STOCKHOLM — Sweden’s Autoliv, the world’s largest producer of airbags and seatbelts, swung to a strong operating profit during the second quarter, but scaled back its full-year guidance as component shortages crimped car production.
Autoliv on Friday reported an operating profit of $164 million compared with a $234 million operating loss in the year-ago quarter when many automakers idled several weeks of production due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Total sales surged 93 percent to $2.0 billion. The company generated net income of $105 million compared with a $174 million loss a year ago.
Airbag revenue doubled to $1.3 billion while seatbelt business grew 81 percent to $712 million.
Autoliv is the first major global auto supplier to post its second-quarter results, with several more scheduled to report over the next few weeks.
While the demand recovery from the market plunge in the early months of the pandemic has been strong, a global shortage of semiconductors has hit the automotive sector hard, forcing many automakers and their suppliers to curtail production plans.
CEO Mikael Bratt said in a statement that lower-than-expected light vehicle production dinged the company’s sales and profitability in the quarter.
“The low visibility of these changes prevented us from using furloughs effectively to mitigate the effects of the lower customer demand,” he said.
“Although the situation improved towards the end of the quarter, we still expect supply disruptions to impact (light vehicle production) negatively in the third quarter with some improvement in the fourth quarter.”
Bratt told Reuters there had been few clear signs the semiconductor shortage, which has also seen Autoliv step in to aid its own suppliers in their efforts to source chips, was set to be significantly redressed in the near term.
“Our best estimate right now is that quarter two was the worst point of this challenge,” Bratt said. “It’s difficult to know the exact lead times for this problem, but I wouldn’t rule out that it will have some impact also heading into 2022.”
The $164 million gain lagged a mean forecast for a $186 million profit based on a poll of analysts published by the company.
The rival of ZF and Joyson Safety Systems lowered its 2021 guidance for like-for-like sales growth to 16-18 percent from around 20 percent and also scaled back its forecast for profitability while it also flagged steepening raw material costs.
Autoliv shares fell in European trading and dropped 4.8 percent to close at $90.44 in New York on Friday.
Autoliv ranks No. 31 on the Automotive News list of the top 100 global suppliers with worldwide sales to automakers of $7.4 billion in 2020.
Reuters and Philip Nussel of Automotive News contributed to this report.