Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Nexteer Automotive Group Limited 2024 interim results conference call. All participants will be in listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. I would now like to turn the conference over to Investor Relations Director, Mr. Tony Wong. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Drew. Welcome everyone to our 2024 interim earnings call. We made the announcement of our interim results this evening, Hong Kong time. Presentation materials for today's call were posted on the investor section of company website early this evening. During today's call, we have Executive Board Director, President, CTO, and Chief Strategy Officer, Robin Milavec, Senior Vice President and CFO, Mike Bierlein, Senior Vice President and COO, Hervé Boyer. Starting the presentation, we will have Robin to provide an update of the company's business overview for the first half of 2024. After that, Mike will go through financial assessment as well as wrap up with company's considerations for 2024 before we open Q&A session for you guys. Please be mindful of the safe harbor statement governing today's communication in the second page of the presentation package.
The presentations accompanying today's call are available on our company's website. Please visit nexteer.com to download slides if you have not done yet. Now, I hand it over to Robin.
Okay. Thank you, Tony, and thanks everyone for joining this call for the Nexteer 2024 interim results announcement. As Tony said, to start off, I'll provide a brief business overview for the first half, and then Mike will go through the financial assessment as well as some operating considerations for the full year. So let's kick it off. In 2024, we started another period of solid program launches. In the first half, we launched a record 38 programs across all regions, with 32 representing new or conquest awards and 18 representing pure BEV models. We also successfully secured $2.1 billion in new business bookings in the first half, including a significant foundational incumbency truck program with a key North America customer and ongoing success with business contracts from Chinese NEV customers, who contributed 43% of the total first half bookings.
As we continue this momentum in China, we're excited to add our first Dual Pinion EPS business with a China OEM. In addition to our increasing pace of launches and bookings, we continue our commitment to technology leadership and megatrend alignment for future growth, including steer-by-wire, software, and electrification, keeping speed and cost efficiency top of mind. I'll highlight how we capitalized on the timing of technology pipeline alignment with the industry megatrends shortly. I'll also cover how our modular approach enables us to be fast to market, cost-effective, and provide flexible solutions that meet OEM's wide-ranging requirements for advanced gear-based steering systems that supports all vehicle propulsion types. Lastly, operational efficiency and execution remains our most critical focus. We are dedicated to enhancing profitability through various levers, such as global supply chain management, reducing fixed costs, strengthening regional engineering capabilities, optimizing our manufacturing footprints, as well as other actions.
Beyond enhancing profitability, these collective actions also strengthen our resiliency, support our speed to market objectives with a customer-responsive focus, and position us to further capitalize on growth opportunities. Next slide, please. This slide summarizes our program launches for the first half. These launches reflect the diversity of our customer base as it continues to evolve with the market opportunities. During the first half of 2024, we achieved a record 38 new program launches, including 32 programs representing new or conquest business and 18 representing 100% EV platforms supported by our products. To efficiently review the key launch achievements, starting from this year, we will selectively focus on significant and milestone programs that reflect how new bookings successfully convert to revenue growth, as opposed to providing a detailed launch list line by line, as we have done in the past.
With that approach in mind, here are notable launches from the first half. We had our first Rack EPS program launch with a Japanese OEM. This significant business breakthrough with Nissan's large vehicle segment reflects Nexteer's leading position with our rack-based EPS technology. We had our first Dual Pinion EPS program successfully launched in EMEA SA. Our new Dual Pinion EPS product line makes its production debut with Stellantis in their new light commercial van platform. We're seeing additional Dual Pinion EPS product opportunities, especially among Chinese-... We had the first major adjacent market launch for all-terrain vehicles. We supplied Single Pinion EPS on the Polaris Ranger and RZR models to enhance the safety, convenience, and performance of those vehicles.
Beyond this initial launch, we're excited about significant potential to expand our business with them and other OEMs in this market segment, where our technology is bringing steering performance and refinement not previously available in this vehicle class. We also had our second program launch with the North America EV leader, this time with our driveline product line, which follows our first launch with columns in China last year. Out of 38 program launches, 23 program launches were in APAC, supporting both Chinese and global customers, which is another proof point of next year's strategic targeting and capitalizing on the growth opportunities in the region. Building on strong performance on Column EPS programs, our industry-leading product, Rack EPS, was a significant part of near-term launches with Chinese customers.
Notably, we started to supply this advanced steering system for the first time to Xiaomi, Li Auto, XPeng, Chery, Changan, Great Wall, and a few Geely subsidiary EV brands like Zeekr, Volvo, and LEVC. Moving into the second half, we're excited to see additional and significant rollouts of Rack EPS products with leading Chinese OEMs. Moving from launches to bookings, this slide shows that next year's new business awards in the first half totaled $2.1 billion, with significant progress, especially in the second quarter, with $2 billion compared to $100 million in Q1. The contribution from Chinese OEMs reached an unprecedented high of 43% in the first half, with approximately $0.9 billion, which is almost three times the amount we had in H1 of 2023.
Our strong booking momentum continues with leading China OEMs, both domestically in China, as well as in support of their globalization strategies, covering both export and localization. We also successfully secured a foundational incumbent business with a key North American truck program for the driveline business to further solidify our leading market position for years to come. As I mentioned earlier, next year secured the first dual-pinion EPS program booking in APAC after our first dual-pinion launch in EMEA SA. In addition of dual-pinion EPS, our capabilities provide a complete portfolio of EPS solutions for our customers around the world. As we examine how we're tracking towards our 2024 booking target, our $2.1 billion of bookings in the first half is on track with our plan to achieve $6 billion for the full calendar year.
Looking at bookings across product lines and regions, overall, 41% of next year's bookings were in our EPS product line, and nearly half of our bookings were secured in the APAC region. Our new business booking success and composition across conquests, products, and regions demonstrates how next year's advanced motion control technology continues to solve challenges across all megatrends, shaping our industry, and our technology is becoming the product of choice by many Chinese and global OEMs alike. Building on the theme of strong bookings among Chinese OEMs, you can see on this slide that next year's APAC division continued to achieve market expansion with a very well-maintained margin profile. The division's revenue growth well outpaced the market, with a revenue rebound from a low point of $646 million in 2020 to expand to nearly $1.3 billion in 2024.
That's a remarkable revenue increase of about 100% just over five years. Even still, it's important to remember that APAC is also very dynamic, very competitive, and crowded. The market continues to be challenging due to fierce competition between the OEMs, with the extended price wars that have been ongoing since last year. But despite these challenging factors, our APAC team maintained healthy profitability through flexible modular design architectures, lean production systems, and cost controls through Bill of Material reductions and design and process innovations. Moving forward, we're expecting a gradual easing of the pricing headwinds. As APAC's automotive landscape has evolved, Nexteer successfully and rapidly rebalanced its position with fast-growing domestic China OEMs. We strategically targeted opportunities to capture new growth momentum and to further capitalize on the electrification megatrend with diversified product lines to satisfy multi-product demand from different customers.
The results of this strategic approach is reflected in the diversification among customers, as well as the rebalancing between global and local customers in the APAC market. We have differentiated Nexteer through our advanced technologies, combined with a speed-to-market culture, cost effectiveness, and uncompromising quality. That has proven to be a winning formula in Nexteer's APAC market penetration success story, and continues to be leveraged across... Notably, nine out of the top ten producing China OEMs year-to-date in the first half are Nexteer's customers, demonstrating our strategic alignment with targeted growth customers, regions, and products. As we talk about anticipating and aligning with megatrends and growth opportunities, let me spend a few minutes talking about steer-by-wire. We continue our commitment to technology leadership and megatrend alignment by leveraging the commercialization of steer-by-wire technologies as the next logical life cycle of steering technology.
The upper chart in this slide illustrates overlapping product life cycles and how the industry has evolved from hydraulic to electric power steering, with the next wave of evolution being from EPS to steer-by-wire. Based on what we know from close collaboration with OEMs, as of today, we foresee the market dominance curve beginning to switch to steer-by-wire, starting late in this decade and gradually converting with significant volume after that. As we continue steer-by-wire development in partnership with many OEMs, both global and China-based, we are committed to establishing a compelling case for the accelerated adoption of steer-by-wire through value, differentiation, and cost. First, let's talk about value.
As you may know, Steer-by-Wire's hand wheel actuator and road wheel actuator are in constant communication, transmitting information back and forth between the driver and the road, as well as communicating with other chassis subsystems, and even communicating with other vehicles, the infrastructure, and the cloud. Essentially, vehicle-to-everything communication. Given this digitally connected context, both within the vehicle and its environment, Steer-by-Wire unlocks greater value, thanks to new advanced safety, performance, and convenience features that are not possible with today's traditional steering systems. Next is differentiation. In a hypercompetitive automotive market, standing out from the crowd is more critical than ever. In addition to differentiating features and functions that we just touched on, Steer-by-Wire enables the car makers to differentiate through steering experiences that are unique to their brand, thanks to the almost limitless tuning and performance possibilities of Steer-by-Wire.
Steer-by-Wire also opens the door for OEMs to revolutionize cockpit design, human machine interfaces, and to reimagine what's possible. This isn't just about simple tweaks, it's about differentiating through bold reinventions that are innovative, memorable, and viewed by the consumer as worthy of premium pricing. Last, but most important, is cost. OEMs and suppliers alike are navigating challenging macroeconomics and EV transitions. Consequently, Steer-by-Wire's affordability will be the main driver in accelerating adoption. We are relentless in our innovation and efforts to balance cost and performance, and it's just one piece of the puzzle. To truly harness Steer-by-Wire's cost efficiency possibilities, it requires that OEMs take a holistic, strategic approach across their lineup, rather than looking at a vehicle-by-vehicle business case view.
As an example, several opportunities for OEMs to scale cost savings includes steer-by-wire's reduction of part numbers, the component design simplification, and the reuse across platforms, including common right and left-hand drive vehicle architectures and all propulsion types. Steer-by-wire also has the potential to reduce assembly time and cost, as well as free up valuable underhood space and improve the packaging flexibility. These are just a few examples of how Nexteer and OEMs together can influence steer-by-wire cost and adoption rates. In the meantime, we continue our relentless innovation with steer-by-wire technology, and we are ready to capitalize on the steer-by-wire growth with the right technology, for the right market, at the right time, and with the right price. We expect our first steer-by-wire launch in 2026 with the China OEM, followed by additional global programs launching before 2030.
Modular innovation is another example of Nexteer's answering the need in the market, driven by the megatrends. A couple of days ago, we announced mPEPS, Modular Single and Dual Pinion EPS systems. This is our third modular steering design after Modular Column Assist EPS, which was announced in October of 2021, and Modular Rack Assist EPS, which was announced in April of 2023. With this latest addition of mPEPS, we are now offering a full suite of modular EPS solutions. Our modular EPS systems leverage our existing industry-leading EPS building blocks, so our suite of modular EPS provides scalability, which in turn offers OEMs cost and time efficiencies, as well as faster development cycles and higher rate of component reuse across platforms, while still delivering advanced safety and performance.
This approach also enables flexibility to meet the OEM's wide-ranging requirements for advanced gear-based steering systems and supports all vehicle propulsion types, as well as specific needs across the global markets. Global and China domestic OEMs need cost and time-efficient solutions, along with outstanding steering, reliability, and performance. Next year's modular EPS solution is perfectly timed to meet those needs, to further capitalize on growth in APAC, and meet global industry needs for flexible, scalable, and cost-effective steering solutions that applies across EVs, ICE platforms, as well as mixed propulsion platforms. Turning to profitability through operational efficiency and execution. A year ago, we highlighted initiatives to enhance next year's resiliency, profitability, and competitiveness across four categories on a chart like this one today.
I'd like to give you an update on our latest progress, and if we start, let's start with customer recoveries that are in the top left of this chart. So we continue to work with our customers to recover input cost increases with both contractual escalation agreements and other non-contractual negotiations. Notably, we achieved a significant recovery from a prior impaired program in North America. Next, reducing fixed costs and optimizing footprint to ensure a competitive structure. I'll give you some updates focusing on our U.S. operations here. Under reducing our fixed costs, in the first half of 2024, we announced a second early retirement incentive program for eligible U.S. salaried employees. This voluntary program is an opportunity for our eligible employees who are considering retirement or a career change, and it will help improve next year's resiliency by reducing fixed costs.
Cost savings for this program will be realized in the second half of this year. Regarding our cost-efficient energy initiatives, in the first half of 2024, we partnered with the leading clean energy company, NorthStar Clean Energy, and successfully activated a 25-acre solar field on next year's Saginaw, Michigan, U.S. site. This project will reduce the site's operational costs through a renewable energy source without upfront capital investment. Under optimizing footprint, we've completed the footprint consolidation and optimization of our Saginaw driveline operations. This consolidation also included the renovation of a large portion of the facility and significant improvements in material flow, manufacturing, automation, and service delivery. We also remain on schedule with the relocation of our steering column business from our U.S. site in Saginaw, Michigan, to our Mexico site in Juarez.
Due to the excellent execution and progress of our teams, the target to complete the product line relocation has been accelerated to 2025. We expect this transition to enhance our profit margins through larger scale and a more competitive production and supply chain cost structure. Additionally, the construction of our new site in Changshu, China, is on track and expected to open and be fully operational in early 2025. It will strategically increase next year's production and testing capacity in China and enable us to further capitalize on growth with global and domestic OEMs in China and throughout APAC. In March of 2024, Nexteer held a groundbreaking for the expansion of our Mexico Technical Center. The expanded Mexico Tech Center will serve as the hub of engineering activity for Nexteer Mexico by providing local engineering support for our customers. The expansion is expected to be completed by 2026.
Lastly, global supply chain. We continue leveraging our global-based supply chain to enhance profitability and drive shareholder value. Let's get into a little bit more details on this topic on the next slide. Our global network of supplier partners are critical to our success in accelerating our speed to market and enabling effective cost controls through collaborative relationships and specialized expertise. In April of this year, we hosted our annual Global Supplier Conference in Poland, with more than 200 suppliers in attendance. This is the second consecutive year in which we strategically hosted this conference in a different region. Our Think Global and Act Local approach to our global supplier conference adds significant value to our supply base, enhances region-specific business insights.
The event focused on strengthening our collaboration and strategic alignment with our suppliers in areas such as dual sourcing, where we strive for risk mitigation and supply continuity for our critical components, cost targets, and contractual APRs, where we highlighted the necessity to achieve our cost targets, plus annual price reductions as part of contractual agreements. We focused on accelerated launches, where we addressed the market demands for speed with shorter product launch lead times. Environmental, social, and governance, we are focusing on emission targets involving our entire supply chain's carbon footprint. And finally, digitalizing our global supply chain management, where we showcased ongoing and future initiatives in digital processes to enhance efficiency, transparency, and responsiveness of the supply chain. Lastly, I'd like to give you an update on Southern Brazil's catastrophic flooding.
which impacted Nexteer's families, communities, and our Porto Alegre operations, including 50 of our employees who lost their homes and or their belongings. During these very difficult times, Nexteer's global and local teams took extraordinary action to mitigate the impact on our Nexteer families, as well as on our business. Our site remained flooded for 30 days, and just 5 days after the water receded, our team delivered the first parts to our customers. Porto Alegre site has been fully operational now since the end of July. Mike will talk more about the financial impact of the flooding shortly, but I want to express my sincere gratitude to our Nexteer employees, our supply chain partners, and our customers, who all contributed to the recovery from this tragic event. Now, I'll hand it over to Mike.
Thanks, Robin, and good day, everyone. Nexteer achieved first half 2024 revenue of $2.1 billion. Adjusting for foreign exchange and commodity recovery, revenue grew by 1%, outperforming the market by 120 basis points. The outperformance was driven by our continued growth in Asia Pacific with the China OEMs. EBITDA grew year-over-year by 6%, and margins expanded by 50 basis points. Material performance improved in the first half due to our initiative for best cost country sourcing and dual sourcing suppliers, creating competitive pressures in our supply base. Manufacturing performance also improved as we continue to emphasize and enhance our Nexteer production system. Fixed cost reductions also contributed from the actions in the U.S. with early retirement programs, the closure of one U.S. driveline plant, and the ongoing transition of our columns business from the U.S. to Mexico.
The Brazil flood impacted our results in the first half with lower revenue and increased operational costs. I am proud of the efforts of our global team that worked tirelessly to support our customers during this challenging time. Also impacting our first half results was unfavorable foreign exchange, with the Polish zloty and Mexican peso strengthening against the RMB, while the RMB was weakening against the U.S. dollar. Our balance sheet remains strong as we finish the first half with $186 million of net cash. We achieved customer program bookings of $2.1 billion during the first half of 2024. These strong bookings and ongoing pursuits gives us confidence in achieving our full year bookings target of $6 billion, which will enable our continued revenue growth. This slide summarizes our key financial metrics on both a year-over-year and a sequential basis.
Revenue of $2.099 billion in the first half of 2024 is largely flat compared to both first half and second half of last year. EBITDA of $197 million, or 9.4% of revenue, was higher year over year by 6%. In sequential view, EBITDA is $37 million higher than the second half of 2023 due to the supplier issue in 2023 and improvements of material and manufacturing performance in the first half. Net profit of $16 million was lower by $18 million compared to last year. This includes a net $14 million unfavorable engineering and tangible asset impairment charge associated with customer program cancellations, which was partially offset by customer recoveries. The largest program cancellation was related to a low-volume autonomous taxi customer program in the U.S.
Income tax is unfavorable, primarily due to a one-time tax benefit of $11 million in Brazil during 2023. Free cash flow was a slight use of $2 million in the first half of 2024. Free cash flow was lower compared to the first half of 2023 by $62 million, due to a $38 million income tax refund received during 2023 and unfavorable working capital timing in the first half. Slide 16 shows a walk of the first half of 2023 revenue compared to first half of 2024 revenue. Revenue of $2.1 billion in the first half of 2024 was largely flat, with the first half of 2023. Unfavorable foreign currency reduced revenue by $21 million, reflecting a weaker RMB against the US dollar. Commodity recoveries provided a year-over-year decrease of $3 million due to a reduction in commodity pricing....
The Brazil flood caused a $10 million revenue reduction in the first half of the year. Increased volume offset these negative impacts, with $31 million of improvement, which was driven by Asia Pacific as we continue to grow with the China OEMs. This slide shows our year-over-year revenue growth over market, adjusted for foreign exchange and commodity prices. Our total adjusted revenue growth in the first half of 2024 was 1%. We outperformed the market by 1.2%, or 120 basis points. North America adjusted revenue decreased by 6%, with below-market growth of 8%, resulting from certain customer programs ending in 2023 and an underperforming European-based customer in the truck and SUV segment. EMEA SA revenue increased by 2%, above market by 7%, driven with volume ramping up from new programs.
Asia Pacific increased by 13%, above market by 12%, driven by significant new and conquest program launches with China OEMs. This slide shows our revenue performance by region. On the left of the slide, the regional distribution of our revenue for the first half of 2024 and 2023 is provided. Our North America segment is still the largest, and in the first half of 2024, comprised 53% of our total revenue, followed by Asia Pacific and EMEA SA of 28% and 18%, respectively. Compared to last year, the regional revenue distribution is approximately 200 basis points higher in Asia Pacific, while North America is approximately 400 basis points lower. North America revenue of $1.119 billion is $76 million, or 6.3% lower than last year.
Asia Pacific revenue of $595 million is $51 million, or 9.3% higher than last year, despite unfavorable foreign exchange of $21 million, due to the US dollar strengthening against the RMB. EMEA SA revenue of $366 million is $5 million, or 1.4 higher than last year. Turning to our earnings performance. EBITDA for the first half of 2024 was $197 million, providing a margin of 9.4%, compared with $186 million, or 8.9% margin, in the same period in 2023. Unfavorable foreign exchange caused a $10 million negative impact related to the Polish zloty and Mexican peso strengthening, while the RMB weakened against the US dollar.
The Mexican peso has since significantly weakened compared to the US dollar, which will provide a benefit in the second half. Volume growth drove a favorable $6 million flow-through to earnings. The Brazil flood caused a $3 million unfavorable impact on earnings. This was driven by volume reduction and cost increases, which offset by an initial recovery from our property insurance. We expect to fully recover our costs related to this issue by year-end. The first half included $4 million of restructuring costs, which caused a $3 million negative impact year-over-year. The cost included a second round of a voluntary early retirement program in the US, implemented in the first half of 2024, and costs associated with our columns transition from the US to Mexico.
Lastly, all other net performance totaling $21 million, with significant material and manufacturing performance improvements, more than offsetting customer pricing and economics. This slide highlights the EBITDA and margin profile for each of our regions. North America EBITDA of $87 million was lower by $11 million compared with the same period in 2023. The reduction in EBITDA is driven by reduced volume and unfavorable foreign exchange. Asia Pacific posted EBITDA of $105 million, $23 million, or 28.5% higher than 2023, driven by year-over-year revenue growth. EBITDA margins expanded to a strong 17.6%, despite pricing pressures related to the OEM pricing war. Our Asia Pacific team delivered strong earnings results with excellent operating execution. EMEA SA EBITDA of $7 million was lower by $11 million compared with the same period in 2023.
The reduction in EBITDA is driven by the Brazil flood, inflationary pressures, and unfavorable foreign exchange. This slide shows our EBITDA to net profit walk. Although EBITDA showed an improvement of $11 million in the first half of 2024, net profit reduced by $18 million. The reduction of $29 million below EBITDA is driven by the following items: depreciation and amortization expense in the first half of 2024 of $156 million was an increase of $17 million compared to 2023. This increase was primarily related to $38 million of engineering intangible asset impairments due to customer program cancellations, partially offset by $24 million of customer recoveries. Income tax expense in the first half of 2024 of $18 million increased by $10 million compared to 2023.
This increase was driven by a one-time income tax gain of $11 million in Brazil in the first half of 2023. Our US operations remain in an income tax Valuation Allowance position, which continues to drive a high effective tax rate in the first half of 2024. We now expect our full year effective tax rate to be approximately 35%. Moving to the balance sheet and cash flow. To the left of the slide is our cash flow performance for the first half of 2024 and first half of 2023, and our balance sheet metrics to the right. Free cash flow in first half 2024 was a $2 million use, compared with the $60 million inflow in 2023, reflecting lower cash from operating activities.
Cash from operating activities of $152 million in the current first half year was $79 million lower than 2023 due to increased working capital investment and a $38 million income tax refund received in the first half of 2023. Cash used in investing activities of $154 million in the first half of 2024 was lower than last year due to lower capitalized engineering and product development costs and the timing of capital spending payments. As noted on the right of the slide, we ended the first half of 2024 in a net cash position of $186 million. Liquidity stood at $650 million, which included $280 million of cash and committed borrowing capacity under our available credit facilities of $370 million.
Looking forward to the balance of 2024, we see a continued dynamic operating environment, presenting certain tailwinds and headwinds impacting our operations and the automotive industry. Forecasts for OEM production volumes continue to reduce. We are now expecting global production volumes to reduce year-over-year by approximately 2%, with the largest reduction in EMEA SA. We are seeing elevated recession risks with key indications of a slowing economy in the U.S., along with geopolitical risk with the upcoming U.S. elections. Foreign exchange rates continue to be a headwind, although recent weakening of the Mexican peso presents a tailwind in the second half. Despite these challenges, we continue to remain optimistic as we are well on track to deliver another record year for revenue, as we expect to grow revenue by approximately 300 basis points compared to the market.
We have restructuring initiatives underway to lower fixed costs, resulting in higher profit margins, and we are seeing improvements in material and manufacturing performance in our global operations. We expanded EBITDA margins in the first half by 50 basis points year-over-year and expect to continue the momentum in the second half. I appreciate your attendance today, and we will now move to the Q&A session of the call. Operator Drew, please compile the questions.
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. To ask a question, you may press star, then one on your touchtone phone. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press star, then two. At this time, we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. The first question comes from Tim Hsiao with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, Robin and Mike. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two questions. The first one is about the bookings, because as shown, the new bookings in the first half this year reached $2.1 billion, versus last year it was around $2.7 billion. But as Robin and Mike, you just mentioned, the team is still targeting $6 billion bookings for the full year. So, would there be more meaningful project bidding taking place in the second half? Or what would underpin the more significant increase in second half for this kind of booking or project win? First question.
My second question is about the project cancellation, because in first half, as Mike just mentioned, the first half impairment from the customer program cancellations. But as we also mentioned, the industry production volume forecast has been reducing and like Chinese and major global OEMs are scaling back on their EV targets. So, are we expecting more programs in second half? Will this become the norm in the next, let's say, six to 12 months? So that's my second question. Thank you.
Okay. Hi, Tim, this is Robin. Thanks for your 2 questions. I'll take the first one on the bookings, and I'll turn the second question over to Mike. But in terms of the bookings, I would say we are on track for a full year of $6 billion in new business bookings. Of course, as you know, we don't control the timing of the bookings. We do have a plan of our bookings throughout the year and just based on the cadence of when those sourcing decisions will happen. It just so happens this year that more of those are happening in the second half than in the first half, purely based on the customers, the sourcing timelines. So we have full expectations to achieve our goal by the end of the year based on the plan that we have in place.
Okay. Thank, thanks, Tim. This is Mike. Appreciate the question and, and certainly good, good to hear from you. Related to, the impairments, as I mentioned in my prepared remarks, the largest, impairment that we saw was related to, this US-based customer's autonomous vehicle, program. So this was really a specialty, program for this customer. And, you know, that made up the, the bulk of the, of the impairment. So I, I don't see a, a trend really forming more of, let's say, one-off items that, that we saw here, in the first half of the year.
Thanks.
Was there a follow-up, sir?
Those two are my questions. Thank you very much for sharing all the details. Thank you.
Thank you, Tim.
Again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. The next question comes from Rebecca Wen with JPM organ. Please go ahead.
Hi, Mike and Robin. Thank you for taking my question. This is Rebecca Wen from JP Morgan. My first question is regarding your review, I think revised revenue targets. Am I understanding it correctly, that you're now expecting the global auto production to be down 2% year-over-year for the full year 2024, and we will be 300 basis points above the industry, which means our revenue growth for this year could be around 1 percentage point, year-over-year. Is that the correct way to understand that? So that's the first question. And the second question is regarding our EBITDA margin.
So, we had last year, if we adjust the last year EBITDA margin, adding back the one-off from restructuring from the UAW, then that would be around 10%, as I recall, 9.9% for the full year 2023. So which means that for first half 2024, we are actually below the full year 2023 EBITDA margin level. And then, actually, I think more below the second half 2023 levels, if we add back those one-off items. So what are the key reasons for a lower first half EBITDA margin compared to the readjusted EBITDA margin in the last year?
Hey, Rebecca, this is Mike. Thank you for the questions. First, on the revenue side. As you recall, with our annual results announcement, we were at that time expecting a relatively flat global production volumes, and we had guided for between 300 and 400 basis points above market. So since then, we have seen forecasts and our own forecasts for the global production volumes to reduce, now expecting a 2% reduction globally for the year.... In terms of our guidance above market, a couple of impacts as we reduce from 300 - 400 basis points to 300 basis points above market.
One, as I mentioned, in North America, we have a European truck and SUV company with its content in North America that has been challenged certainly in the first half, and we expect lower volumes with that customer in the second half, as well as relatively lower EV volumes than we had expected in North America as well. So that makes up the change in our revenue outlook. From an EBITDA perspective, we posted 9.4% EBITDA in the first half of the year. You know, that was, say, basically aligned with what we had expected for the first half of the year. We did expand EBITDA margins by this 50 basis points.
Typically, we tend to perform, say, have more performance relative to material performance cost downs with our suppliers. Also, some cadence of our revenue progression mix between regions in the second half of the year, allowing for higher profit margins. So we are still intending to finish the year above double-digit EBITDA margins.
Thank you. Can I have a very quick follow-up on the first question? That revenue guidance that we have, is it adjusted for the FX, or it is like the reported revenue that we could expect?
Yeah, that's also adjusted for FX, correct?
Okay, understood. Thank you.
Again, if you have a question, please press star then one. The next question comes from Bin Wang with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I have two financial questions. Number one is that, you're getting at the interest rate, oh, sorry, the tax rate will be 35. So is that going to be the case in the future, say, 25 to 26, 35% income tax rate? Meanwhile, you actually said that in the second half we have some early retirements as well. So do we see the same impact of the margin in the second half, or is the same or bigger in the second half? Another question is that you mentioned about the cancellation, about the robotaxi, by a US customer. Is that a GM Cruise Origin? Or can you provide more detail about the customer, please? Thank you.
Thanks, Bin, for the questions. First, on the income tax rate, appreciate you asking that question so I can provide more details. So as I mentioned, the higher tax rate is really relative to our U.S. operations being in this Valuation Allowance position. We anticipate that, at earliest, we will exit this Valuation Allowance, say, during 2026. Recall that, from our accounting rules, we need the U.S. operations, which includes our U.S. manufacturing operations, our corporate overhead costs, as well as our engineering tech center in the U.S. The net of the operations needs to be profitable for three years to exit the Valuation Allowance on a cumulative basis.
So, once we exit this valuation allowance in the US, we do expect our ongoing income tax rate to be in the mid- to high teens. Okay, on the second question related to the robotaxi, we can't comment specifically on which programs that have been canceled by our customers, but I believe that this particular customer made an announcement of canceling one of their autonomous vehicle programs, and it is a US-based OEM.
Thank you.
There are no more questions on the line. Due to the limited time, we would like to conclude the call. Thank you so much for all the questions and today's participation. If there are any further queries, please contact us at investors@nexteer.com. The conference has now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now disconnect.