market than we expected, to be honest. And it's driven basically by three different activities or impacts. And it's first of all, a record low consumer sentiment in US right now. We saw a rapid deterioration of consumer sentiment in the last month since the Middle East crisis started. And that is of course impacting the car market where the whole market is down in the US. At the same time, you have removal of incentives for electrification, such as the 45W regulation in the US. That has driven the full electric market down by 34% in the quarter. And thirdly, the tariff and pricing equation is impacting the market as well. We are seeing an increased competition in segments where competitors have locally produced cars. And of course, in those scenarios for us importing cars, it's very important to be very prudent on our margin structure, protect the top line and making sure that we are keeping a premium price position in the market and healthy margins, which has impacted volumes in the quarter. If I go to China, China remains the competitive center of the automotive world, if I put it that way. There is a lot of new entrants. It's driven by the domestic players. We are seeing, however, that the traditional premium is down. Volvo is also down. But we are holding our overall market share, and we're growing on P-HEVs with the XC70. And we think that the long-range P-HEV... product for the premium customer in China will be very important because it is a perfect bridge if you're moving from a combustion engine car into electric car. We can also see in China that the transaction prices are under pressure. However, when we are looking at it from the Volvo perspective, our transaction prices are holding better than competition, which also gives us a proof point on China. But it will be very difficult to drive profitable growth in the coming quarters in China. So we are also there taking active measurements to protect our pricing quality. But let me double down on Europe. Europe is our most important region when it comes to both volume and above so on earnings. And in the commercial strategy foundation we have put in place now, we have two legs. One is perform here and now, and one is transform for the future. And if I look for the performance piece, what have we done here in the quarter, we are one of the fastest growing premium web brands, and we're increasing our overall retail order pace heavily in Europe right now. If we look at the sales side, we had 10 markets in Europe with a double-digit growth. We had, for example, UK with an all-time high, Norway as well. We had 18% growth on BEV sales. We are taking market share on BEVs. The growth in Europe is coming on the back end on electric vehicles, and this is on deliveries. So this is before the EX60 has started to hit the market. If you look at the order pace in Europe, it's an even stronger story that comes forward. And of course, we're seeing that on the back end of the EX60. And also, we can see that we're converting those orders on a higher margin than what we had on the equivalent product on the P-HEV side. Now, of course, it is also a very competitive market. We see that in certain markets in Europe, such as Germany, that there is also a high pricing pressure coming because a lot of volume is going into Europe. So it also means that it will be important for us in the coming quarter to balance the equation as well to really protect our margins and making sure that we pave the way for the EX60, which will start impacting in the second half of this year. If you look on a little bit more of a long-term perspective or transformational activities, as Håkan talked about, it's very much about making the customer, putting the customer in the center also in the sales journey, when they're buying the car and when they're owning the car. And first of all, the most important thing is to have one Volvo for every customer. With the addition of the EX60 now and look at Europe, we have a very complete portfolio with PHEV, very competitive stills, but state-of-the-art electric vehicles such as the EX60. We have launched the Care Offer, which is an all-inclusive, hassle-free offer for the customer with one transparent price in the market in Sweden. We have bundled that in Sweden also with the free energy for three years when you buy an EX60. Of course, that drives a lot of interest from our customers. We can see that consumers really value that simplicity and that hassle-freeness of owning a car. Simplicity, Håkan already covered. We are exploring that with the EX60, and we are really seeing the momentum in the product also by the ease of buying it, the ease of understanding what it is that you're buying. So that's also something we're pushing very hard. And additionally to that, we are working very hard to also have more flexibility and more adaptiveness in our delivery system to our customers. All in all, we have a strong underlying momentum on the Hebra now. We are on track for our transformational activities. There will be a heavy focus on sales, of course, in Q2, and the EX60 will start impacting the second half of the year. But with that, I'll hand over to Fredrik to take us through the financials. Thank you, Erik.

So let's walk through the financials, starting with an overview of Q1. And I guess the summary, a bit as Håkan said, is very focused execution in a challenging external environment. Retail sales was down 11%, wholesale only 3%. This year, basically, as retail is now more normally balanced to wholesale. Revenue, however, down a full 12%, and that's largely driven by FX. Profit margins largely flat versus last year, but still at a challenging 2.2%. Cash flow, minus 10 billion due to seasonality as common in Q1 and also due to the previously announced inventory buildup of the XC90 and XC60 in Torslanda to protect the full year output as we ramp up the EX60. in that plant importantly on cash flow last year we had a link transaction which positively contributed if you justify for that we see that we have a better cash flow this year than we had last Double-clicking on revenue, last year we were at 82.9 billion. We see that volume is actually counterintuitively maybe taking up revenue slightly. That is because we have a slightly better channel mix, so less fleet sales and rentals and things with buyback guarantees on. Sales mix and pricing is pushing it down 3.4 billion. And then FX is, as I said, impacting a lot, 6.7 billion. And in the past 12 months, the SEC has been one of the strongest currencies in the world, as you know. So versus the dollar, for instance, we're at a 17% weaker dollar. Other is down year on year, but that's largely one of due to sales of subscription card portfolios that we did last year and not recurring this year. So ending the quarter at 72.6 billion. Turning to EBIT and maybe before diving into the numbers, we have a new format that I want to introduce to increase transparency towards you guys. So before we have basically not really shared any of the cost development in terms of a year on year and all our capitalization and depreciation amortization has been grouped into one big bucket called other. So for transparency, we're now separating out what we actually measure in the cost and cash program that we launched in Q2 last year, which is variable cost and the indirect spend. We've also singled out the changes happening year on year in the capitalized product development and depreciation and amortization. That's really because we are now entering a different phase. We're coming down from this big mountain of investments, moving towards affordable frames. That also means that new assets are coming online, which is good for top line. But it does also weigh down on our accounting profits as we start to depreciate and amortize. So with that, if we turn to the numbers. So last year, EBIT was at 2.3%, 1.9 billion. Volume is taking it slightly up. But as Eric alluded to, the market equation is challenging, bringing the profit down, with sales mix and pricing being down 1.9%. We are largely offsetting this by the clear performance improvement driven by the cost and cash action program. So year on year, it's a 1.7 billion improvement in variable cost running across all major dimensions, materials, logistics, manufacturing and warranty. We also see indirect spend, so spend being more the cash view, I should say, real money going out. There we have a 1.4 billion improvement in everything not going into the car. That said, on an accounting level, capitalization is lower, which is taking down the result in part from lower spend, but also as we are in different stages in our core programs. We also have depreciation and amortization on a higher level, bringing down the result. FX underlying actually negative, but we have hedges offsetting that. And then here it's stated as a positive half a billion because last year we had negative balance sheet revaluations, which are not coming back this year. Lastly, we still have another bucket, minus 400 million. That has still a lot of positives, better parts and accessory sales, CO2 credit sales. It also has a very big negative, which is the US tariffs, of course, weighing us down year on year. Then the quarter at 2.2% and 1.6 billion. Turning to cash, this was heavily impacted by seasonality and inventories, as always in Q1. We start the quarter with a very strong liquidity, 81 billion. We have 8 billion contribution from the underlying business in EBITDA. Inventory then taking that down with networking capital in total down 8 billion. Other working capital down three and then seven billion of investments as previously communicated, largely linked to the X60 now starting production or started production last week and also finalization of the actual Kosice plant. Financing slightly down. That's a repayment, a scheduled repayment of debt that happened in the quarter. So we end the quarter also with a very strong liquidity of 70 billion in total, 46 billion in cash. So if we briefly then look ahead, focusing on the very near term, we see that the execution of our cost and cash actions is progressing also into now and into the second half. That said, we have a very challenging market equation, as Derek talked about. Beyond this, we also see elevated raw material costs, which is increasingly flowing into the result. And due to the conflicts in Iran, oil prices and freight costs are also increasing, which is starting to weigh us down as we look ahead. In Q2, we also had a very positive thing. The new beginning began. The EX60 started production, which is great. But as you know, we are ramping that up during the second half, meaning that the profit contribution starts towards the later part of the year. However, as we go online, that means we have launch costs and we also start with linear depreciation and amortization of some of those assets. Turning to the second half, we do see volume growth from things we can control. So an uncertain market, but we are, as Håkan and Erik said, we are expanding our portfolio. We have the XC70 front-wheel drive in China. We have an entry variant of the EX30. We have new markets for the EX90 and ES90. And very importantly, the EX60 is starting to ramp up. And that also means that we see that our BEV share will grow. And we also get a lot of confidence, both in the short term and current year, but especially in the longer term from the very profitable order momentum we're seeing on the EX60, which will start to contribute as we progress throughout the year. So with that, our ambition for full year volume growth and cash flow remains. So let me hand over to Ron. Thanks.

Thanks, Frederick. Thanks all. And now we are all set to start the Q&A session. As I said at the start of the call, you can join the Q&A round either by sending in your questions via the chat. We already see a lot of questions coming in. So I think that's well figured out. But if you can, you also have the opportunity to be able to use the phone lines. So please use the link below and press star one one. Then we'll be able to hear you. But let's get this started. The first question coming in. Whoever wants to take this. You have a volume growth ambition for the year, which we reiterate. But as you say, U.S. and China is looking weaker than expected. So how do you drive volume growth in the remaining quarters to meet that ambition?

Maybe I can answer on that one. I think, first of all, it's not volume growth. It's not a target on its own. We need to be very prudent in retracting markets on protecting our margins. So I think, first of all, I would like to say that we will optimize for profitability in these markets. The key way of driving volume growth is basically two things. One is to have the right products in the right time. We see that now with the order pace of the EX60. And the second piece of that is to have a commercial machine that works really efficiently, together with the network, together with the marketing, together with the brand building activities, etc. And we are addressing both those levers, I can say, in the different markets in different ways. Both US and China have new product launches, and in Europe we have a strong momentum on the back end of the EX60.

Right. That's good. Regarding EX60 profitability, we have a lot of questions on EX60. So let me try to club them in some way. So let's start with the profitability one. EX60 profitability, Hakan, as you said, is higher than expected. Can you give some color? How much? Is there anything we can say on that?

Maybe you can say it. I mean, one of the basics with this car, this car should be the first electric car which is really priced on the same level as a normal plug-in hybrid. So I think it's opening up this car as an alternative for more people. But even with that pricing, you can say that the margin for this car will be better than for a plug-in hybrid. I think that's maybe how we can quantify it without going into numbers.

Good. Staying with the X60, this is from Afash Baden. Are there any X60 production delays? They asked that customers who were among the first to place orders were promised during delivery this summer will be meet that. They say we also hear there are some issues with the supplier and lobby. But overall, X60 on time.

Yeah, probably a lot of issues, which there always are. And it's, of course, a very challenging ramp up. All new technology. I mean, nobody in the world have made the cars with the cell battery cells directly into the body. So that's, of course, a huge challenge. But having said that, we are within the plan. And then so far. it looks all according to plan and then we are looking also into possibilities could we squeeze out some extra cars but maybe some extra shifts during the vacation that's something very positive challenges and problems to look into but so all according to plan we started the production last week already so yeah plant is running yes and i drove out the first car and it worked

That's right. The more you ask the question, but let me first bring in a caller now. And that's from Valdemar from GP. Good morning, Valdemar. Please go ahead with your question.

Yes. Hi. This additional cost savings in variable costs, are there any more specifics how much that will affect this quarter and also how it will affect headcount in the organization?

We don't comment specifically on what's happening in the coming quarter, but we launched the cost and cash action program in the second quarter of last year. As we communicated in Q4, the cost target set out in the 18 billion was 8 billion. We achieved that already last year, well ahead of time. So therefore, we're stretching the bow now with another at least five billion cost reductions. And we see that that we have a plan to get there in terms of big headcount reductions that we did already last year with 3000 people leaving us by the end of of October or November 1st. So we don't see that recurring, but we will be prudent in hiring. We are focusing on leveraging the new structures we have set up to become smarter and leaner and meaner. Okay.

Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you. Staying with the X60 questions coming in on the production for this year. We've also said increased production. Give us some color on production and expected retail sales on that production.

No, I mean, production, the plan we have now is around 40,000 cars. And I think the problem selling those is not a big problem here. How many of those cars will be really delivered today? This year, can we say something?

I don't think we can say an exact number, of course, but we can say that we will sell every car we can produce this year when it comes to the X60. And of course, we are trying to pull ahead as many deliveries as possible of those 40,000 cars into this year. But 40,000 production volume means slightly less of deliveries for the year. Yeah, it has. Yeah.

Good. This question comes in from Kiran, who asks, U.S. government has now started tariff refunds. How would that impact our cash flow for 2026?

Would be good. Hopefully.

Hopefully that's going to happen. This question is from Bas, you know, Belgian reporter from Digit. He asked, the Belgian government has created a task force to support the Ghent plant. Can you elaborate on the situation of the plant relating to your production, being the only European plant without mega casting? Will we introduce that? Can we confirm other products that will be introduced? So something around Ghent.

I think we have been building cars in Ghent since many, many years. Very important factory for us. So we would, of course, like to stay there and expand. But I think we have had a cost problem in that factory for a long time. And that's really what the question is referring to. We are working now to see... How can we bring down the cost in that plan so it will be really competitive? And if we have a program for that, of course, then we are open to use this factory. We are open to look into also possibilities. Maybe we can contract, assemble cars for other brands in the group, other dealer brands who wants to enter Europe. So it's very important that we do that. And that would, of course, secure the future of that plant. So I'm looking forward that we really can come to positive results and very concrete savings as well. And we would very much like to be the last one standing in Belgium.

That's right. This is from Autocar, Charlie Martin. Charlie asks, much has been made of EX60's capabilities as a software-defined vehicle. Please, could you elaborate on what new opportunities this opens up for Volvo as a business and for the consumer? How does this compare to previous Volvo models?

Maybe I can start on that one. I think I mean, I usually say that the software defined car is for the automotive industry, what the smartphone was for the phone industry. It is, in essence, a car that will become better every day and it allows us to do quick iterations of customer features. to upgrade the vehicle, to improve residual values, to focus on different things in the customer journey. In essence, it makes the car better. I think that's the starting point for our offering. It's not by definition to drive selling software to your customers. It's to give the customer a better product and a product that grows with the customer over time. And therefore, this is so important step in the technology journey. There are two kinds of car companies. There are those that have gone through the software-defined journey, And there are those that will have to go through that. There is nothing else in the industry right now. And we are part of the first group, which brings me a lot of comfort selling the course to the customers right now.

Good. Another question staying with software preparedness. Given VolvoCast software capabilities and recognized now by S&P with level five rating, are you in talks to share that tech with other OEMs?

We would be open to discuss that. But first priority is, of course, to deliver to our customer new features. And I think with the central architecture, the big advantage is you can be much faster and more responsive to new ideas. And I mean, you never know exactly what will be built. I mean, nobody had an idea of what type of apps you would have in an iPhone in the future. But Here you have a platform which is easily open for developers. Today, the development is done in 100 different boxes and we have to steer it with the requirement and wishes to the suppliers. With the central architecture, we are, of course, in a totally different way controlling the development. And that will be much faster and better. I mean, that is what our customers will see looking forward.

Right. We also have a lot of analysts on the line and sending in questions. But let me take a few more from the journalists before we. This comes in from Politico. Lena Truce, who asks, how have the recent changes and ongoing review of EU's 2035 CO2 targets for cars affected both your internal planning and your current sales performance?

I think maybe you can correct me, Erika, if I'm wrong. I don't see any real sales development from that. I think it's, of course, we feel a bit unfair that if you have done big investments in being fast out on the market, then suddenly it's not valid. The guys who have not done it are on the level field with us. That's not fair. And, of course, we would also calculate with certain income from selling of tax CO2 credits. The value of those is now, of course, also less worth. So that is disappointing. But if you look into our main strategic direction, it remains the same. And I mean, even if 10 percent of the cars could be non-BEV in the future, I don't see a big change in any of the automotive's R&D activities. I think we will see a lot of new electric cars brought out on the market. And for sure, we are betting on that because it's a better car. So even without the legislation, customers get a better car and they get a lower cost per mile with driving electric. And of course, it's part of our strategy. It's our way to grow as a company.

Now, let's move over now to the analyst side of the Q&A. For all the journalists, of course, we have the press lines open. So feel free to send in your questions and we'll be there responding to them. But now let's move over to the analyst side. And we could have a couple of callers who might have just joined us. So maybe, Frederick, I'll turn to you first to just give us a very quick overview of the main Q1 takeaways.

Yes. I think main takeaway is stable profitability in the quarter, 2.2%, despite 12% lower revenue, driven a lot by FX. Importantly, strong growth in electric cars, especially in EU, 18%, despite the EX60 not being rolled out to the customers yet and contributing. Also, very strong performance in terms of our cost and cash actions, really showing that flowing through to the numbers. In terms of cash out, it's more than 3 billion less in cost as compared to last year. That said, tough market, a lot of competition in China, a lot of slow demand in the U.S. and also U.S. tariffs weighing down the result as compared to last year.

All right. So let's dig into some questions. Let me take the first caller then this morning. And that's Harry Martin from Bernstein. Good morning, Harry. And please go ahead.

Hi, morning, everyone. I have one question on cost and then one on the relationship and the sort of latest thinking with Julie and the Julie group. So on the cost side, can you just help... with the way that the impact of higher raw materials, both semiconductors and the other material costs that have been increasing on stock markets in recent months, how quickly that flows through into your P&L with all the hedges and the agreements that you have in place. And then also, if you could quantify the impact of lower warranty costs in Q1, that would be helpful. That was something that was called out as a positive. And then, yes, I mean, on the relationship with the parent shareholder, we've obviously seen various news stories about the Genie brand growing globally. I read a piece yesterday about the opening of some dealerships in France. So how does that play into potential competition with Volvo branded cars? And how does it play into the strategy to integrate and generate more, you know, more kind of cross savings within the group? Thank you.

Yes.

On raw materials, it flows through a bit differently depending on what raw material and how it's contracted. About a third of it we have hedges for. And then it will continuously roll in. But we're starting to see now already in Q2 that a lot of the elevated levels that has been going on for some months will roll in with higher force. And In terms of lower warranty cost in Q1, that is a pattern we've seen for quite some time. And that is basically largely on a meta level driven by the fact that we have more software update capabilities fixing our problems, meaning the problems are fixed at no cost. underlying quality of our cars when it comes to actual repairs that need work that cost money is pretty much on a record level low level i should say and that means that we are releasing a lot of the provisions we've done in the past because we are performing better on sort of hardware quality if you will and software quality we fix for free

Maybe I can answer on the competition piece of the question. I think the automotive industry has always been a very competitive place. There are many different brands to compete with when you're out there. And when we are talking within the Geely Group, it's important to remember that we have a quite clear brand separation. We're also addressing different customer segments, as Håkan alluded to on the Lincoln Co., where we will now take over as a sales partner for that brand in Europe. We see a very good opportunity of addressing two different customers with a Volvo car and a Lincoln Co. car. And I think it starts with that, to have a very clear plan and also to have a very thoughtful way of approaching different customers, which is what I think we're having within the Geely Group in Europe right now.

And something on the Geely Synergy part as well?

Yes, in addition, I mean, the Chinese car industry will for sure enter Europe and there will be new unpleasant competitors. They will probably replace some of the old school competitors we have. And of course, it's very difficult for us to... believe that Gili would refrain from going into Europe. So in some respect, there could be some competition, but I would say mainly addition. So, I mean, if Gili would enter, for example, with Gili brand, I assume that will be in another price element. So it would compete not to Volvo, but to other brands on the market. Synergies is also coming from that, of course. I mean, we have really three synergies with Geely, three areas. One is really development of cars for China, which needs to be much more China for China. Super competitive autopilots, cockpits, smart cockpits and everything. I mean, very difficult for us to develop. There we can just take... software from Geely and put into our cars we sell in China is one very obvious example. Second example is really hardware components, which we could take from Chinese suppliers and which are then bought in a totally different volume than only Volvo. We'll bring down the cost level of our fantastic new EX60 car, for example, a big potential And the third area is we will focus totally on all electric cars on the new Spa 3 platform, but we need bridge solutions, long-range plug-in hybrids like the XC70 we have in China. We would also need such cars here for US mainly and maybe also for Europe. And those cars, of course, we could develop to a much lower development cost. We would never... would not be within our affordable frames, Frederick. So we need to be smart and do it in another way. And that's the third example of synergies with the Geely Group.

All right. We are staying with our callers then. The next one is Pushkar Tendulkar from HSBC. Good morning, Pushkar.

I have a couple of questions.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I hope you can hear me.

Go ahead. Thank you.

Yeah, okay. Thanks, Ron. So my first one is on the EX60. If I look at the last three years' volumes for the XC60, it's been very stable at around the 230,000-unit level. Combined, ex60 and xc60 what sort of a level do you think at a steady state so not necessarily 26 but going forward when you have the full availability and just related to that what sort of flexibility do you have to adjust production across those two uh those two power trains for that uh particular model uh depending on where the customer demand is and this is the second one on the cost of the cost and cash program if you can provide I mean, you had on the P&L savings of $3 billion now in Q1. If you can give any color how you progress towards that $5 billion target for 2026, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Good. Should I start with the sales and the flexibility piece, and then you cover the costs and the financials? First of all, when you look at the total global XC60 sales, it's important also to note that we are having local production in China of the XC60, and one part of that volume you refer to is, of course, sold in China, where we're now entering with an XC70 as well. So part of the XC60 growth also will be added towards the XC70 in China. But if I go to Europe, What we are seeing is that the combined order pace of XC60s and EX60s is providing growth for the company. I will not comment on the exact numbers, but we can definitely see that with adding a product such as the XC60 to an already very successful product as the XC60, that drives growth. As to the flexibility, well, the good thing in that sense is that we're building these two cars in the same plant in Torslanda. So we have a very high flexibility in that plant of shifting between models. Of course, it's not 100% you can shift, but we have a high flexibility since we have the cars in the same plant. But I'm very confident that combined, we have a very strong product offering in the DSUV segment. And U.S. will also start producing XC60? Yes, we will also localize the XC60 into U.S., which will further relieve Torslanda to meet even more capacity on the XC60. Good point.

Fredrik, on the costing gap, progress towards 5 billion?

We're making good progress. And of course, it's important to note that we started this program Q2 last year. Now we're comparing Q1 to Q1. And a lot of the actions we already implemented last year is now fully flowing through in this quarter. You will not see the same year-on-year effect next year as we started implementing the program. But we are progressing well. We're saying at least five billion. There will be some headwinds in this with raw materials, logistics costs, etc. But to us, that five billion includes those headwinds.

Good. Hope that answers your questions, Pushkar. This is a written question from Mathias Holmberg from DNB. The EBIT bridge shows a $0.5 billion year-on-year FX contribution, despite a negative $6.7 billion FX revenue headwind. Please help us understand how much of the EBIT level FX benefit relates to balance sheet revaluation versus transaction hedges. Is any portion of this as non-recurring?

Yes. If I round it a bit, you can say the 500 million positive you see is balance sheet revaluation we had last year, which is not showing up this year. So then on a year-on-year basis, it's actually a positive. If you look at the underlying flows, they are negative, but they are also offset by the financial hedges we have.

Right. And staying with the topic of the FX, can you provide some numbers on the FX impacts from the balance sheet revaluations to help us differentiate between real spot and revaluation based FX headwinds?

I think in Q4 we had a very large revaluation effect. It was almost one billion. And that's very dependent on the fact that we have. Almost the 400 billion balance sheet and FX swings in the last days of the month have a large impact. For Q1, we don't really see a big balance sheet revaluation effect.

Good. Question from Ross McDonald on the Lincoln Co. piece. On the Lincoln Co. sales model for Europe, how should we think about the benefits to the Volvo car shareholder? For example, how much do commissions from selling these cars split between dealers and Volvo car? Related to this, how should we think about risks from cannibalization? You partly answered the question, but maybe specifically to Link.

But it's a good question. I think that I will not comment in detail on volumes and numbers, of course, on it. But what we're seeing, first of all, Link & Co is a brand which we can position in combination with the Volvo brand addressing a completely different customer segment. As Håkan talked about earlier, That is a different kind of car from design, from price points, appealing to different customers. The benefit for Volvo on that, of course, is that we have a higher volume, for example, in our network. It's important for our retailer partners. It's important for our service business. It's important to drive growth, to basically appeal to more customers. So I think that is a quite important part on how it will contribute to Volvo. As for the commission and how we will sell it, the dealer remuneration, the whole point is to use the Volvo commercial machine, if you like, and then using similar setups that we already have in place with our network. So it will basically follow the Volvo logic on how we're selling cars in Europe, and therefore it will also be very easy to implement for our retailer network, which I think is the most important thing of this. It's a plug-and-play solution using an already existing network.

All right, good. The next caller, and that's Nikita Papachio from Deutsche Bank. Good morning, Nikita, and please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one, I mean, thank you for the color on your Q2 and H2 situation. So as I understand correctly, Q2 should be impacted by DNA entities. production ramp up, so I would assume a lower margin before seeing better margins in H2. Is this the right way to see this?

We're not guiding specifically on margins, but there's of course a lot of headwinds we're pointing at in Q2.

Yeah, and if you then think about the US tariffs, I mean Q1 was impacted because we had no tariffs in Q1 last year. How should you think about this going forward?

The tariff situation was quite unstable last year, as you remember. So it is a bit tricky. We had extremely high tariffs, 27.5% U.S. tariffs in 2020. Q2, not fully flowing through to our financials though, because you had cars on inventory that came in before. So if you look at the full year, we expect the sort of what we've guided before about the 1% EBIT impact on the full year. That will not play out fully linearly based on how the tariffs actually changed year on year. Complex answer.

But Fredrik, maybe add something regarding the tariffs into Europe, which was now going to be zero down from 10. How will that influence? Because it's still not materialized or...

No, so that is an upside that we see, right? So if Europe enacts what has been stated, basically zero tariffs for US imports into EU, especially if they do that retroactively, that would, of course, be a big benefit to us. So we're hoping for that. We have some upsides.

Very good. A question from Agnieszka Biela, now Nadia. But I think this was, again, back to Q2 color. And I think you've already answered that question, Agnieszka. So I hope that answers the previous question. So you had the same one. H2 growth drivers. We speak a lot about Q2. So can you tell us a little bit about H2? When does the turnaround happen? What do we see in H2 driving growth for Volvo?

Do you want it? Should I? No, you start, I'll chime in. I think what we're seeing in terms of product or growth is really product-driven growth. And product-driven growth is something we can control. I mean, we know that we are expanding our addressable market with an entry price point of the EX30 going down. Same thing in China with a front-wheel drive version of the EX70. That's also expanding the addressable market because we're touching a different audience. And then... ES90, EX90 coming to more markets, and most importantly, the EX60. You know, huge demand, great profitability on the order intake, great media reception, a lot of excitement, and people haven't even test-driven the car, right? As we get it out to dealers, even more people will want to buy it. And then our challenge is just how can we produce to that demand? And that will support the second half.

I agree. And I think also to add to that, maybe the new ways of working with our commercial network to be more efficient, as Håkan also talked about with our retailer partners, driving a different sales process, being even more prudent on how we follow up with the leads, all the massive interest we now generate from the EX60. But also importantly, the different way we're offering the cost, like the all-inclusive offer we have now with CARE, including free energy. In times like these where energy is on everyone's lips, it's quite powerful to be able to say, if you buy an EX60, you will have no fuel cost for the coming three years. So we see a lot of customer interest also coming out of the way we're offering our products, which I think personally would be a huge factor on how we will drive growth in this market going forward. Good.

And we have probably, we'll take this one last question. Maybe I'll turn to you, Hakan. It's also probably a good way to bring this call to a close. We presented, Volvo Cars presented its strategy update some months ago with a clear value creation approach. But since then, we've seen Volvo Cars EBIT margins come under a lot of pressure. As CEO, what are you doing to bring Volvo Cars back to the 8% guidance or the ambition that the company has set?

It's basically to continue doing the things we can control, continue building up a high performance organization with really good productivity. And of course, just continue bringing out the cars. We are quite sure we need to be able to transform into the electric segment. as fast as possible, because that is our way of growing the company and bringing up profitability. So EX60 is the first one, of course, on a totally new platform, but we're planning other cars on that platform as well. So we still have the ambition, 2030, Volvo should be able to offer electric cars, all electric cars, to our customers. But... We will also have for those customers who are still not ready to charge, we will have plug-in hybrids of the second generation to have a very flexible transformation. So we will be ready, as we always said, 2030. But of course, we need to also wait for our customers. Therefore, we have this addition, which we will do in a very cost-efficient way, utilizing synergies from Geely. Short answer is we will stay on course and we are very confident that our strategy will deliver a company that we will exactly what we said with the capability to deliver 8% profit margins.

All right. Hakan, Fredrik, Erik, thank you very much. And thank you, everybody, for tuning in. If we have missed answering some of the questions, of course, the investor relations calls and the media relations team is there to take all your questions. But from all of us here, have a great day ahead. Goodbye.